Introduction to THE REAL ALL AMERICANS/ ESPN.com Excerpt Written by Sally Jenkins exclusively for their use.
In 1879, a cavalry officer named Richard Henry Pratt established an experimental boarding school for American Indians in an Army barracks in Carlisle, Pa. His purpose was to "civilize" his students and make them U.S. citizens. "Kill the Indian, save the man," Pratt liked to say. On Carlisle's athletic field, however, a different experiment took place, this one conducted by the pupils. In 1895, the students took up the American game of football, still in its formative years, and began to schedule the Ivy League teams. For the next 20 years, the dispossessed Carlisle Indians ranked among the foremost football powers in the country. Under the creative tutelage of coach Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner, they developed an innovative array of trick plays, reverses, end-arounds and flea-flickers, and threw the first spirals through the air on a major stage. Today, every time a quarterback feigns a handoff, or rears back to throw, a debt is owed to the Indians.
The talent for deception was partly out of necessity: With a student body of just 1,000, ranging in age from 12 to 25, Carlisle was perpetually outmanned and dangerously undersized. Football was a dull, grinding and occasionally lethal sport, with deaths regularly reported on the field But the Indians began to explore a new kind of football.
About the Author
SALLY JENKINS is an award-winning journalist for the Washington Post and the author of eight books, three of which were New York Times bestsellers, most notably It’s Not About the Bike with Lance Armstrong. Her work has been featured in GQ and Sports Illustrated, and she has acted as a correspondent on CNBC as well as on NPR's All Things Considered. She lives in New York City.