Introducing Minnesota to a Classic Way to Look at Football

It is the biggest football weekend of the year with Sunday’s Big Game coming up. You’ll have people like me who are there to watch the game, and despite all the other “stuff” going on around the game, for us, the game is the most important.  

Then you’ll have people who are just watching for the “social connection” so following the game, this way they can talk about the commercials and the half time show because they saw it.  

There will be a lot of people who watch the game who really don’t know much about football. They don’t know the rules or positions, and in some cases who’s playing.  

This got me thinking about watching football for the first time and not knowing what it was. Could you imagine not having an idea about America’s biggest game and trying to figure it out on your own? 

Allow me to introduce you to “What It Was, Was Football” from Andy Griffith. Yes, Andy from Mayberry. Like me, Andy was a North Carolina native and in his early years wanted to be a minister but got the calling into acting instead. The Urban Legend is back in 1953 Andy was going to speak at a Civic Club dinner and needed an opening Monologue style joke and he came up with this.  

The style you hear in Andy’s delivery is very similar to his character on “The Andy Griffith Show” and sounds very much like many of my relatives back in North Carolina.  

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This routine eventually sold more than 800,000 copies and peaked at #9 on the Billboard Chart in 1954. I hope you enjoy Andy Griffith at his finest in “What It Was, Was Football”.  

And Since it's spoken in such a Southern Dialect, here is the Script to the Monologue as Written by Andy Griffith: 

 It was back last October, I believe it was. We was going to hold a tent service off at this college town, and we got there about dinner time on Saturday. Different ones of us thought that we ought to get us a mouthful to eat before we set up the tent. So we got off the truck and followed this little bunch of people through this small little bitty patch of woods there, and we came up on a big sign that says, "Get something to Eat Here."  

I went up and got me two hot dogs and a big orange drink, and before I could take a mouthful of that food, this whole raft of people come up around me and got me to where I couldn't eat nothing, up like, and I dropped my big orange drink. Well, friends, they commenced to move, and there wasn't so much that I could do but move with them.  

Well, we commenced to go through all kinds of doors and gates and I don't know what- all, and I looked up over one of 'em and it says, "North Gate." We kept on a-going through there, and pretty soon we come up on a young boy and he says, "Ticket, please." And I says, "Friend, I don't have a ticket; I don't even know where it is that I'm a-going!" Well, he says, "Come on out as quick as you can." And I says, "I'll do 'er; I'll turn right around the first chance I get."  

Well, we kept on a-moving through there, and pretty soon everybody got where it was that they was a-going, because they parted and I could see pretty good. And what I seen was this whole raft of people a-sittin' on these two banks and a-lookin at one another across this pretty little green cow pasture.  

Somebody had took and drawed white lines all over it and drove posts in it, and I don't know what all, and I looked down there and I seen five or six convicts a running up and down and a-blowing whistles . And then I looked down there and I seen these pretty girls wearin' these little bitty short dresses and a-dancing around, and so I thought I'd sit down and see what it was that was a-going to happen.  

About the time I got set down good I looked down there and I seen thirty or forty men come a-runnin' out of one end of a great big outhouse down there and everybody where I was a-settin' got up and hollered! And I asked this fella that was a sittin' beside of me, "Friend, what is it that they're a-hollerin' for? Well, he whopped me on the back and he says, "Buddy, have a drink!" I says, "Well, I believe I will have another big orange. I got it and set back down.  

When I got there again I seen that the men had got in two little bitty bunches down there real close together, and they voted. They elected one man apiece, and them two men come out in the middle of that cow pasture and shook hands like they hadn't seen one another in a long time. Then a convict came over to where they was a-standin', and he took out a quarter and they commenced to odd man right there!  

After a while I seen what it was they was odd-manning for. It was that both bunchesfull of them wanted this funny lookin little pumpkin to play with. And I know, friends, that they couldn't eat it because they kicked it the whole evenin' and it never busted.  

Both bunchesful wanted that thing. One bunch got it and it made the other bunch just as mad as they could be! Friends, I seen that evenin' the awfulest fight that I ever have seen in all my life !! They would run at one -another and kick one- another and throw one another down and stomp on one another and grind their feet in one another and I don't know what- all and just as fast as one of 'em would get hurt, they'd take him off and run another one on !!  

Well, they done that as long as I set there, but pretty soon this boy that had said "Ticket, please." He come up to me and said, "Friend, you're gonna have to leave because it is that you don't have a ticket." And I says, "Well, all right." And I got up and left.  

I don't know friends, to this day, what it was that they was a doin' down there, but I have studied about it. I think it was that it's some kindly of a contest where they see which bunchful of them men can take that pumpkin and run from one end of that cow pasture to the other without gettin' knocked down or steppin' in somethin'.