Winter in the USA means a few things, no matter the climate: holiday season, and football. New Englanders have been particularly enjoying the Patriots’ return to the playoffs this month, but the game is beloved well beyond the professional game. To that point, here’s a unique item the Statewide program had the pleasure of working on: a hand-drawn playbook dating to 1943, used by generations of Westborough High School football coaches.
The book is not exclusively for strategy, though — the above page memorializes an undefeated Westboro High team likely from the 1940s or 1950s. There are also records of the team’s intense practice regimen from Monday through Friday. The page below is one of the many diagrams in the book. Note the stamps used to mark offensive lineman and defensive players! The plays can be difficult to parse out for the uninitiated (including this writer), but this tricky play features a player lined up at wide receiver receiving a lateral from the quarterback, and throwing to the other wide receiver cutting across the width of the field!
Football has changed a great deal over the last 75 years — and this artifact is an incredible glimpse into the game’s history, showing what has changed as well as what’s remained the same. And, on behalf of the statewide program, go Pats!