8th Grade Junior Indians

Give One Hundred Percent

100% equals everything! When we are asking you to give 100 percent, we are asking you to give everything. We want it all!  Do not save anything for later, do not relax, do not take a break to catch your breath, give us everything you've got from start until finish! Leave it all on the field.

It won't be easy. Giving 100 percent isn't for the faint-of-heart. It takes a lot of heart, passion, determination, drive, energy, and willpower.

It's going to hurt! There is going to be pain, sweat, and adversity. You are going to doubt yourself before you get there. You will wonder if you can do it, and you will try to talk yourself out of giving it all. You are going to see "easy ways out." All along the way you will be presented with ways to give less of yourself.

You will find yourself reaching for that "easy button." Press it and you instantly travel the easy road. That's fine if the "easy button" gets you the results you desire. However, in sporting competition, the "easy button" isn't going to get you where you want to be. Giving 100 percent, working hard, being smart, and seizing the moment- that's what will get you the results you
desire.

The best athletes, the most successful athletes are those who mentally block out pain, fatigue, doubt, and despair. Super athletes focus on pushing beyond their limits, drawing energy from untapped reserves, hope, success, and reaching the finish line!

Roots of American Football

The birth date of football in the United States is generally regarded by football historians as November 6, 1869, when teams from Rutgers and Princeton Universities met for the first intercollegiate football game. In those early games, there were 20 players to a team and football still more closely resembled rugby than modern football.

The game of football has a history of constant rule changes. Rule changes have been implemented to bolster the excitement of the game of football and to increase the game's safety.

In 1873, representatives from Columbia, Rutgers, Princeton, and Yale Universities met in New York City to formulate the first intercollegiate football rules for the increasingly popular game. These four teams established the Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA) and set 15 as the number of players allowed on each team.

Walter Camp, the coach at Yale and a dissenter from the IFA over his desire for an eleven man team, helped begin the final step in the evolution from rugby-style play to the modern game of American football. The IFA's rules committee, led by Camp, soon cut the number of players from fifteen to eleven, and also instituted the size of the playing field, at one hundred ten yards. In 1882 Camp also introduced the system of downs. After first allowing three attempts to advance the ball five yards, in 1906 the distance was changed to ten yards. The fourth down was added in 1912.

Within a decade, concern over the increasing brutality of the game led to its ban by some colleges. Nearly 180 players had suffered serious injuries, and eighteen deaths had been reported from the brutal mass plays that had become common practice. So in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt called upon Harvard, Princeton, and Yale to help save the sport from demise.

At a meeting between the schools, reform was agreed upon, and at a second meeting, attended by more than sixty other schools, the group appointed a seven member Rules Committee and set up what would later become known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or the NCAA.

From this committee came the legalization of the forward pass, which resulted in a redesign of the ball and a more open style of play on the field. The rough mass plays, which once caused so many serious injuries, were prohibited by the committee. Also prohibited was the locking of arms by teammates in an effort to clear the way for their ball carriers. The length of the game was shortened, from seventy to sixty minutes, and the neutral zone, which separates the teams by the length of the ball before each play begins, was also established. 

Though refinements to the game would continue to the present day, the modern game of American football had arrived.