Backyard Football

Title: Backyard Football

General Information about Item:

Customary Lore, childhood game

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Informant: Linda Farber

Date Collected: 5/17/2019 

Informant Data:

Linda Farber was born on April 27, 1967 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Linda has an older brother, and they both grew up in an apartment in center-city Philadelphia with their mother and father.  As a child, she attended a private school in Philadelphia, however she became very close with the other children that grew up in her apartment complex, and they would play outside almost every day, especially in the summer.  Her parents would let her play with her brother and the other children at the park near the apartment complex, however they were expected to be home before dinner.  Currently, Linda lives in Shelton, Connecticut where she is a mother of three children and works as an organic chemistry professor at Sacred Heart University.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: Linda shared this story as a part of a Folklore collection project for Russian 13.  As a child, she would play many games outdoors with the other children that lived in the apartment complex, and one of her favorites was backyard football.  She was usually one of the few girls that played because she was faster and tougher than some of the boys that played.  They would always go to the park next to the apartment buildings to play football.

Cultural Context: Also, the rough nature of the game, given that it was tackle football with no pads, is representative of the “tough” culture that comes with growing up in the city.  Culturally, her parents were both immigrants who raised them with the idea that academics was the most important.  Therefore, Linda only played sports offered at school or ones that could be played in a backyard.  It was much less prevalent for parents to sign their children up for various sports leagues, lessons, etc. during that time in the city, than it would be today.

Item:

Backyard football has all the same rules as regular football except there are no pads or helmets.  The game started with players being picked at the beginning by a captain for each team (captains were usually unanimously elected by the group and were the more senior and better players in the group).  Each captain would go back and forth picking one person for their team until there was no one left.  It also meant that on offense there were only two positions, receivers, those who would catch the ball, and a quarterback, one that would throw the ball (to receivers).  On defense, there were only defensive backs that would cover and tackle the receivers and at times rush the quarterback.  The defense would have to chant to 5 Mississippi (i.e. One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, etc.) before they could cross the line of scrimmage, which separates the offense and defense, and rush the quarterback.  Your team would score when the receiver caught the ball in a defined area on either end of the park – this was called a “touchdown”.  The winner of the game was the team that scored the most touchdowns by the end.  The end of the game was usually determined by it being close to dinner time and therefore having to go inside.

Informant’s Comments:

Linda remembers playing all day long outside, especially in the summer, and sometimes resents the amount of time spent inside by today’s youth.

Collectors Comments:

All of these rules are exactly the same as the one’s I used, however we played “two hand touch” as opposed to tackle football in the backyard.  This is interesting because I grew up in the suburbs, which makes me think that playing tackle football might be more prevalent in areas like the city.

Collector’s Name: Mathieu Freeman

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