Did you make the first string or are you a bench warmer? Here are the answers to our fabulous football trivia quiz.
1. c) Teddy Roosevelt saved football, for which we are all grateful. Roosevelt appreciated the intensity of the game, but when 19 players died and 137 were injured in 1905, colleges began dropping the sport, including Stanford and Cal, deciding rugby was less violent. Harvard president Charles Eliot warned that Harvard could be next, prompting Roosevelt to step in, promising in a letter to a friend that he hoped to “minimize the danger” without making it “too ladylike.”
2. b) The 1928 game between San Francisco Polytechnic and Lowell saw the highest attendance for a high school game ever, with 50,000 in attendance.
3. a) After recovering a fumble, a confused Vikings’ defensive end James Lawrence Marshall ran 66 yards the wrong way and scored a safety for the Niners.
4. b) Failing to have players line up at midfield for the coin flip to start the game or for overtime can cause the team to lose the coin toss.
5. a) In a 2013 game, the 49ers tried for a “fair catch kick,” which allows receiving teams to line up on the first play and try a field goal. It was one of John Madden’s favorite plays, although it’s rarely used and is pretty much a desperate ploy. The 49ers tried it with 4 seconds left at the end of the first half, with kicker Phil Dawson attempting a 71-yard field goal. Interestingly, the choice to decline to receive the fair catch and turn the ball over to the opponent is an option in the rule book, but that’s not what the 49ers did.
6. c) In the 49ers’ first-ever game, they played the New York Yankees, but not those New York Yankees. The Niners were part of the All-American Football Conference, and the Yankees, which shared both its name and a stadium with the baseball Yankees, played only three seasons before becoming defunct.
7. d) Leo Nomellini, the 49ers first draft pick in 1950, wrestled in the off-season under the moniker The Lion.
Scoring:
0-1 You have heard of football, haven’t you?
2-3 Second string with potential
4-5 All you need is a good agent
6-7 Pack your bags for the Pro Bowl
