By Bug

About 100 million Americans will watch Super Bowl XLIII today. How many of them know the history of American football huddle? Who invented the huddle? About 85 percent of people don’t know that Deaf player at Gallaudet University invented the American football huddle in 1894.

Who invented it? How did the football huddle start? Paul Hubbard the quarterback player at Gallaudet University realized that his sign language (hand signal) could be read by opposing players so he had to pull his players into a circle so that his sign language could be shown without anyone on the sidelines or on the opposing team seeing.

Many years before the first huddle, many Deaf football players used sign language to signal to each other as they played until Paul Huddbard got fed up of the other team watching and guessing their plays so he invented the huddle. Then they exchanged the secrets through sign language inside the huddle.

Today every footbal team uses this type of huddle as it is still in common use today, typically between plays in American football as the quarterback assigns the next play to the offense.

Here’s an interesting story about the football at Gallaudet Unviersity:

http://www.fredbowen.com/c100600.htm

Also, see old Gallaudet photos of Deaf football team:

http://archives.gallaudet.edu/Football.htm

