frequent injuries and led to legislation against them, the most important law providing for a limitation to the number of men who could be dropped back of the line, and practically keeping seven men drawn up in the line.
Penalties are of three kinds: (1) forfeiture of the game, for refusing to play when directed to do so by the referee, and for repeated fouls made with the intention of delaying the game; (2) disqualification of players for unnecessary roughness or ungentlemanly conduct; and (3) for infringement of rules, for which certain distances are taken away from the previous gains of the side making the fouls.
The game resolves itself into a series of scrimmages interspersed with runs and kicks. The systematized development of plays places at the disposal of the quarter an infinite variety of attack, which he seeks to direct at the opposing line with bewildering rapidity and dash. During the preliminary games of the season “straight football” is generally played; that is, intricate attacks are avoided and kicks and simple plunges into the line are mainly relied upon. “Trick plays,” which comprise all manœuvres of an intricate nature, are reserved for later and more important matches. Among these is the “fake (false) kick,” in which the full-back takes position as if to receive the ball for a kick, but the ball is passed to a different player for a run. Another play of this kind is the “wing-shift,” in which some or all of the players on one side of centre suddenly change to the other side, thus forming a mass and throwing the opponents’ line out of balance. To this category belong also “double passes,” “false passes,” “delayed passes,” “delayed runs” and “criss-crosses.”
Training for football in America resembles that for other sports in regard to food and hygiene. The coaching systems at the universities differ, but there is generally a head coach, who is assisted by graduates, each of whom pays especial attention to one set of men, one to the men in the centre of the line, one to the backs, another to the ends, &c. Candidates for the teams are put through a severe course of practice in catching punts and hard-thrown passes, in quick starts, falling on the ball, tackling a mechanical dummy, in blocking, breaking through the line, and all kinds of kicking, although in matches the kicking is generally left to one or two men who have shown themselves particularly expert. Every player is taught to dive for the ball whenever he sees it on the ground, as possession is of cardinal importance in American football, and dribbling for this reason is unknown. When running with the ball the player is taught to take short steps, to follow his interference, that is, not isolate himself from his defenders, and neither to slow up nor shut his eyes when striking the opposing line. Tackling well below the waist is taught, but it is a foul to tackle below the knee. The general rule for defensive work of all kinds is “play low.”
See Walter Camp, How to play Football, and the Official Football Guide (annual), both in Spalding’s Athletic Library; his Book of College Sports (New York, 1893), his American Football (New York, 1894), and his Football (Boston, 1896)—the last in co-operation with L.F. Deland; R.H. Barbour, The Book of School and College Sports (New York, 1904); W.H. Lewis, Primer of College Football (Boston, 1896). (E. B.; W. Ca.)
FOOTE, ANDREW HULL (1806–1863), American admiral, was
born at New Haven, Connecticut, on the 12th of September 1806,
his father, Samuel Augustus Foote (1780–1846), being a prominent
lawyer and Whig politician, who as U.S. senator moved in 1829
“Foote’s resolutions” on public lands, in the discussion of which
Daniel Webster made his “reply to Hayne.” He entered the
U.S. navy in 1822, and was commissioned lieutenant in 1830.
After cruising round the world (1837–1840) in the “John Adams,”
he was assigned to the Philadelphia Naval Asylum, and later
(1846–1848) to the Boston Navy Yard. In 1849 he was made
commander of the “Perry,” and engaged for two years in suppressing
the slave trade on the African coast. In 1856, as
commander of the “Portsmouth,” he served on the East India
station, under Com. James Armstrong, and he captured the
Barrier Forts near Canton. From October 1858 to the outbreak
of the Civil War, he was in charge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard,
becoming a full captain in 1861. In August 1861 he was assigned
to the command “of the naval operations upon the Western
waters.” His exploit in capturing Fort Henry (on the right
bank of the Tennessee river) from the Confederates, on the 6th
of February 1862, without the co-operation of General Grant’s
land forces, who had not arrived in time, was a brilliant success;
but their combined attack on Fort Donelson (12 m. off, on the left
bank of the Cumberland river), whither most of the Fort Henry
garrison had escaped, resulted, before its surrender (Feb. 16),
in heavy losses to Foote’s gunboats, Foote himself being severely
wounded. In March-April he co-operated in the capture of
New Madrid (q.v.) and Island No. 10. In June he retired from
his command and in July was promoted rear-admiral, and
became chief of the Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting. On
the 26th of June 1863 he died at New York.
See the life (1874) by Professor James Mason Hoppin (1820–1906).
FOOTE, MARY HALLOCK (1847– ), American author and
illustrator, was born in Milton, New York, on the 19th of
November 1847, of English Quaker ancestry. She was educated
at the Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Female Collegiate Seminary and at
the Cooper Institute School of Design for women, in New York.
In 1876 she married Arthur De Wint Foote, a mining engineer,
and subsequently lived in the mining regions of California,
Idaho, Colorado and Mexico. She is best known for her stories,
in which, as in her drawings, she portrays vividly the rough
picturesque life, especially the mining life, of the West. Some
of her best drawings appear in her own books. Among her
publications are The Led-Horse Claim (1883), John Bodewin’s
Testimony (1886), The Chosen Valley (1892), Cœur d’Alene
(1894); The Prodigal (1900), a novelette; The Desert and the
Sown (1902); and several collections of short stories, including
A Touch of Sun and other Stories (1903).
FOOTE, SAMUEL (1720–1777), English dramatist and actor,
was baptized at Truro on the 27th of January 1720. Of his
attachment to his native Cornwall he gives no better proofs
as an author than by making the country booby Timothy (in
The Knights) sound the praises of that county and of its manly
pastimes; but towards his family he showed a loyal and enduring
affection. His father was a man of good family and position.
His mother, Eleanor Goodere, whom he is said in person as
well as in disposition to have strongly resembled, he liberally
supported in the days of his prosperity, and after her death
indignantly vindicated her character from the imputations
recklessly cast upon it by the revengeful spite of the duchess
of Kingston. About the time when Foote came of age, he
inherited his first fortune through the murder of his uncle, Sir
John Dinely Goodere, Bart., by his brother, Captain Samuel
Goodere. Foote was educated at the collegiate school at
Worcester, and at Worcester College, Oxford, distinguishing
himself in both places by mimicry and audacious pleasantries
of all kinds, and, although he left Oxford without taking his
degree, acquiring a classical training which afterwards enabled
him neatly to turn a classical quotation or allusion, and helped
to give to his prose style a certain fluency and elegance.
Foote was “designed” for the law, but certainly not by nature. In his chambers at the Temple, and in the Grecian Coffee-house hard by, he learned to know something of lawyers if not of law, and was afterwards able to jest at the jargon and to mimic the mannerisms of the bar, and to satirize the Latitats of the other branch of the profession with particular success. The famous argument in Hobson v. Nobson, in The Lame Lovers, is almost as good of its kind as that in Bardell v. Pickwick. But a stronger attraction drew him to the Bedford Coffee-house in Covent Garden, and to the theatrical world of which it was the social centre. After he had run through two fortunes (the second of which he appears to have inherited at his father’s death), and had then passed through severe straits, he made his first appearance on the actual stage in 1744. It is said that he had married a young lady in Worcestershire; but the traces of his wife (he affirmed himself that he was married to his washer-woman) are mysterious, and probably apocryphal.
Foote’s first appearance as an actor was made little more than
