Two of the smartest football coaches of all time were Percy Haughton of Harvard and “Pop” Warner, who coached at Carlisle Institute and later at Stanford.

In 1908 Warner’s team from Carlisle was scheduled to play Harvard. The week before the Harvard game, Warner had used a clever trick to help defeat a strong Syracuse team. Carlisle players had pads sewn to their pants and jerseys. The pads were the same size, shape and color as a football, making it very difficult to tell which player had the football and which one was only pretending. When Carlisle started to practice on Harvard’s field the day before the game, Haughton saw the football-like pads.

“That’s not fair,” said Haughton mildly.

“It’s not against the rules,” laughed Warner. “I can put anything I like on my players’ jerseys.”

But Haughton had a few tricks up his sleeve. Just before kickoff time, Warner and Haughton met on the field to pick out the game football. Warner reached into the bag of balls Haughton had brought and pulled one out.

It was red! Haughton had dyed all the balls crimson, the color of Harvard’s jerseys.

“It’s not against the rules,” Haughton smiled. “A football doesn’t have to be brown, does it?”

Warner walked back to the sidelines muttering to himself. Harvard won the game, 17-0.

From The Giant Book of Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlisle_Indians_football