Timothy Brown treats us to a barrage of quick-hitting football quips that range from the perhaps the punt with the longest hangtime in history, to schools upgrading their training areas, and more—all with the keen eye of detail by the Football Archaeologist himself. Factoid

Tim presents the Feast XV Tidbits, found initially at: https://www.footballarchaeology.com/p/factoid-feast-xv-0fc

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Miss our football by the day of the year podcasts, well don't, because they can still be found at the Pigskin Dispatch website.

I hope you're hungry for some great football information because we are joining Timothy T. Brown for one of his famous factoid feasts.

Tim's up in just a moment to tell us all about this great football history.

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 deposit of football history.

And welcome to another Tuesday where we get to go back in time, the time machine of Tim Brown and his football archaeology tidbits.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig pen.

Hey, Darren.

Looking forward to chatting.

And like I always say, there's nothing like hanging with my boy Darren.

I don't think you ever say that, Tim.

I say it all the time.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

Ask my wife.

Ask my wife.

Yeah, it's, it's really getting deep in here.

I gotta get the, the boots on here and the Pig pen.

But, but we have one of my favorite segments of yours.

You have your factoid feasts and the one we're going to talk about tonight.

Tonight is your 15th rendition.

You're far beyond that now.

You got them coming out quite often now.

It's.

Well, not quite often, but they come out periodically, let's say.

Yeah, and these are little rapid fire tidbits that are the tidbits of tidbits, I guess you could say.

And you put multiples together and really a lot of fun.

So what do you have in store for us tonight?

Yeah, so this one, you know, I, I tried to.

I've kind of started trying to find like themes to the factoid feast.

So the, the first one concerns a guy named Bemis Pierce.

And you know, he was a, he was a stud.

You know, he, he played for Carlisle and so, you know, he played in the old days of Carlisle, like, you know, before the century turned.

Carlisle played Wisconsin at the Chicago Coliseum.

And you know, if you're not familiar with the Coliseum and there's really no reason why you should be, but the Coliseum was an indoor venue and so this is one of the early games of.

So it's an early game under artificial lights.

It's an early game indoors and you know, they played a couple of different games there, you know, multiple, you know, different teams did.

Day.

He was, he's an Australian guy, so they called him the kangaroo kicker.

And he, he was an absolute stud.

He had a 110 yard punt and made a 60 yard field goal from against the sideline because, you know, no hash marks back then or I said 60 yard putt, 60 yard kick field goal from along a sideline.

So that, I mean, pretty impressive guy.

But and that the day that they played Carlisle, he had a 50, 45, 50 and 75 yard punts that day.

So I mean, hard to beat a, you know, kicking punting performance like O day that day.

And yet, and yet Venus Pierce had bested o' day in terms of the hang time that he accomplished that day because, you know, he's playing in an indoor stadium and at one point in the game, Pierce punts the ball it had sailing up into the air and it gets stuck in the rafters of the stadium, you know, of the stadium.

And you know, so literally some fan brawls out, brawl out on the beams and everything to knock the ball back down onto the field because they only had one ball, you know, they had one game ball and they were going to have to use that thing no matter what happened to it.

And so anyways, just, I just think that's kind of an amusing thing.

He ends up playing pro football with the Homestead team and you know, the, I guess Philadelphia area.

Right?

It was Homestead.

No, Homestead down by Pittsburgh.

Okay, Pittsburgh, Yeah, same difference.

Pennsylvania and just a few hundred miles apart.

Whatever, whatever.

But you know, he, he ended up coaching at a couple places and he's, he, as far as I know, he's the only guy who played at the big, all the big three Indian schools.

He coached at Sherman out in California, he coached at Haskell in Kansas and he coached at Carlisle in Pennsylvania.

And so he was the coach who had his eligible receivers paint their helmets red or white to distinguish them from ineligible receivers.

So he's the guy who first had football helmets painted a color other than tan or black, you know, or, you know, whatever the, whatever football helmets naturally.

Turned out Step aside, Gerky.

We gotta.

We got somebody before.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

No, for sure.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's kind of a good one.

And then, then the, the next part of the tidbit was Benny Owen.

Well, sorry, before you go, because there's some more on Bemis Pierce, because I believe.

He was part of that Syracuse team.

I think him and, and okay.

Patty O' Day was supposed to enter into it.

And he backed out.

His team.

He was some dental school.

They backed out at the last minute and the Orange, New Jersey got in.

Was one of the four teams for that second World Series of football.

So both those guys were involved in those World Series of Footballs at Madison Square Garden.

Yeah, well.

And those were very famous among the early, you know, early pro football.

You know, folks, o' Day was.

I had an interesting conversation recently with an American guy who's living in, in Australia, who's in, you know, a lot of Australian football things.

And so we had a whole conversation about Pat o'.

Day.

And he, he.

So.

And he's got a research.

And he was saying that ode cut must have run into.

I forget what it was, gambling problems or something like that.

But like, he disappeared for like 30 years and like, Wisconsin had no idea what, what, what happened to the guy.

Hello.

So anyways.

Okay, I'm sorry, you're going to start on your, your next.

Yeah, next segment.

Yeah, so Benny Owen, I mean, he's one of those guys that, you know, you know of Benny Owen because Owen Field at Oklahoma is named after him.

And so.

But, you know, he's one of those guys that you don't really, you know, you've heard Owen Field a million times, but you have no idea who the guy is.

And he's a really interesting fellow, you know, so he was, he, he played at Kansas and his senior year he plays under this guy named Fielding Yost.

And he was one of the first guys.

He's actually other than a guy that played at Chicago in their stag.

He's the second earliest guy I know of who threw an overhand spiral pass in a game.

Now he threw it as a lateral, but so, you know, place for.

Place for Yost, Hurry up, you know, that whole thing.

And, and then after he graduates, he, he, he, he coaches for Washburn, which is Right near Lawrence.

And his big innovation was to replace the tin wash tub in the locker room with a cold shower.

You know, that was like, I mean, you just kind of have to step back and go, these guys were playing under, you know, you look at their uniforms and their pads and everything.

And you know, we look at them as so primitive compared to the, to today.

And yet there were other things.

You know, they were riding horses.

You know, they're.

They're taking baths, team baths.

In like one guy jumps out and the other guy jumps in into the tin, you know, tin bathtub.

You know, stuff like that that you probably talk about.

The sweaty backwasher.

Yes, yes, yes.

You want to be the last guy in, right?

Yeah.

You know, so it's just like crazy, the things that we just take for granted.

And yet, you know, his was a big, big step.

Hey, we've got cold showers now, you know, so then he, he assists Yost at Michigan for a year and then takes over at Bethany for three.

And during that time he beats Oklahoma twice.

So they're like, maybe we should hire this guy to coach our team.

And they did.

And he's there for like, you know, 25 years as coach.

Nad partway through, he in a hunting accident.

He loses his right arm, I think it was, but one of his arms, you know, and yet he still teaches himself how to skeet shoot and everything after that.

Just, you know, really a pretty incredible guy.

You know, he just happened to have a quarterback that a guy named Forest.

Forest.

Point.

The point.

Anyway, Spot, because he, he could hit somebody on the spot.

Point for spot.

Geier, who's just a great quarterback, very, you know, pinpoint passer.

So, you know, just innovative guy.

So anyways, I just, I think he's one of those guys that people lose track of and yet his name remains on the Oklahoma campus.

But, you know, more people ought to know about him.

He's just a really, really an innovative guy, you know, willing to adapt his style, his team, his plays to the talent that he had available.

Yeah, that's a very.

Some folks aren't willing to do right.

So I, I guess one of the, the questions I would have is, you know, with the whole cold shower thing those seasons, did the population of that area take a dip?

You know, these guys are after the game, you know, they're ready to go.

They're the big heroes going home and, you know, spending time with their lady.

But now maybe the cold shower sort of put a damper.

I think that Washburn may have been.

It was like a lot of schools had a religious bent to it, so probably none of that was allowed.

Yeah, I'm sure it never happened.

Yeah.

Yeah.

College age, man.

That would never happen.

Yeah.

You know, so.

So then the third.

Third one maybe isn't as exciting.

I just think it's fun.

Was about the Army Navy Life trophy.

So back in the day, and the, the day being like, immediately after the forward pass became legal, there's a publication called the Army Navy Life.

So it's, you know, some kind of publication that was targeted at army and Navy personnel with stories about them, etc.

And so they decided to sponsor a trophy to the winner of the army and Navy game.

And so I came across this, you know, just found this picture of the trophy and a brief article about it.

So I did a, you know, I tried to research it.

Basically there wasn't a whole lot to be found out there about it.

And this is supposed to be one of these trophies, like a lot at the time.

First team to win three times keeps the trophy.

Well, he was a tackle.

It was killed in game against.

Killed in a game.

And so.

And so after that, there's no mention that I can find of this Army Navy trophy.

So, you know, whatever.

Whatever happened to it, who knows?

But it was like kind of a cool.

Like, we have the Commander in Chief's trophy today.

Right.

For Army, Navy and Air Force.

Back then we had the Army Navy Life trophy, but it was awarded twice and then it disappeared.

So if anybody out there is listening, who happens to have in their basement the Army Navy Life trophy, let us know.

Reach out to Darren or to me and we'll.

We'll get you in touch with the authorities.

That's probably a very coveted trophy by collectors and.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

I mean, can you imagine, you know, coming up with it?

I mean, who knows?

It could be sitting up there somewhere.

Right.

Stranger things have happened.

And they had one of the teams he played for was Homestead.

We, we talked about.

Yeah.

Recently with Bemis.

Pittsburgh Stars winning the original National Football League 3 team baseball league of football.

They found it in the Homestead Library in the basement in a closet.

And nobody had any idea what it was.

So Greg retrieved it, got it, you know, asked them if he could take it, took it to the Pro Football hall of Fame and it's somewhere, I don't think it's on display.

But you know, think about that.

You know, this is, you know, 60 some years before the Lombardi Trophy.

Here is the original National Football League 18 years before.

So one we know now is in play and the trophy there.

So that's really a good find.

1901.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean you never know what's hidden in somebody's attic and you know, hopefully somebody finds it, you know.

Yeah, somebody finds an Army Navy Life trophy and you know.

Yeah.

Then we've got another story to tell.

Yeah, most definitely.

Well, you always have some great little stories to tell.

You know, we, these are the segmented tidbits that you today in your factoid fees.

But you have, you know, often have these tidbits come out that really astound the historic nostalgia of the game to us and really make it enjoyable read.

And we learn a lot from them, myself included.

Maybe you could tell people how they could take in some of these.

Sure.

Just go to the, the site Football Archaeology footballarchaeology.com It's a substack site so you can either just visit there whenever you want, subscribe.

In that case, you get an email every time I publish a new story or you can follow me on Blue sky or just, you know, bookmark the site and you know, check in periodically, you know, whenever you, whenever you have an appetite for a little bit of old time football.

Well, Tim, our listeners have, and we do ourselves, we always have that appetite.

So we're glad that you're there to fill it for us and come on and share it with us each Tuesday.

So we'd love to talk to you again next week.

Very good, look forward to it.

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

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

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