If scrimmage sounds a little more orderly and prim than a scrum, that's an illusion. The first use of scrimmage to refer to this way of starting play was in the Harvard Advocate in 1880. In short order, American football players began assembling in two facing lines at the line of scrimmage, where play began. He put in place a rule that favored a scrimmage rather than a scrum: possession of the ball alternated between teams and didn't rely solely on the winner of the scrum. Walter Camp, a student at Yale who played football from 1876–1881, refined the heel out scrummage even more. Harvard was the first to change this: in the 1870s, they opted for heeling it out-kicking the ball backwards to a teammate instead of trying to move it forward. Chamber’s Journal (London, Eng.), 12 Mar. When it is kicked out at the sidelines, the player who first touches it has to bring it to the edge, where the two sides spread out, facing each other to catch it, and, as soon as caught, there is another scrummage. The ball is seldom on the ground for any length of time at Rugby one side or the other having it generally in their arms and struggling for its possession.

Gridiron had already been applied to other things that resembled a grill grate, so why not the football field?įootball is based, in part, on English rugby, and early in American football's life, the ball was put into play the same way it was in English rugby: teams gathered in a scrummage (or scrum) around the ball and tried to kick it forward through the group of players. Early football fields were marked in a grid, not by the familiar parallel yard lines we know today, and the association between a grid and the word gridiron was too strong to shake. It wasn't the torturous play that made football players and fans think of the method of St. Laurence mentioned in the 1890 joke was purportedly martyred by being grilled to death, even quipping to his captors, 'I am cooked on that side turn me over, and eat.' When the word first came into English in the 1200s, it referred to a grill grate used for torture. The truth is, gridiron is much older that football. The captain of the eleven is the reigning czar, and the coaches are the power behind the throne. The gridiron football field is an absolute monarchy.

Laurence, I suppose he died on the “gridiron.” - Puck (New York, NY) 5 Nov. Tom Stokes-Who was the first man killed at foot-ball? Our first recorded use of the 'football field' meaning gives us a hint as to where gridiron came from: Gridiron has been used colloquially to refer to the American football field since 1890, when the game we know as American football (or gridiron football) started growing in popularity.

Hail mary football play points