Darin Hayes and Timothy B. Brown embark on a historical journey exploring the fundamentals of kicking in football as they existed in 1923. This enlightening episode provides a detailed examination of the era's kicking techniques, equipment, and the overall strategy involved in the kicking game. Tim shares intriguing anecdotes from a rare publication by Wilson Athletic, which sought to rival the established Spalding brand in sports literature. The pamphlet reveals that drop kicks were the norm for field goals and extra points, highlighting the skill and precision required by kickers of that time.

This information comes from his original post titled: The Fundamentals of Kicking in 1923 -

The discussion delves into the various techniques and challenges faced by players, including the importance of proper alignment and the difficulties posed by less reliable snapping methods. Tim also explains how the drop kick allowed for strategic advantages, creating uncertainty in play for opposing teams. This episode serves not only as a history lesson but also as a tribute to the artistry of kicking, showcasing how these historical practices have evolved into the modern kicking game we witness today.

Additionally, the episode examines the evolution of game rules concerning kicking, such as the introduction of the 10-yard requirement for kickoffs, which aimed to enhance player safety. Tim reflects on the rarity of onside kicks during the early days of football, suggesting that the sport's ethics and strategies have undergone significant transformations. By the end of the episode, listeners gain a profound appreciation for the complexities of football history and its impact on the present-day game.

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You're just in time to get a lesson from Timothy B.

Brown of FootballArchaeology.com as we learn about how they kick in the golden age of football.

Tim's up in just a moment to.

Tell us all about it.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal repository, football history.

And welcome to another edition where we get to go back in time and talk about some great gridiron history with Timothy p.

Brown of footballarchaeology.com Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Thank you, Darren.

Look forward to chatting.

Hopefully your listeners will get a kick out of this particular podcast.

Yes, kick indeed.

This is one.

So why don't you share with us the fundamentals of kicking?

Yeah, so, you know, the, the, I mean, you know, I've kind of come across a lot of different kicking information in the past, but a lot of this comes, you know, this particular tidbit came out of, out of a little pamphlet that I acquired, a little booklet from the Wilson Athletic library.

And so Wilson was trying to compete with them and they, they produced some similar, you know, kinds of publications.

So they had a series of, I want to say it's six different, say, 30 to 40 page pamphlets on different aspects of football.

And one of them is just called the Fundamentals of Football.

And that's, and they cover the kicking or kicking inside of that.

So the ball was still a pretty rotund, you know, little spheroid.

And so the, you know, most kick, most field goal attempts and even extra point attempts were drop kicks rather than placement kicks.

You know, a lot of teams just, they didn't, they didn't have enough practice time.

They didn't have real good snapping techniques.

You know, the better ones did.

But anyways, there were still a lot of guys who drop kicked.

And if you drop kicked, you know, you were, you were, you could drop, you could be in your punt formation and people wouldn't know if you were going to be drop kicking, running, or passing the ball.

So, you know, they couldn't rush you quite as heavily as they might have.

And you have an extra blocker, too, because you don't need to hold her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

And actually, you know, the early, the original quarterback sneak, I mean, we think of the quarterback sneak happening under set, you know, quarterback under center, but they didn't have quarterbacks under center back then.

So the original quarterback sneak was a short hike to the quarterback who was, you know, just a couple of yards behind the line of scrimmage.

But anyways, you know, so this book kind of goes through, you know, it's, it's technique oriented, so it goes through.

You know, if you're a drop kicker, you got to line up, you got to line it up right.

You got to get yourself at the right angle, you got to catch the ball, you got to take the proper number of steps.

You know, you kick with your toe.

And one of the things that's kind of interesting that, you know, you don't, you don't really think about it, but as a drop kicker, you know, I mean, the snappers, the long snappers back then were not as good as the long snappers of today, right?

So you'd get that, that snap tossed back to you, but sometimes it wasn't anywhere near as accurate as you'd like.

And if you're a punter, you just catch the thing and you, you know, you punt it and it goes.

As long as it goes down field, you're good, right?

I mean, you may not get the coffin corner, but you're pretty much going to be okay.

If you're drop kicking and have a bad snap, then you got to reorient, you know, yourself, if you're, if you're picking up a low snap, you got to, you know, stand up.

I mean, it's just, it's much more, it's a much more complicated thing when you just kind of walk through the process of I'm drop kicking and there's a bad snap, what do I do?

Right?

So anyways, I mean, it's just kind of an interesting thing, you know, the kind of thing we just don't think about much anymore.

But, you know, this, this booklet then goes through, you know, the.

All of the.

Right, you know, techniques for place kicking, which pretty much the same thing, you know, from a kicking standpoint as for drop kicking.

But one of the things I thought was really fun is that it.

It talked about four ways of positioning the ball on kickoffs, right?

So pretty much we think of, you know, putting the ball on the tee and it's kind of slanted back toward the kicker, right?

So they saw that slanted back as one of the options.

They also offered the straight up version.

You could also slant it forward, which you'll see in rugby, you know, oftentimes.

So the ball slanted forward and you actually kick it.

You kick the bottom side of the ball and another one is parallel to the ground.

So now I'm going to do the big reveal.

This guy behind me, you can see.

You know, back then they didn't have tees other than if you were going to tee up the ball.

You scooped up dirt and you made a little mound.

And so this little thing here that is a mound of dirt, and then he's just laying the ball on top, you know, on top of it flat.

And when he kicks it, he's going to kick the underside of the ball and it's going to go all, you know, move crazily.

But so it's, it's one of those things that, you know, just the fact that they didn't have teas is kind of crazy in and of itself, right?

And.

But they, you know, the, the fields were bad enough that everyone could find dirt.

You know, there was going to be dirt and sod, you know, chucks of sod available for you to build a little mound.

And some schools, they had like buckets of dirt on the sidelines, so the kicker would go over, scoop up a handful, and then run back out to the field and build his little mound.

So, I mean, that was just like a normal part of the game that we don't think about anymore.

The other thing that was in the same section, I don't have a.

I didn't bring a drawing along, but kick returns right in.

You know, it's always been available to, you know, once, once the ball on kickoffs had to go 10 yards and they put that rule in to basically stop the.

The flying wedge, you know.

So once it had to go 10 yards, most teams still would only have one or two.

The receiving team would only have one or two guys within 10 to 15 yards of the ball, right?

Mean, now we all know you have to have five, right?

But you know, but that just.

It wasn't the case at the time and.

And yet hardly anybody kicked onside kicks.

You know, I mean, it should have been so obvious that, that you had a good chance of recovering the ball, but hardly anybody did it.

So I'm not really sure why.

I mean, you know, it might have been one of those sportsmanship kind of things, but you know, I mean, it did happen from time to time, but not very much.

So anyways, Dirt.

Te.

Dirt teas.

And only two guys in know within 20, 30 yards of the ball actually, you know, often times.

Just crazy.

Yeah.

I wonder if that, that picture behind you, the ball and amount of dirt was the inspiration for the Lombardi Trophy.

You know, tilt that ball a little bit more and you can almost, almost see it in.

In chrome.

Yeah, I hadn't thought about that.

Pretty creative of you.

Yeah.

Yeah, I, I have a.

Just some great ideas.

Yeah.

Now, Tim, I'm wondering about the rules, something that you said with the drop kick and how to handle a bad snap.

And I wonder if they had to have a rule in there that the, the kicker had to handle it by hand because let's say you had a bad snap and it's rolling and it's almost like a kickball game that would probably be an illegal kick.

I'm assuming they, they probably would done something to stop prevent that.

Yeah.

So the rules did say.

Exactly.

It differentiates the punt from a kick and.

But you had to, you had to drop the kicker.

Had to drop the ball and strike it with their foot as it rebounded from the ground.

Know.

So they define the process, the whole part of the process to do that.

Okay.

And it's also, you know, in that, you know, at the same time they had rules that said a punt does not count as a field goal.

Right.

Only.

Only a drop kick or.

And then later, you know, placement kicks, you know, counted.

But it is, it's kind of a funny thing.

I'm.

I'm working on a, on a tidbit because I came across something.

Came across the.

So that was the first year that Canada had forward passing and And I think they just had it in Alberta.

But anyways, the.

There's some interesting things in that rule book about, about the kicking process because they were still more of a rugby game, but they had, and I'm blinking, I think it might have been a running kick, but they had the, they had a name for kicking the ball that just as it was bounding around the.

Along the ground.

Right.

So in, you know, the more rugby oriented you.

You were the, the longer that stayed as part of the game.

So anyways, you know, I'm gonna, I'll put together something about that in the, in the not too distant future but or recent past depending on when we air this.

It's like vintage wine.

You've got to let it, you know, sit for a little bit and, and rise to the top and all that stuff.

So.

Yeah, well that's something to look forward to.

So that'd be another great piece.

And you know, you have some spontaneous to at least to us, your readers.

You're giving us some advanced warning on this one.

But you know, you have some things that, you know, we would as readers and football historians and fans of football history would never even imagine thinking about or even, you know, I guess considering being a story.

But they're so interesting because they're such an integral part of the game and how the game developed into the modern game that we love and the people love back then.

And you, you do them in your tidbits and you share them with the world.

Maybe you could share with our audience how they can partake in, in reading some of these.

Yeah, just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site so you can just read whatever's available on the front page and then on the archives depending on your subscription.

But if you subscribe, all you got to do is submit your.

Put in your email.

You'll get an email every time I publish a new story.

And if you're about probably a third of the stories are free and then the other two thirds go to paid subscribers.

You as a free subscriber, you still see it.

You just can't read the whole story.

So.

But that's it, you know, other than that.

Follow me on Blue sky or just go to the site whenever you.

You have a hankering for some football tidbits.

Tim, this was some.

Some awesome information and awesome stories and history once again.

And we really appreciate you doing this and preserving football history and coming and sharing with us each Tuesday and we'd love to talk to you again next week.

Very good.

Look forward to it.

Thanks.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

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