Football

The Rugby Union game is played by fifteen men on a side divided into forwards and backs; the backs usually made up of halves or quarterbacks, three quarterbacks and goal tends. It is permi ible to carry the ball in the arms or hands, to pa it in any direction save toward the opponents' goal, and to kick it in any direction. The men are restrained in their separate parts of the field by laws of off and on side, which means that a man cannot interfere with the player or the ball when he is between the ball and his opponent's goal line. The scoring is by touchdowns and kicking goals. A touchdown is placing the ball on the ground acro the line of the opponent's goal, and this entitles the side scoring the touchdown to a try at the goal. The ball may also be kicked over the goal bar by a place kick, that is, from a position of rest on the ground; or a drop kick, that is, when the ball is dropped from the hand of the kicker and struck by the foot immediately upon its rising from the ground. The player who is running with the ball may be tackled, may be seized in the arms by an opponent, and when tackled he must cry down, and the ball is then placed on the ground for what is called a scrimmage. The players of the respective sides then gather around it, each side keeping between the ball and his own goal, and at a given signal both sides endeavor by kicking to drive the ball in the direction of the opponents' goal line. A certain time of game is allowed. In A ociation football, the ball is propelled with the foot and cannot be handled. The field is 100 yds. by 50 to 200 by 100. There are eleven men on a side, and the ball is round, 28 in. in circumference. The kick-off is like the Rugby game, the ball being canted from the center of the field. The game consists of two halves of 45 minutes each. A goal is scored by sending the ball between the goal posts under the bar, not being thrown, knocked down, or carried by any one of the attacking side. American Intercollegiate football was but an excuse for a general battle between Sophomores and Freshmen, and, until the seventies, there was very little that could be dignified with the name of game. Beginning with the seventies, however, it took on form which was affected by the A ociation rules. The players were allowed to kick the ball, but not to pick it up, throw it, or carry it. After some four or five years Harvard, who had played with Canadian teams under Rugby Union rules, introduced the English Rugby Union, and a game was played between Harvard and Yale under a compromise set of rules made up of the Rugby Union and the old intercollegiate. In 1876 both colleges adopted the Rugby Union, and from this the present intercollegiate game has been evolved. As the game is now played it differs from the Rugby Union principally in the outlet of the scrimmage and in what is known as interference but which is really offside play. The Americans have given up the general indiscriminate kicking in the scrimmage, and the man in the center after a down snaps the ball back in his hand to the quarterback, who then pa es it to some other of his side for a kick or a run. Interference consists in the protection of the runner, who has the ball, by his comrades, who get between him and the opponents who are endeavoring to tackle him. In other respects the game is not greatly altered from the Rugby Union. The scoring is by touchdowns and goals, but with an addition to the Rugby Unio Union rules, that the side having po e ion of the ball must advance it five yards in three downs or take it back twenty yards in the same number of downs or surrender it.