Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader® (66 page)

For years, one of the biggest obstacles to cleaning up football had been Walter Camp himself. As chairman of the Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee, he had been able to fend off any fundamental changes to the game. Elliott Gorn writes in A
Brief History of American Sports:

Calls for “reform” of the game occasionally met with public approval, but they had little impact on the conduct of the game itself. Walter Camp saw no contradiction between honor and brutality. He defended—nearly always successfully—the game he loved against all efforts at significant reform; he remains one of the central figures whose efforts increased the game’s violence.

Keep dreaming: The average person has more than 1,400 dreams a year.

Camp’s iron grip on football loosened considerably beginning in 1905, following the publication of a number of articles in the
New York Evening Post,
and in
McClure’s
and
Outlook
magazines detailing scandalous financial abuses in the Yale football program.

As amateur athletes, Yale players weren’t supposed to receive compensation of any kind for playing football, a system that Camp enthusiastically endorsed…in public. “We do not make exceptions to the rules,” he said, “hence our men are not eligible if they have received money or compensation for ball playing.”

But what went on behind the scenes was another story entirely. As treasurer of the Yale Financial Union, Camp controlled the funds of all of Yale’s major sports programs—not just football—and unknown to anyone, he had stashed more than $96,000 in a secret fund that he used to coddle his star players, putting them up in expensive dorms, paying their way through school (there were no football scholarships at the time), and even sending them on paid vacations, all of which he hid in the budget as “miscellaneous expenses.”

And though as head of the Yale football program he served ostensibly as a part-time volunteer, Camp secretly paid himself a $5,000-a-year salary, while full-time Yale professors earned only $3,500 a year. He buried this expenditure under the heading “Maintenance of the field.”

Yale’s shady financial practices were no different from any other college at the time. Recruiting the country’s best players and fielding championship teams year after year took a lot of money, and it had to come from somewhere. But the revelations about Yale came just as the pressure to clean up football violence was intensifying, and Camp, with his reputation as a “rock-ribbed standard bearer of Victorian honor in the midst of corruption” now seriously in question, was no longer able to block the reforms that others were determined to push through.

When Camp tried to resist Roosevelt’s demand to clean up football, Chancellor Henry MacCracken of New York University decided he’d had enough. He organized a conference of 13 colleges
not
represented on Camp’s tightly controlled rules committee,
to discuss whether college football should be abolished altogether, or whether one last attempt at cleaning it up should be made.

A full-moon is nine times brighter than a half-moon.

The original group of 13 schools that met on December 9, 1905 expanded to 62 schools by the time they met a second time, on December 28. At this meeting the schools voted to form an organization called the Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which in 1910 changed its name to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The group also voted to create its own rules committee, headed by Captain Palmer Pierce of West Point, to push through the reforms that Camp had resisted for so long.

Rather than compete against the old Intercollegiate Football Association, when the Intercollegiate Athletic Association met for the third time in January 1906, they agreed to merge, electing a reformer named E. K. Hall to serve as chair of the new joint rules committee. Camp was out as chairman—for good.

“Ever the good sportsman, Walter Camp stayed involved at the highest levels of football,” Stephen Fox writes in Big
Leagues.
“But his reign had ended.”

“Lavatory! Lavatory! Sis, boom, bah! Uncle John! Uncle John! Rah, rah, rah!” Now turn to
page 480
for the final installment of The History of Football.

It was in about the 1880s that the current names of football positions were beginning to come into use.

• Because the “snapperback” stood at the center of the line of scrimmage, he became known simply as the “center.”

• The forwards standing at either end of the line of scrimmage became known as “end men” and later as “ends.”

• The back who played deepest became the “fullback,” and the two backs who stood between the quarterback came to be known as “halfbacks.”

In 1888 Yale football coach Walter Camp fell ill. His wife coached for the entire season.

More accounts of the very first appearance of several things we take for granted. From
Book of Firsts,
by Patrick Robertson.

Date:
June 18, 1583

Background:
The first recorded life insurance policy was taken out by London alderman Richard Martin, who paid a group of merchant underwriters a premium of £30 to insure the life of one William Gibbons for the sum of £383. The contract stipulated that this benefit should only be paid if the insured died within a year. Eleven months later Gibbons was gathered to the arms of his Maker. The underwriters then sought to evade payment by the dubious argument that he had not died within “the full twelve months accounting 28 days to each month.” The case having been brought to court, it was ruled that “the month is to be accounted according to the Kalendar” and Martin received the money due to him.

Date:
1913

Background:
The first refrigerator for domestic use was the Domelre, an electrically powered machine manufactured in Chicago. It had a wooden cabinet with a compression-type refrigerating unit mounted in the top.

Date:
August 28, 1895

Background:
The first motion picture to involve the use of actors was a brief costume drama titled
The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots,
which was shot by Alfred Clark in West Orange, New Jersey. The part of Mary was played by Mr. R. L. Thomas, secretary and treasurer of the Kinetoscope Co. After approaching the block and laying his head upon it, Thomas removed himself, the camera was stopped, and a dummy was substituted. The camera was then started again for the decapitation scene. This was also the first use of trick photography or special effects work in a film.

The Greek wine
retsina
is made with pine tree resin. So is turpentine.

Date:
April 18, 1934

Background:
The first laundrette was the Washateria, opened at Fort Worth, Texas, by J. F. Cantrell. It contained four electric washing machines that were charged for by the hour.

Date:
1463

Background:
The first numbering of houses was introduced on the Pont Notre-Dame, Paris.

Date:
1937

Background:
The first nylon was developed and patented by the American chemical company E. I. du Pont de Nemours. The first commercially produced nylon product was toothbrush bristles, manufactured at du Pont’s Arlington, New Jersey, plant in 1938. Nylon yarn was produced commercially for the first time in 1939, and made into stockings by various hosiery manufacturers. By mutual agreement, competing brands of nylon stockings were launched throughout the USA simultaneously on May 15, 1940.

Date:
1451

Background:
The first income tax was the Catastro introduced in Florence, Italy, under Lorenzo de’ Medici. It was later replaced by the Scala, an income tax levied on a progressive basis, but this degenerated into a convenient means of political blackmail and, on the overthrow of the Medicis in 1492, was repealed.

Date:
1734

Background:
It was invented by German physician M. Fuches and consisted of glass balls filled with a saline solution designed to be hurled at blaze. Advertisements depicting a whole family lobbing these balls at a blazing inferno in their living room, with expressions of rapturous enjoyment on their faces, appeared in English journals up until World War I.

An elephant can pull twice its weight. A bumblebee can pull 300 times its weight.

You shop for food, you cook it, you eat it.…But how much do you really know about it? Take our food quiz and find out.
Bon appétit!

1.
Which is heavier: light cream or heavy cream?

a)
Light cream

b)
Heavy cream

c)
Neither—all milk products, including cheese, are the same weight by volume. The only exception is Swiss cheese, which is lighter because it’s filled with holes.

2.
When a meal is served on an airline, how is it likely to differ from the same meal served on land?

a)
It is likely to contain added sucrose, which has natural mellowing agents that reduce stress during long flights.

b)
Entrees are likely to contain gelatin, which helps the food retain its natural shape in the pressurized cabin.

c)
It probably contains more seasonings, but less salt. People taste food differently when flying, so extra seasoning is added. But they also dehydrate easily, so less salt is used.

3.
In addition to adding their own flavor, how else do onions alter the taste of food?

a)
They release a caffeinelike stimulant. The diner experiences a mild euphoria that enhances their enjoyment of the meal and perceives the food as being tastier than it actually is.

b)
They release oils that coat the tongue, dulling the taste of everything except the onion.

c)
They irritate tastebuds, making them more sensitive to taste.

4.
How can you judge the quality of ice cream before you buy it?

a)
Weigh it.

b)
Twirl the container in midair. Well-balanced ice cream is of higher quality than ice cream that wobbles when thrown.

c)
Squeeze it—ice cream, like fruit, isn’t “ripe” until it’s soft.

5.
Botanically speaking, what is the difference between a fruit and a vegetable?

a)
Color. Green or yellow means it’s a vegetable. Red, blue, or purple means it’s a fruit.

b)
Seeds. If it has seeds, it’s a fruit. If it doesn’t, it’s a vegetable.

c)
Sugar content. A good rule of thumb is if it’s sweet enough to be eaten for dessert, it’s a fruit.

6.
Apple seeds contain which of the following?

a)
Cyanide

b)
Lactose

c)
LSD

7.
When, if ever, is it safe to refreeze food?

a)
It’s never completely safe. Thawing and refreezing can “wake up” certain bacteria.

b)
It’s always safe, but texture and flavor may deteriorate.

c)
Only when the food is refrozen within 90 minutes of thawing.

8.
Most of the vitamins in a potato are located where?