XVI

HOW TO PLAY FOOTBALL

The various positions and how to select men for them—­Team, work and signals—­The rules

Football is usually played in the fall of the year because the exercise that it involves is so violent that to attempt it at any other time would probably result in injury to the players.  The cool, frosty days of October and November make baseball out of season, and such weather is ideal for football.

So much has been said and written about the dangers of football as a sport that many parents have strong objections to permitting their sons to play.  There is no question that it is a hard game and not suited to weaklings, but a strong, healthy boy can play football under proper conditions and with proper training quite as safely as he can do many other things to which parents raise no objections, such as wrestling, climbing trees, playing hockey, or even performing difficult feats of gymnastics or acrobatics in a gymnasium.  Every year there are a number of serious accidents from football, but there are also injuries from other games, and people are injured who play no games at all, so it simply is a question whether we are willing to take the chances of a sprained ankle or broken bone for the love of one of the best of outdoor sports.

[Illustration:  The lineup]

The recent changes in rules have made football a much safer game than it was in the early nineties, when such plays as the “flying wedge” and line bucking were practically all there was to the game.  To any one who does not understand football it seems as though it were played with practically no science and with but few rules.  As a matter of fact a well-coached college team will sometimes have sixty or seventy separate plays each of which has been carefully practised and which requires each man on the team to do something to help make the play successful, while on the other hand each man on the opposing team is doing his best to cause the play to fail.  The result to any one not understanding the game is simply a confused mass of struggling men and a final tumble with a pile of legs and arms flying about.

The American game of football called Rugby is a development of the English game, but the present game is very different from the English game of soccer or association football, in which kicking predominates and where a round ball is used instead of the oval-shaped American football.

Numerous efforts have been made to introduce the game of soccer into this country, but the long popularity of the American game and the strong support that has been given to it by the colleges have prevented soccer from gaining much of a foothold.

Football is played by two opposing teams of eleven men each.  The positions are right and left end, right and left tackle, right and left guard, centre rush, quarter-back, right and left half-backs and full-back.