"What it was, was football.." -Andy Griffith...(But in actuallity, it was Rugby..before we got scared and added pads.)

140 years ago, 50 men gathered together on a modest plot of land located on what is now the campus of Rutgers University,in New Brunswick,NJ. These men, resembling more Lumberjacks and Ruggers than their modern day counterparts gave birth to what is now, arguably, the most anually anticipated spectator event in America, BIG BOY COLLEGE FOOTBALL.


On Novemebr 6th,1869, Men from Rutgers took scarlet-colored scarfs and ties them wround their heads like turbans,as well as wearing suspenders and vests, to sperate themselves from their counterparts across the grid representing New Jersey College, modern day Princeton University. The men from Princeton donned no hats, and in the infant days of Football,not only college but all of Americanized-Rugby, helmets and other protective gear were not even an after-thought. The men began to dis-card their over-coats and rolled up their sleeves, looking as if they were to square off John Sullivan style in a bare knuckle fisticuffs. No doubt, the fisticuff, bare-knuckle brawling tactics of sport of the day were very much employed by both sides, any resemblence to modern football was purely happenstance and coinceidental,and the day would ultimately be won, 6-4, buy the turn of the century doo-rag clad Rutgers squad.

When I envision this game, I picture a scene from the movie Gangs of New York, and I imagine lots of handle bar mustaches and Daniel Day Lewis leading his 'gang' to victory in the 5 points.

The First would have been more akin to watching a rugby contest, albeit, with some different rules and stylings of play. Rutgers and (Princeton) wanted a contest that would provide as even a playing field as possible, something that they could compete and mame one another in, where no school would have any sort of advantage. So, to settle their blood lust, they decided that they would play in the most brutal team sport known to man at the time, Rugby, and apply some of the American Spirit to it. Basically put, they tweaked Rugby just enough to where it was still Rugby, but you could not actually call it Rugby.

Princeton and Rugby hated each one another. They fueded over everything under the 19th century sun. At the forefront of their fued, was an old canon, that dated back to the revolutionary war. One side would steal it, the other would get it back, so on, and it did not help that the whole reason that the tweaking of rugby took place, is due to the fact the Rutgers was chomping at the bit to get some measure of revenge on Princeton due to getting completely waxed in a Baseball contest, 40-2. 20 miles of hate sperated the school, and you could feel all of it, when they were 3 feet apart.

They would schedule 3 games that year, with Rutgers taking the first game, while the future Tigers would take a measure of revenge and redemption and win the second contest.The third game would never materialize, as the two institutions decided that too much emphasis and preperation was being put on the contest and was taking away from the scholarly pursuits of the two squads. If they only knew all these years what the modern day student athlete would be like. Never would a college football contest be cancelled today due to academics. It would be the modern equivalent of Texas and Oklahoma being called off to allow the students more study time for mid-terms...not going to happen. AT&T also would not be very happy with that...Throw Dr.Pepper and ABC, through Walt Disney in their as well.

Descriptions of the game show that Rutgers, by eye-witness accounts, was a much smaller, but more swift of foot squad than Princeton. They used their speed and what would be termed now as superior athletic ability, to take Princeton by Suprise and overwhelm them with speed and fancy 'dribbling'(Rugby style of advancing the ball) and various catches, giving birth all in one day to not only college football, but apparently the West Coast Offense as well.

The hero, however was Princetonian who was simply known as 'Big Mike" who took his 'mates into a flying wedge formation as it were called, and lead his team down field to put the ball 'over'. A Princeton fan, who was probably beligerently drunk on whatever the choice-spirit of the time was, yelled the 1869 version of fuck you, when he shouted at the Princeton sqaud, "You shall come to no christian end".

The two teams called a truce of sorts around 8 o'clock, with Rutgers declared the two point winner. The two teams, like two warring parties sitting in talks with a medeator, broke bread with one another and had a post game meal, and one Princeton player who recounted the mythological encounter stated, paraphrasing here, that basically, the smaller Rutgers team whipped their ass's and they got in their cars as fast as they could and got the the hell out of New Brunswick. Of course, speaking in his almost victorian-eque mannerisms of the period, he said it alot prettier than that, and no, they did not drive off in cars, they way he actually put it was "When we saw them coming after us, we ran to the outskirts of New Brunswick and got into our carriages and wagons and went away as fast as we could.”

An obsession was born that day. The next season, the college football universe got bigger, there were now 3 teams playing on as a full-time squad as Rutgers helped nurse Columbia University into forming a team of their own. within the the next 2-3 years, almost every institution in the Eastern United States had a football team.

Today, there are countless rabid fanbases, huge cathedrals built to showcase these contest, multi-million dollar football programs , and multiple national television contracts. The players themselves are heroes, worshipped as demi-gods every Saturday afternoon in the autumn months. So many things have changed since that first contest in 1869. The sport that gave birth to American Football, Rugby, did not die out and is still going strong. And, well, just like in 1869, here in 2009, there is still no true National Champion...You would think after 140 years, we would have figured out how to make that happen.

Still, I wonder how different the modern game of football would be if instead of the first game taking place how it did, what if the first game had actually taken place between Georgia and Mississippi? And as a southerner and a staunch SEC loyalist, even I must give thanks to those tender-foot easterners for inventing college football.

Quick football historical fact, the first time Marshall University, then known as Marshall College, actually it was something more complicated than that, but you get the picture, took the field, they were not quite the Thundering Herd yet, and they fell victim to a loss in their debut to...Catlettsburg...look it up..it's true...Catlettsburg, as many towns back in the day, had a semi-pro football team. This team, was actually up for membership into a new 'all-pro' football league that was forming out of Ohio, the precursor to today's NFL. However, cities of Green Bay and Portsmouth,Oh were selected to be part of the league instead of Catlettsburg,Ky and Ironton,OH(The Tanks)...$5 dollar bonus...The Burg's team carried the familiar name of 'WIldcats'..so yes...we call everything Wildcats...Nobody ever accused of us trying to re-invent the wheel.