<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>"The thud of the cleated boot on pigskin will soon be heard." It's football season! The Ten Thousand Men of Harvard! The Fighting Irish! Big Red! Big Green! Princeton Tigers! Yes, I'm talking college football, a staple of the airwaves since the early days of radio.</p><p>More popular in that day than professional football, the college season of 1928 kicked off an eight-week schedule starting Saturday, October 13. Well-known colleges and universities had squared off for many years, so it should come as no surprise that those colleges broadcast their Saturday matchups. NBC distributed radio guides to their stations and affiliates that included information for the season. This guide from the week of September 16-22 announced plans to air games from 15 different schools, including those mentioned above. I'm sure the author of the news release was joking when he referred to the sport as a "gentle game."</p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/file-uploader/cover_nbc_sept_16_22_1928 - Copy.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Document" class="auto-caption media-image img__fid__16720 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" rel="lightbox" src="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog_image/public/Cover_sm.jpg?itok=_cEq78-v" style="width: 423px; height: 550px;" title="Cover from the September 16-22, 1928, NBC guide with the feature story on the upcoming football season"></a></p><p>Matchups included:</p><ul><li>October 20: Harvard vs. Army and Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech</li><li>November 3: Dartmouth vs. Yale and Ohio vs. Princeton</li><li>November 17: Chicago vs. University of Illinois</li></ul><p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Black box" class="auto-caption media-image img__fid__16722 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" rel="lightbox" src="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog_image/public/AHB2010r7474_v2.jpg?itok=Z5FbNwYu" style="width: 550px; height: 290px;" title="A National Carbon Company radio and speaker from 1928. Listeners might have heard various football games on this set-up."></p><p>I was expecting to see a list of games but didn't find them in the NBC guide—the guides we have are not complete, either missing a cover sheet or a mailed notice to the affiliated stations. So I had to turn to other sources and, with a bit of digging and research, I discovered that the games were listed in local newspapers.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Microphone" class="auto-caption media-image img__fid__16723 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" rel="lightbox" src="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog_image/public/NMAH2005-17891.jpg?itok=7WkJJu7l" style="width: 252px; height: 550px;" title="A 1925 NBC suspended carbon radio microphone, used to announce different football games. This type of microphone was used by <a data-cke-saved-href="http://www.baseballhall.org/discover/awards/ford-c-frick/2016-candidates/mcnamee-graham" href="http://www.baseballhall.org/discover/awards/ford-c-frick/2016-candidates/mcnamee-graham" target="blank">Graham McNamee</a> when interviewing Babe Ruth. "></p><p>Cornell played the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on Thanksgiving Day, November 29. Graham McNamee, one of two "veteran radio sports reporters" announced that game. Unfortunately for Cornell, they were trampled 49-0. (Sorry, <a href="http://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/smithsonian-welcomes-secretary-david-skorton" target="_blank">Smithsonian Secretary Skorton</a>, president of Cornell University for nine years!) According to the next day's <em>Los Angeles Times</em>, the Thanksgiving game was Cornell's biggest loss "since this holiday series was begun in 1893." Perhaps Cornell can take revenge this year when they continue the long-running rivalry on November 21.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Football" class="auto-caption media-image img__fid__16730 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" rel="lightbox" src="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog_image/public/AHB2013q104166.jpg?itok=YBDndZUh" style="width: 550px; height: 358px;" title="A game ball from the 1912 game between Princeton and Dartmouth. Princeton won 22 to Dartmouth's seven."></p><p>Something that surprised me is how far back some of the rivalries go. The Sports Collections here at the museum include objects like this football from a Princeton-Dartmouth game from 1912. Another set of objects are the helmets dating from the 1920s. Can you imagine playing a rough game wearing so little head protection?</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Helmets" class="auto-caption media-image img__fid__16724 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" rel="lightbox" src="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog_image/public/AHB2010r0076_helmets.jpg?itok=H3_l2XQY" style="width: 550px; height: 370px;" title="The top two objects represent two different styles of football helmets from the 1920s"></p><p>For listeners not enthused about football, there were more choices. While most of the larger NBC stations carried the weekend games, other stations broadcast music or programs. On November 11, New York Station WPCH had a saxophone octet and the "Boy Scout hour." For November 18, there was WRNY broadcast musical acts MacBerg, playing banjo, and contralto Doris Boden. Of course, deciding what to listen to would have been a problem for homes with only one radio.</p><p>Today, you can find football everywhere: satellite, television, apps on smart phones, and the Internet. You don't need to stay home and listen, as you can take your favorite team with you wherever you go.</p><p>Now, the NCAA football schedule runs for 12 weeks and has become a multi-billion dollar business. So next time you cheer your favorite team, imagine what it would be like to tune in by radio.</p><p><em>Connie Holland is a project assistant in the Division of Culture and the Arts. She is happy spending time in front of a television watching her team from Virginia Tech defeat her brother's alma mater, Virginia.</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-authors field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author(s): </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Connie Holland</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-posted-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Posted Date: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single">Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - 11:45</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"><h3 class="field-label">Categories: </h3><ul class="links"><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-0"><a href="/blog-tags/collections">From the Collections</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"><h3 class="field-label">Tags: </h3><ul class="links"><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-0"><a href="/tags/sports-and-leisure">Sports and Leisure</a></li><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-1"><a href="/tags/communications">Communications</a></li></ul></div><div id="disqus_thread"><noscript><p><a href="http://amhistorymuseum.disqus.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Famericanhistory.si.edu%2Fblog%2Fcollege-football-radio">View the discussion thread.</a></p></noscript></div><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?a=CWwdPjdEoGc:BgV2UhadaUU:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?a=CWwdPjdEoGc:BgV2UhadaUU:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?a=CWwdPjdEoGc:BgV2UhadaUU:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?i=CWwdPjdEoGc:BgV2UhadaUU:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?a=CWwdPjdEoGc:BgV2UhadaUU:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?i=CWwdPjdEoGc:BgV2UhadaUU:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?a=CWwdPjdEoGc:BgV2UhadaUU:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OSayCanYouSee/~4/CWwdPjdEoGc" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
