The History of Native Americans in Football

Well, sports are basically a proxy of war, right? Right. It's kind of like, it's like fake war. Yeah, it's like a replacement. Yeah, it's like a replacement of war. Yeah, it's like when the Raiders are going to play the Dolphins. Right, yeah. It's basically, now it's Vegas, right? Right. It's basically Florida is going to war with Las Vegas. Right, exactly. And we get it out of our system in an hour and a half. You know, that's what it was invented for. That's what football was actually invented for. Oh, yeah? Yeah. There was an article I read about, I think we might have even talked about it on the podcast at one point in time, about how football was invented to be, like, to give people something to do that was like a replacement for war. Right. When there was, when they were in between, when there was no war to fight. Yeah, and in the beginning of it, a lot of it was like Native Americans playing. Like some of the best early players were Native Americans. Right. Yeah, I was reading this whole thing about the history of football. I wish I could remember more details, but again, I don't really follow football either. So, I was casually, I was glancing at this article and then I gave up on it. Yeah, but when you see how people are so passionate and passionate by it, it's like, well, would Cleveland be marching on Pittsburgh if they didn't have the Browns and the Steelers? Like, would all these young men be just... I think you need to give people things like that to do. Yeah. I think legitimately, when you get an enormous mass of people like the United States is, United States is 300 and whatever million people, they need some things that they can root on. Yeah. They root for, and they need some things that are like very important and serious to them. Yeah, it takes you out of your everyday. Yeah. It takes all that aggression and puts it towards something. Yeah, it does. Yeah. It does. Were you ever a hockey fan? No. I was a hockey fan for a while. What happened? They did you wrong? Yeah, they just went into... I was with the Rangers as a kid and then they won the Cup and it was like this huge thing. And then for the next decade, they were just so bad. It was just like I... So, you're a fair weather fan. Is that what you're trying to say? It was pretty fair. Yeah, I guess so. I didn't just show up when they won the Cup, but I bailed at a certain point. Well, that one day that I went to see the Red Sox game that I got into Taekwondo, from that day on, all I really cared about was martial arts, combat sports. That's really all I was interested in. I was always interested in boxing. I always was a big boxing fan. Right. But then I got really into martial arts and that became my obsession. So, I didn't watch any sports after that. Right. No, you were doing it. You were participating. But it's also like the stuff that I watched. I'd only watch combat sports. I'd watch boxing or kickboxing. Right. There was no MMA at the time. And no YouTube, by the way. Yeah, nothing. I would get VHS tapes. Right. You get VHS tapes back when the VHS came out. Yeah. I would record like, say, if Marvin Hagler was fighting on HBO and record it and watch it later, play it back. God, that's so good. Oh my God. Oh my God. Did you find anything on the origins of football? I remember, I think there's two different stories there. There's definitely a story about the Native American roots in football, I know. Yeah. Because there was some, it's like how Jim Thorpe got involved. Oh, right. Right. Right. Did you see the picture of Jim Thorpe when he was running in the Olympics? No. And he had one shoe that was a shoe that he found and it didn't fit him right. So he had to put like two socks on and like, yeah, and he won. And he won. The gold medal. Oh my God. Like fucked up shoes. And they were like shoes. Yeah. Oh, like dress shoes? Yeah, they looked like shoes. That's all people had back then. Right. Like the shoes they ran in. Yeah. Look at the image of them. Like look. Oh my God. It's like a wingtip. It's like it barely fits him. Yeah. I mean, it looks like it fucking barely fits him. Jim Thorpe, legendary Native American athlete, had his shoes stolen just before he's about to compete in the Olympics. He found a mismatched pair of shoes in the trash can and went on to win a gold medal wearing them. He was also the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States. Wow. Look at the picture of his face. Like that is a hard man. Yeah. That's a guy who's not going to get stopped by a fucking pair of shoes. God. You know? He should have played Batman. No. He's dead. Look at his shoe there. Look at that vintage shoe. Yeah. Oh my God. That's what they ran in. It's just like a piece of leather. It looks like there's some kind of traction on the bottom. Yeah. Some kind of thing on the bottom I guess. God. You think about just the stuff that like regular people could wear now compared to that. Oh no. God. Everything. Oh no. Like everybody had like one pair of pants, one shirt, one sweater. I know. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that was it. You show it. Like wow they really dressed back then. They wore suits and ties to the baseball game. That's all they had. Right. It wasn't casual clothes. You weren't putting on board shorts and a t-shirt. Well it was also a big event. To go to something like that was a big event. There was no television. Right. Right. Yeah. Do you ever see, there was a thing we watched the other day. It was when Jack Johnson fought Jim Jeffries in Reno, Nevada and you looked out at the audience. First of all there was no ladies there. Right. It was almost all men. And everyone was dressed in a suit with a hat on. Right. And we were watching this and we were saying like imagine if you were a hat maker back then and you're like this business is never going away. I know. Like look, look at the audience. Hey man. Everyone has a hat on. Wow. That was probably as fucking sunny as shit right? Oh for sure. Oh for sure. You know it changed the hat. What? You know it put it out of fashion. No. JFK. What? Yeah. What? When he came on the scene he didn't wear a hat and he looked so great and he had that head of hair. Really? And that changed the fashion and yeah hats fell out of favor. No kidding. After Kennedy, yeah. He was the guy? Yeah. No shit. They talk about it all the time. I love hats. I wear hats because I'm bald. Oh look at that, the beautiful hat. Yeah. I like that hat. But look at the image. I mean that is. Yeah that's amazing. Everyone. Every single person. Everyone has a hat on. And there was etiquette and there was rules. You took your hat off when you saw a lady. They came inside somewhere. They all have the same kind of hat too. Yeah isn't that funny? Basically. All the white hat because they're all outside. Yeah I guess so. Yeah. And this was a famously hot day. It looks it. Yeah. Pretty crazy. Pretty crazy. I think this is the article about the football team here. Oh. Native American team that revolutionized football. Oh wow. Yeah. And there wasn't even a lot of forward passing back then. I remember this I think it's the coach Carlisle Indians in 1979. Right. And that had to do with Pop Warner too. That's a big guy in the history of football. It's a whole long thing but what does it have to do with the military? There was a different story about. Well yeah so then that's the other part of where I thought like you maybe mix the two things up. There's like a history of just the strategy of football as like an army navy. It's a big thing back like they would compete to do like strategies. And just have stuff to do in the off off time. Here listen this Pratt knew that nothing could stop the westward expansion of whites and he knew the Native American way of life was coming to an end fearing that Native Americans might actually die out. Pratt opened up the Carlisle school to save them from extinction. The idea was to teach Native American youth how to survive in this strange new world. Wow. Of course Pratt wasn't interested in preserving their culture. After convincing parents to send their children to Pennsylvania Pratt gave his students haircuts, instructed them in English and ordered them to dress as white people. After all his motto was kill the Indian save the man. Wow. That's crazy.