They Pull off the "Hook and Ladder"
 

A high school semi-final game I did last Friday had a team down by 5 points on the last play of the game.

They attempted the hook and ladder and pulled it off for the touchdown.


TheSpec.com - Video

Boy does 12 take some getting used to. Just looks wrong.

Hook and lateral, not hook & ladder, unless the receivers were responding to a "fire" call.

Hook and lateral - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia gives legitimacy to both terms. :p

I've always heard both. I think the derivation is from hook (the route the receiver runs) and lateral (what happens after that), but in the way that terms in our language often get corrupted (or run through Cockney slang translators), it has become "hook and ladder" as that is an already-accepted phrase in our vernacular.

Speaking of that, here's probably the most famous instance of that play:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...nd_lateral.gif

why 12?
 

What league/state that allows 12 players and why did they do that?

Canadian football. 12 players on a 110 Yard field.

Actually 11 players and the tiny U.S. field was because Harvard did not have enough room on their field for the proper size Rugby pitch and so 100 yards with 10 yard end zones and 11 players was born!

Who was that signally the TD on the 8 yard line? :-)

A nice bit of trivia:)

That wasn't me.

I was signaling the TD on the goal line as the BJ.

That was far from a hook and whatever you want to call it. 5 backward passes on the last play of the game. And the second one was almost caught with a knee down.

So do Canadian rules only state that the teams must be dressed differently and not one in a colored jersey and the other in white? It wasn't hard to tell them apart but maroon and bright red on the same field looks odd to us southerners. It was like seeing Nebraska play Texas A&M both in home uniforms.

You must remember that the budgets for high school football in Canada are vastly different than in the U.S. There are not too many high schools with two sets of uniforms. So we must deal with uniforms that could look similar.

The Canadian rule book does not specify that the schools must wear different colours.

Then since you have had exposure to WWCFOA and the other official presumably has not, I can only assume that it was your proper WWCFOA exposure that had you using proper mechanics.

Actually I credit it to the HFOA training meetings and clinics, something WWCFOA lacks.

Forced evaluations can only go so far until you actually have to train your members.

Couldn't they just "borrow" the hockey sweaters? Isn't that where the money goes?

The (Cdn.) rule book doesn't specify different color uniforms but it does state, in Rule 1, Section 11, Article 1 (b) that, "No team shall wear uniforms that blend closely with the color of the ball...". Ergo, the lack of "Wild Rust" and "Antique Tawny" colors in uniform styling north of the border. It's all about fashion though, right boys?

I did a HS game three weeks ago where the home team wore white jerseys with navy blue pants and navy blue helmets. Away team? Yep, Light grey uniforms with navy blue pants and navy blue helmets. A night game too. And lousy lighting. And many of the home jerseys were dirty.

The ONLY difference was that one team had TV numbers, the other didn't. There was a fumble/scramble near the end of the game that resulted in a massive pile of bodies and when we finally peeled everyone off, we knew who had the ball, but didn't have a clue, given the conditions already mentioned, what team he played for.

I finally just said the heck with it and shouted, "69 has possession of the ball. 69....what damn team do you play for??". Didn't think he was going to lie about that one.....gotta love three down football, eh?

Not true. Harvard played 15s with everyone else until Yale prevailed to reduce sides to 11s in 1880, with an accompanying reduction in width of the field to what we have now. Yale had been used to a soccer-like game and wouldn't play the rugby game until then, but yielded on everything else and got as a concession a reduction in the number of players. Isn't that strange, conceding on a change in the entire nature of the game but getting the number of players they'd been used to? You'd think once you changed your game to that degree, your attitude about those particulars would change. Can you imagine if their baseball team had been in on the negotiations, and we'd be playing 9 a side now?

What you may be thinking about is that in 1906 consideration was given to widening the field, but the cement had just been poured for Harvard's Soldiers Field, which wouldn't accommodate the widening that was considered.

Robert

Stands up, addresses home & away sides: "I play for the school that's giving me A in all subjects this term."

I think there is some type of uniform mandate in High school that states by 2010 that home team must wear white or something to the fashion of each team having home and aways, Im in CA so it may be a CIF thing, I wish I could remember where I read it, It may have been in the rule book for NFHS....

Where did you find this trivia? Rites of Autumn? Some other history? (I will probably read immediately after finding out what it is) The stuff from Yale and Harvard is always so interesting; think Alonzo Stagg.

Damned if I can remember. I did a lot of study of this subject decades ago, but the business about Yale & 11s is widely available.

Your thinking about basketball. In basketball the home team usually wears white. Soon, if not this year already, the home team will be required to wear white. In football the home team usually wears a dark color while the visitors wear white or a light color. Beginning in 2012 the visitors will be required to wear a jersey that is mostly white while the home team's jersey will be mostly not white.

A few decades ago that was true in the pros, but the opposite way with high schools I was familiar with.