College football owes much to American Indian tradition

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

Our Florida State College football team won the State Championship in 1904. We were awarded a handsome trophy by the Florida Times-Union newspaper after defeating Stetson and the Agricultural College that was the forerunner of the University of Florida.

Six veterans of that 1904 team stand together in a faded picture in the 1948 Tally-Ho yearbook. The occasion was a reunion celebrating Florida State’s return to football. It had been forty-three years since Florida State College became Florida State College for Women in 1905. Now, Florida State University was taking the field to begin a new era.

They look happy and proud, these boys of ’04, dignified men in their sixties when the photo was taken. They are all gone now, but whatever the distance in time, all Florida State hearts beat with the same spirit.

There were other, spirited hearts that beat here on these grounds more than three centuries ago. In fact, what those ancient hearts contributed to the tradition of college football may astonish!

Football is a uniquely American sport and, perhaps more than any other, truly reflects our national character. I have always assumed that football evolved from English rugby, but now it looks as if that may not be completely true. In fact, documents provided by Seminole Boosters Senior Vice President Joel Padgett, plus some additional help from our friends at the Florida Governor’s Council on Indian Affairs, suggest that football may owe more to our American Indian namesakes than we ever dreamed.

Padgett pointed to a work detailing the culture and customs of the Apalachee tribe. The book is: Apalachee, The Land Between The Rivers, by John Hann (1988). Three hundred years ago, the Apalachee occupied the ground where FSU stands today. Remnants of the tribe eventually joined with the Creek Confederacy and migrated to central Florida where the Seminoles also became part of that confederacy.

Documents provided by the Governor’s Council describe the Apalachee as “very tall, very valiant, and full of spirit.” When the Apalachee lived in what is now Tallahassee, one of the prominent features of their culture was sports and “particularly one of their ball games.”

It was called simply The Game.

Hann writes, “Considerable information on this game survived” because of Friar Juan de Paiva, pastor of San Luis Mission, who developed a strong animosity toward the game itself. The Leturiondo Visitation Record of 1677-1678 contains compiled writings and descriptions of The Game.

Consider these excerpts from the translation of the Visitation Record, and how they echo in the context of American college football today:

• “The ball game was a village affair. Its pre-game ceremonies and preparation involved the entire community.”
• “The basic components of the game were a tall goal post...a small hard buckskin ball...and two teams of varying size. No instruments but the human hand were used to propel the ball.”
• “...They painted their bodies in colors associated with the dominant clans...”

One point was awarded each time the goal post was struck with the ball when it was propelled by a player’s foot. If the ball struck an eagle’s nest positioned on the top of the post, two points were awarded. Victory went to the first team to achieve eleven points.

“Violence often was not confined to the game itself,” wrote a disapproving Friar Paiva, noting frequent fights among spectators. He also mentioned that those who defended the game argued that this was merely healthy competition between villages.

“...In preparation for the game, an elaborate series of rituals was observed...Players assembled in the main council house, or around the goal post to maintain a vigil during the night before the game, talking very quietly, and occasionally howling like wolves.”

The players sat on low, flat benches during the game. The exact positioning of these seats was determined by “interpreting the dreams of several elderly men who would be awakened early in the morning to be questioned on the nature of their dreams.”

Some of this recounting sounds eerily familiar to us: A new fire would be lit before the game. “This fire was carried out onto the playing field...and the Chief was to advise the players, exhorting them to risk their very lives in the quest for victory.”

The book also contains this wonderful passage: “If Friar Paiva is to be believed, not all the prospective players were eager to participate. They often had to be cajoled into playing by entreaties or by a gift of something with which to wager. Skilled players were especially pampered. To keep them in the village, they were given a house, their fields were planted for them, and their misdeeds were winked at by the village authorities.”

It is not unreasonable to speculate that The Game was played on the very grounds where Doak Campbell Stadium now stands. Our Seminole players of today differ in many ways from those Florida State College lads of ’04, and they were in turn very different from the young Apalachee men of 1678.

But our warrior hearts all beat with the same spirit.