Ode to Pre-War Football Cardboard

[jefferyepayne]

Originally Posted by S_GERACE

Incidentally, Jeff, Huggins & Scott has another Grange football box in their November auction, item #89244. The graphics are different from yours. I actually like the one you purchased more. No football with this one either.

Lost out on this box. Anybody get it? Someone was bidding me up on it all night long ...

jeff

[jefferyepayne]

Orient Football Club is believed to be the first football team formed in Washington DC. This cabinet came with a newspaper article from 1889 that discusses their formation in 1883!



For the first couple of years, they had no opponents to play as they couldn't find another team so they just practiced in Lincoln Park in DC.

jeff

[jefferyepayne]

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne

For the first couple of years, they had no opponents to play as they couldn't find another team so they just practiced in Lincoln Park in DC.
jeff

I was in downtown DC about a year ago and had a couple of hours to kill between meetings so I went down to Lincoln Park where the Orient Foot Ball Club practiced in the 1880s. Here are some pictures.

Statue of Lincoln commemorating the abolition of slavery


A lot more concrete in this park than I bet there was in the 1880s!


This is more like it!


Some beautiful old townhouses surround it now.


jeff

[jefferyepayne]

Picked up this 1916 picture of the Carlisle backfield a few weeks ago. Tom Miles was Jim Thorpe's cousin.



jeff

[TanksAndSpartans]

Jeff, I really liked the Lincoln Park pictures and the idea behind it - reminded me of this fan who made the trip to Portsmouth, OH: http://www.steelersuk.com/portsmouth...o%20index.html

[jefferyepayne]

Picked up this 1910(ish) photo of Eddie Mahan.



A little bit of history on Mr. Mahan:

When Jim Thorpe was asked to choose the greatest football player of all time, he selected Eddie Mahan. Thorpe said:

"Eddie Mahan of Harvard was the greatest football player I have ever seen. He had everything, he could run, pass and kick. He was big, weighed 190 pounds, was smart enough to play quarterback and also good enough to play in the line. To me that's proof enough that Mahan was the tops. He was a specialist in all lines."

In his book about the early days of football, Bill Edwards said

"If the future football generals develop a better all-around man than Eddie Mahan, captain of the great Harvard team of 1915, whose playing brought not only victory to Harvard but was accompanied by great admiration throughout the football world, they may well congratulate themselves."

In November 1925, football writer W.B. Hanna compared Red Grange to Mahan:

"In the writer's opinion, Grange and Mahan are the greatest backs he ever saw, from the standpoint of advancing the ball. Grange seems to run with more power than Mahan and a trifle more laboriously, because he is not quite so light-footed. It may be doubted whether he is as fast, but that is mere guesswork. Football, carrying the ball, seemed play to Mahan. Grange does not do his work in quite that effortless manner."

In 1927, George Trevor of the New York Sun selected an all-time backfield made up of Mahan, Walter Eckersall, Jim Thorpe, and Willie Heston of Michigan. Western football expert Walter Eckersall added, "Mahan is awarded the honor of being Harvard's greatest football player, a terror to the opposition offensively and defensively. As a line plunger he ranks with the greatest in history."

In 1951, Mahan was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as part of the first group of inductees.

jeff

[TanksAndSpartans]

Awesome stuff Jeff - I never heard of Eddie Mahan. I do have a couple more Tex Hamer type guys (later time period ) I'd like to sneak into posts at some point though.