Early History Of Minnesota Golden Gophers Football
The University of Minnesota's college football program has a long history including national championships, conference titles, and many legendary All-American and Hall of Fame players and coaches. However, its beginnings were humble. Students began gathering to play the game recreationally and its popularity grew.
Once the sport had taken off, it was only a matter of time before a team was formed to play against other schools. Early teams were very loosely organized, not requiring all of the players to be students and not having designated coaches. The players on the team started to recruit faculty members who had played football at schools in the East to help organize the team. Some years, they played without a coach. Other years, they played with multiple coaches. In total, from 1882 through 1899, the team played 16 seasons of football and had 15 different coaches. As the years went by, the leadership structure started to become more formal. In 1900, the hiring of Dr. Henry L. Williams, the school’s first full-time salaried coach, signaled the end of the early, chaotic days.
Read more about Early History Of Minnesota Golden Gophers Football: Thomas Peebles, Frederick S. Jones, Al McCord, D.W. McCord, Frank Heffelfinger and Billy Morse, Tom Eck, Edward Moulton, Wallie Winter, Tom Cochrane Jr., Walter "Pudge" Heffelfinger, Alexander Jerrems, Jack Minds, William C. Leary and John Harrison
Famous quotes containing the words early, history, golden and/or football:
“Very early in our children’s lives we will be forced to realize that the “perfect” untroubled life we’d like for them is just a fantasy. In daily living, tears and fights and doing things we don’t want to do are all part of our human ways of developing into adults.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Now remember courage, go to the door,
Open it and see whether coiled on the bed
Or cringing by the wall, a savage beast
Maybe with golden hair, with deep eyes
Like a bearded spider on a sunlit floor
Will snarl—and man can never be alone.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)