"UNQUESTIONABLY ONE OF THE GREAT FIGURES IN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL": SCIENTIFIC AND TACTICAL TREATISE ON AMERICAN FOOTBALL FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES, 1893, INSCRIBED BY AMOS ALONZO STAGG

STAGG, Amos Alonzo and WILLIAMS, Henry L. A Scientific and Practical Treatise on American Football for Schools and Colleges. Hartford, Connecticut: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1893. 12mo, original blue cloth, gilt vignette on front cover. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

Scarce first edition of one of the first and most important works on American football, with numerous play diagrams, inscribed by co-author Amos Alonzo Stagg, who is largely credited with the invention of the sport as we now know it: "To our staunch supporters of athletics at the University of Chicago. Gratefully, A.A. Stagg."

"Stagg coached football, as well as baseball and track, at the University of Chicago for 40 years, until he was forced to retire at the age of seventy in 1932. His contributions to athletics in general and football in particular will probably never be matched. He was Chicago's faculty representative to the Big Ten for 15 years and served on the first rules committee of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). He was on every American Olympic committee from 1902 to 1932 and was a track coach for the 1924 Olympic team. Stagg is unquestionably one of the great figures in the history of football. At Chicago he had four undefeated seasons and seven Big Ten titles, won 255 games, and trained 11 All Americas. He was a prolific inventor of plays and a master strategist. His alleged innovations include the center snap, the man in motion, the onside kick, the T formation, the hidden ball trick, the place kick, the fake punt, the Statue of Liberty play, and various backfield shifts. He also designed the tackling dummy and was the first coach to have lights installed on the practice field. Moreover, he wrote the first book on football that used diagrams to outline plays.

His other 'firsts' include the implementation of wind sprints in practice, the use of hip pads in uniforms and numbers on players' jerseys, and the awarding of letters to outstanding performers. In addition, he designed troughs for the overflow of swimming pools and the indoor batting cage for baseball" (ANB). Co-author Williams was a legendary coach at the University of Minnesota and another of the game's great innovators. He was the "inventor of the famous tackle-back offense. In 1891, he used it to give Army its first-ever victory over archrival Navy. Williams was a teacher at Siglar Academy in Newburgh, New York, ten miles north of West Point, when he began making twice-weekly trips to the Army campus in order to coach the Cadet varsity… Williams later enrolled in Penn's School of Medicine, paying his way while acting as football and track coach at William Penn Charter School. He then moved to Minnesota and began building outstanding Gopher teams, including his own Minnesota shift, the fore-runner of the Notre Dame shift made famous by Knute Rockne. Williams played football at Yale 1887-1890. He was on a team with Amos Alonzo Stagg, Bum McClung, Pa Corbin and Pudge Heffelfinger, all of whom made the Hall of Fame as players" (National Football Foundation). Without very rare original dust jacket.

Expert reinforcement to front inner hinge, only modest wear to cloth extremities and light darkening to spine. An excellent copy.