NOVEMBER 13th - The Game Without Limits



On this day in 1875, The Game, the rivalry between Harvard and Yale in American Football, was first played. Harvard won 4 - 0. No, they didn’t get two safeties. At the time a touchdown simply afforded a team the opportunity to kick for a goal, meaning a score couldn’t occur until the “extra point” was made. Of course the rules slowly evolved over time, morphing into the football that America enjoys today. The Game in 1875 is also thought by some to be the first football game played in uniforms, which sadly also makes it the ancestor of the atrocities to the eyeball that the Oregon Ducks trot out throughout the collegiate season. I want to watch a game, not slip further into color blindness. I get that Phil Knight was an Oregon grad and that he co-founded Nike in Oregon with Bill Bowerman (another Without Limits Prefontaine shout-out--seriously, you need to check out that movie), but do you need a different neon uniform for every game you play? Look back at that first score of The Game 4 - 0. I don’t mind flash and high-scoring games are fun to watch. Evolution in anything brings about change. The Veer. The Read Option. The Spread. Break it down though and it’s all about a bunch of guys taking a ball and trying to score on a bunch guys without the ball. Styles come and go, but that stays the same. Neon uniforms or 600 yards passing don’t change the fact that sports are actually the most worthwhile not while they entertain or distract, but when they teach. (Again watch Without Limits). When that tailback shows the grit to fight for the extra-yard even though he’s stopped dead to rights. That a receiver will drop the game-winning catch one game, but have the fortitude to keep working and make the catch the next time. It’s just a game, but games can do more than just amuse. They teach. To overcome. To Push. To do your best. I wonder if the players in The Game back 1875 knew that. I have a feeling they did.

This day has been Marked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AUGUST 22nd - Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

On this day in 1911, somebody working at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa was missing. The previous day, a Monday--meaning the museum was closed to the public, Vincenzo Peruggia, a maintenance worker, brazenly walked out of the Louvre with what would eventually become the most famous painting in the world. Vincenzo basically sat on the painting for two years until he was caught trying to “return” it to his homeland of Italy in a misguided demonstration of Italian patriotism. The theft itself is quite interesting, mostly because of the lack of planning and preparation that went into it, but equally intriguing is the part it played in making the Mona Lisa so famous. Many historians feel that the painting reached new heights because it was stolen. It kind of makes sense in that whole “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone" kind of way. Not that I would suggest staging a kidnapping to allow your significant other to realize how much he/she loves you, because that’s jus
Read more

AUGUST 23rd - History of the One-Way

Image
On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the
Read more

OCTOBER 23rd - A Blink of the Cosmic Eye

On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wonderi
Read more