The Founders of College Football

Have you heard that Rutgers is the birthplace of college football?

Well, the school does everything to ensure that you never forget this answer to a Final Jeopardy question. Our video guru, Nick Horan, took this idea and ran it on our YouTube, creating a dynasty featuring the four schools—Rutgers, Princeton, Columbia, and Harvard—that created the rules of college football or were involved in the first game.

Now, before we get to Nick’s awesome video (please subscribe and follow Nick’s awesome work), here’s a fun story from your publisher: In the mid-2000s, I was a reporter for the Home News-Tribune, a local newspaper that covered New Brunswick, N.J., and the surrounding area.

This was back when Rutgers was half-decent during Greg Schiano’s first run. Since the Scarlet Knights were good for the first time since playing that first game in 1869, the newspaper went all-in on covering the team. That went beyond traditional sports coverage but included the news section as well.

At one point, I was tasked with writing a story about the retiring Rutgers horse. Yes, I had to drive 40 minutes to some random farm in rural New Jersey to write about an old horse. Mind you, this shit would be the lead story on the front page of the paper the next day (and you wonder why newspapers are dying).

Mostly to keep myself entertained with these types of stories, I took a different approach. I took the information the horse’s owner gave me and turned it into a mock Q&A with the stupid horse.

I told my editor when I got back my plan.

Her: How was the horse?

Me: Good, I’m going to do an interview with him.

Her (Not Listening): Great. Just get it in by 6.

An hour later, I turned in my story filled with bad horse jokes and terrible puns (Hi horse, why the long face?).

Ten minutes later, she yelled at me to come over to her desk.

Her: What the fuck is this?

Me: I told you I was writing an interview with the horse!

Her: I … but … why … shit … I didn’t think you were serious! There’s no way we can run this story.

Me: Well, I just wanted to make the stupid horse interesting. It’s a horse, after all. Should I write about the 20 minutes he stood there, not moving while I talked to his owner?

Her: …

In the end, the horse story ran as an interview but with my horse jokes toned down. Ah, the fucking of working at local newspapers for $12 an hour.

ANYWAY, enjoy Nick’s video!