Game On! Finding A Football For Your Program

One of my high school coaches once took a break from our two-a-day practice and held up a football. “Can any of you tell me how long a football is?” he asked. Like most players and coaches, I never knew the exact length of a football (and as a lineman, my regular hands-on experience with footballs in practice was slim to none). We were stumped. “Eleven and a quarter inches,” he said. “I tell you this because that 11 ¼ inches is the difference between winning and losing. Whichever team controls this very small area of land will be the one who gets to celebrate at the end of any game.” Of course, our coach used ‘controlling the football’ in a big-picture strategic sense, but we’ll use that anecdote this month as a springboard to a look at the physical properties of footballs – especially in light of the fact that there