Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
It was fourth down, the center snapped the ball just across the 50-yard line. Paddy Driscol ran wide right, turned and drop kicked the ball. It sailed 55-yards through the uprights sealing a 9-0 win by the Hammond Pros over The Rock Island Independents in Davenport, Iowa.
It was 1924, a century ago. The NFL record field held until 1953.
Towns like Hammond, Indianna and the combined Quad Cities in Illinois, that played across the river in Davenport were part of the American Professional Football Association.
The APFA was founded in 1920 with legendary multi-sport athlete Jim Thorpe serving as both a player, and the league president. In 1922, the name was changed to the National Football League, yes, the NFL.
Ohio had five teams, the Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Tigers, Columbus Panhandlers and the Dayton Triangle.
Illinois fielded four, the Chicago Tigers, Decatur Stanleys, Racine Cardinals, and the Rock Island team that included Davenport. The Muncie Flyers joined Hammond from Indiana and Michigan had a single team, the Detroit Heralds. New York rounded out the league with Buffalo All-Americans and the Rochester Jeffersons.
Of those original franchises, only the Racine Cardinals and the Decatur Stanleys live on. The Cardinals moved to St. Louis and then to Arizona in 1988. The Stanleys moved to Chicago in 1921 and a year later changed their name to the Bears.
The drop kick was a regular play in the old NFL. A talented halfback was truly a triple-option back able to run, pass or kick a field goal on a sweep. The drop kick wasn’t that difficult, but the pass was until 1934.
The original football looked similar to a rugby ball, wider, flatter and easier to kick than a modern football. It was too big to throw accurately but kicking it was a breeze.
Frosty Peters at Montana State made 17 drop kicks, either extra points or field goals in a single game in 1924.
In 1934, a college football official, Short Ray, who would later become an NFL official lobbied for the modern football, arguing that it would improve passing and make it a better game. His idea came to life from Pop Warner Leagues to the NFL. The last drop kick in the old NFL came in 1941 on an extra point by Ray McLean of the Chicago Bears in the 1941 NFL Championship Game over the New York Giants.
Doug Flutie converted an extra-point for the New England Patriots on New Year’s Day 2006 against the Miami Dolphins, but that was more of a publicity stunt for the retiring star than an offensive weapon.
It wasn’t a stunt last week when Cameron Dicker hit a 55-yard field goal for the Chargers against the Denver Broncos. The free kick, a rule some consider obscure, came after the Chargers had a fair catch on a punt, and 15-yard penalty that moved the ball to the Denver 45. The Chargers lined up in kickoff formation with the exception that a holder held the ball at the center of the 45-yard line. Dicker lined up and cleared the uprights for three points.
It was a play only attempted five times in the last 25 years and hasn’t been successful since fellow Chargers kicker Ray Wersching hit a 45-yard free kick against the Buffalo Bill on November 21, 1976.
It’s not that obscure a play. It was a favorite of late Shoshoni head coach Harold Bailey.
Harold practiced the play for years, decades in fact. That and another of Harold’s favorites, the “quick kick” on third down were mainstays of Thursday night practices for two generations of Wrangler players.
The quick kick is like the old NFL triple-option but without the drop kick, instead it’s a punt on third down when a team is in a difficult position to convert a first down and can reverse the field with a good punt that won’t be returned.
Harold only had one chance to use the free kick he loved so much, it came on September 18, 1987, in a home game against the Thermopolis Bobcats.
The Wranglers had a surprise that season in 6-3, 190-pound German exchange student Manfred Roenz.
You hear the cliché that a kid has a cannon for an arm, or one for a leg, but Manfred had a cannon. He was the most powerful kicker I’ve ever had the chance to coach, much less see in action.
In the old days at Bailey Field, my junior high practiced on one end of the field, inside the 30-yard line and Harold and Tim Ervin practiced with the varsity on the other two-thirds of the field.
Manfred didn’t understand football, and initially the language barrier was a bit difficult for him, but he could kick. He spent most of his practices either punting or kicking the ball along the sidelines.
The first night he hit the field I was running drills with the junior high when we heard a sound like someone hitting a power pole with a baseball bat. A few seconds later a football landed in the middle of the drill. I saw Manfred trotting up to retrieve it. I threw it to him, he grinned and said, “Danke”
He was kicking from the 35-yard line on the other end of the field and hitting the goal line near us.
Manfred hit two key field goals during that 1987 season, one in a 10-6 win over Wright in Campbell County and the other against Thermopolis in a 10-8 win over the Bobcats.
The headline on the sports page the following week in the Thermopolis Independent Record said it all, “Foreign Kicker Sinks Cats.”
His free kick didn’t score.
The Wranglers held Thermopolis and Brian Clemetson made a fair catch near midfield. Harold called for the kicking team and they lined up.
Unlike the NFL, you can use a kicking tee in high school.
Confusion reigned in the stands, but I loved it, Harold was going to get his chance.
The Bobcat players lined up 10-yards from the Wranglers and jumped up and down, waving their arms.
Manfred approached the ball, boomed it long and high and we watched it sail across the street behind the north end zone, wide right.
As I recall it was a 58-yard attempt, and had the distance for another 10, but it wasn’t too be.
Just a moment in time, but one that lingers.
Knowing the rules is a wonderful thing for coaches, officials, players and especially fans.