30 replies to this topic

[Shipley]

I still have two old school spinner type football games from my childhood -- Pro Football by Milton Bradley, and All American Football by Cadaco. All American Football has a great scoreboard you can set up on the board along with different play scenarios you can put over the two spinners, while Pro Football is more minimalist, with pass, ground plays and kicks spinners, along with two teams and a 10 yard marker that move up and down grooves in the field. Got them both as Christmas gifts in the late 60s, and not surprisingly, all of the players pictured on both boxes are white guys. Spent much more time playing with them than I did with the electric football set I also received around that time and pretty much abandoned after using it a couple of times over the Christmas holiday. Completely share the sentiment of the group that electric football was worthless, and so many of us were disappointed when we finally got it. For those who have not toured NFL Films, the room with Steve Sabol's collection of football games on display is reason enough to make the pilgrimmage!

[Todd Pence]

One game I remember vividly and haven't seen mentioned here yet was "Talking Football". This was a board game in which the key components were a record player and a series of small records. There were ten different records that were offensive plays the player on offense was supposed to pick (from choices such as "End Run", "Off Tackle", "Screen Pass" and "Long Bomb"). They would select one and then put it in the player without shoving it all the way in. The defensive player would then spin the disc to a corresponding defense they wanted to play - anything from "short yardage" to "prevent". They then would slide the disc all the way in the player, at which time the result of the play would be played on the record player in the form of a radio broadcast. The kid who lived next door to me had this game and we played it frequently, it was instrumental in me becoming a football fan!

I also believe I had All American Football - was that the one which you slid colored discs into plastic spinner holders and then the spinner determined the result of the play?

In 1979, my father wrote a football simulation game for our home computer, in standard basic language. It was pretty sophisticated for the time. A printout of this may still exist somewhere.

[JWL]

What years were you at WVU, JWL? I was there from 1986-90, and worked in the library system there in the early 90's, also taking classes from 1994-96.

I was only there during the 1997-98 school year. The Spring 1998 semester was legendary. I was on the 1st floor at Lyon Tower with a crazy bunch of people.

Let's see what I can share on this family website. One guy ran around the entire floor (a big square with girls rooms on one side, guys on the other, and an elevator and lounge in the middle) naked one night. A couple years ago he went with the name "Lyon Tower Nudist" for a Yahoo football pick 'em set.

From his 7th floor window some random jerk threw a lemon at me while I was walking outside. It missed my face by inches. A few weeks later, I went to his floor and by chance his door was open and nobody was in the room. I went in, threw his stuff around and left.

The Lyon Tower Nudist stole a truck from a gas station the last night of the semester.

I am a great toad catcher. One night while drunk I noticed a toad at least 30 feet away. A streetlight helped me see it. I walked over to it and caught it instantly. My roommate was hysterical and later told everyone he knew that I was like an Aborigine. We then had the brilliant idea to put the toad under the door of the girl who the Lyon Tower Nudist had a crush on. 15 minutes later we passed the girl in the walkway between Lyon and Bennett Tower. She had just come inside after putting the toad back outside.


A friend from another tower punched an electrical box next to an elevator by Braxton Tower (named in honor of Jim Braxton) just to see what would happen. Naturally, Chris (aka Crack RZA) cut his hand open. Crack RZA called his friend from my floor about getting a ride to the hospital. The two of us met up with Crack RZA at this girl Cindy's room. We followed the trail of blood. The four of us then went to the hospital in a fifth person's car without that person knowing about it (Cindy had the car keys of her friend with benefits). That guy was upset later on when he had to clean up the blood in the car. While Chris was receiving medical attention, some pot was smoked in the car.

That was the kind of semester it was and these stories are a very small sampling.

I cannot share the garbage pail story or the pizza box story in this venue.

[3243]

I hated Electric Football, it was the worst, because no matter how hard you tried to set up the feelers on the players, they would all congregate in the middle of the field and moved around in a manner resembling square dancing.

The true value of that game was just getting to see the colors and uniforms of all of the other teams on the box (besides your local NFL team) back when there weren't many chances to see them, except on "Monday Night Football Halftime Highlights" and, maybe if you stayed up late enough, "This Week In Pro Football."

[Rupert Patrick]

I think APBA football came out in 1957. APBA baseball came out in 1951. Card and dice board games paved the way for computer simulations. In fact, Strat-o-matic is one of the major players in the computer football simulation industry. In baseball, APBA had a very large market share of the ciomputer baseball simulattion industry when they came out with a DOS based version of their master game in mid 1980s which they later moved over to windows with Ernie Harwell doing the play by play. When it came out it was ahead of its time but infighting between the developer and game company led to the developers abandoning the game. George Bush, David Eisenhower, Joe Torre and Curt Schilling are former APBA players (probably cards and dice version) Diamond Mind Baseball and Action PC Baseball have a big following as well and are good games although the creator of Diamond Mind sold out a few years ago. Strat and Action PC Football and Strat probably have the largest market share in the football industry. Games have advanced by leaps and bounds since the early days.

http://www.nytimes.c...9apba.html?_r=1

For those who have played APBA or Stratomatic Football games, is there any preference between the two? Which one is the better game? Which is more accurate? How do the quality of the cards over the years compare; can you play teams from the 60's against modern teams? Is it as complicated to play these games as it is Statis Pro Football? Are the computer versions better than the board games? As both APBA and Stratomatic Football are available on Ebay and the old cards are very pricey, I have thought of purchasing a set of APBA cards as I have an APBA Football starter game from I think the mid 90's that came with a couple teams but has the board and rules so all I would need is the old cards to start playing. But if the computer version is just as good and comes with all the old teams, I might instead opt for that instead of the board games.

[coach tj troup]

For those who have played APBA or Stratomatic Football games, is there any preference between the two? Which one is the better game? Which is more accurate? How do the quality of the cards over the years compare; can you play teams from the 60's against modern teams? Is it as complicated to play these games as it is Statis Pro Football? Are the computer versions better than the board games? As both APBA and Stratomatic Football are available on Ebay and the old cards are very pricey, I have thought of purchasing a set of APBA cards as I have an APBA Football starter game from I think the mid 90's that came with a couple teams but has the board and rules so all I would need is the old cards to start playing. But if the computer version is just as good and comes with all the old teams, I might instead opt for that instead of the board games.

...summer of '68 got the first stratomatic football game(based upon the '67 season). did not take long to see the inherent strategy advantages when you played two teams by yourself. when playing with friends so much better. later(1980), friend had an updated version,and so many improvements. still have the game, all the cards, in the original box.

[Todd Pence]

The year I lived in the Towers, they still hadn't been named yet and were given numerical designations. Supposedly Major Harris was living in the same Tower as I was, but I don't know whether he actually did. It's possible that he may have had alternate accomodations elsewhere.

[JWL]

The year I lived in the Towers, they still hadn't been named yet and were given numerical designations. Supposedly Major Harris was living in the same Tower as I was, but I don't know whether he actually did. It's possible that he may have had alternate accomodations elsewhere.

I have no idea where any football players resided when I was there. As a matter of fact, I never even once saw Marc Bulger, Amos Zereoue, Anthony Becht or Gary Stills anywhere on campus. Obviously, it is a huge campus so it was possible to never bump into such people.

I bet Harris was in one of the towers due to their proximity to the Coliseum and stadium.

[Todd Pence]

I have no idea where any football players resided when I was there. As a matter of fact, I never even once saw Marc Bulger, Amos Zereoue, Anthony Becht or Gary Stills anywhere on campus. Obviously, it is a huge campus so it was possible to never bump into such people.

I bet Harris was in one of the towers due to their proximity to the Coliseum and stadium.

I had Browning Nagle and James Jett enrolled in classes in which I was in, but they were both no-shows. I did share a PRT ride with Nagle once. He transferred to Louisville after his redshirt year when it became apparent that he was not going to beat out Major, to later become the Cards starting QB.

Mike Fox (later a New York Giant)'s girlfriend lived next door to my house on First Street during my Junior year, so I saw a lot of Mike to say hi to. One football player I was on conversational terms with was quarterback Chris Gray, who was later killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack. Real nice guy.

[jackfu]

Great thread, thanks! I believe the precursors to "computer football" games go back into the '40's with some that bore Jim Prentice's name and consisted of electric circuits that determined play results. I recall several games such as E. S. Loew's Rose Bowl game, (1970) which, like many others of the day relied upon interconnected dials that determined game play. Eletronic Data Controls produced a game called "Computer Football" beginning in 1969, which came the closest I think, to its namesake in sophistication, at least. It was very expensive for the day (~$50.00, I recall). At the time an "only-child-spoiled-brat" neighbor kid got that one for Christmas and was the envy of the neighborhood. I didn't care for the style of play and the results at the time, but I have purchased several versions of it in the past few years for nostalgic purposes.

[apbaball]

For those who have played APBA or Stratomatic Football games, is there any preference between the two? Which one is the better game? Which is more accurate? How do the quality of the cards over the years compare; can you play teams from the 60's against modern teams? Is it as complicated to play these games as it is Statis Pro Football? Are the computer versions better than the board games? As both APBA and Stratomatic Football are available on Ebay and the old cards are very pricey, I have thought of purchasing a set of APBA cards as I have an APBA Football starter game from I think the mid 90's that came with a couple teams but has the board and rules so all I would need is the old cards to start playing. But if the computer version is just as good and comes with all the old teams, I might instead opt for that instead of the board games.

APBA had the reputation as being more fun to play but Strat had the reputation as being more complex and more realistic. APBA's game was pretty basic with only 2 running plays and 2 passing plays so the strategy was more do I call run or pass and who do I run or throw to. On defense you call run, pass or basic and decide whethe to key on anyone, double someone or blitz. APBA also had only 3 defensive indexes against the run and pass. The plus side was it played faster with fewer charts to flip through. The individual stats were pretty accurate though since with fewer possibilities the higher the probabiity of replicating an outcome. Strat was pretty accurate as well. APBA came out with a more complex master game in the 80s that had more plays that improved its realism and was fun to play on the computer but the Windows version was buggy and it is a dead program. Strat's computer version is still alive and ticking and has a large customer base. Both games have strong supporters and will tell you they their game is the better one. One of the things APBA and Strat have over modern games is the players were rated and carded immediately after a season ended since those games have been around for 50 years. Newer competitors have issued older seasons and my question is how do you rate a player 50 years later? Can anyone today say with certainty for example how good a DT was against the run in 1966 or a CB was against the pass in 1966? APBA and Strat versions of older card sets were published within six months after a season ended when their performance was still fresh in their minds.

I am not sure any board game or computer simulation can accurately pit modern teams vs teams of the 60s since the game is so much different. How would Lombardi's Packers stop teams using a 4WR or 5 WR formation? They didn't play much nickel at all and have such limited rosters they didn't have many reserve DBs and the ones they did have played very little. You'd have to have the LBs covering WR and theoretically, they would not fare well. On 3rd downs older teams would be throwing into nickel and dime coverages and older Qbs had much higher INT%. Throw in kicking and older team's would be at a big disadvantage.