A Technology Touchdown 

By Sarah McVeigh

As a millennial, I often wonder how people survived without certain technology. How did you get from A to B without navigation? I just can’t imagine pulling out a paper map and figuring out which highway to take. I would constantly be lost, unable to go anywhere beyond Rockaway.

And how did people meet up with friends without a cellphone? You’re telling me you’d set a time and place, take the train into the city (how did you know what train to take without the Transit app?), find the restaurant, and actually meet up with your friends without any problems?! What if you were running late? What if one of you was at the bar while the other was at the table? I do not understand the logistics.

But this is a sports column, gosh darnit! So let’s talk about how sports, specifically football, ran smoothly without the technology we have now.

First, headsets. Headsets in football actually date back to 1956, when a Cleveland Browns’ coach, Paul Brown, illegally used a radio receiver for play calls. The NFL banned this use of technology until 1994, when it allowed the use of headsets between coaches, one offensive player, and one defensive player. Prior to this, coaches had to rely on a substitute player to run the play call from the sideline into the huddle. Now, it’s not only the head coaches that utilize the headsets, the majority of the coaching staff wear them, including offensive and defensive coordinators who might be up in the boxes. The use of this technology helped to speed up the game, which is why the NFL allowed it.

Another mind-blowing advancement is the sideline tablet. Did you know that they used to get black-and-white faxes with photos of previous plays on the sidelines? Faxes! Now teams can review plays instantly with tablets, allowing for immediate feedback and correction.

Then there’s the viewing experience. I wish we could go back to the days when games were on a select number of TV channels instead of every app imaginable. Like, now football is on YouTube TV … are you serious?

The biggest question is: How did people watch sports in black and white? How could you even tell teams apart? And I imagine black and white TVs were also quite blurry, too. It’s remarkable that sports viewing survived the 1950s. The yellow first-down line did not appear on television until September 27, 1998, during an ESPN broadcast of a game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Baltimore Ravens. Were sports viewers looking for the first down marker on the sidelines? That blows my mind.

There is no way I could watch football in black and white and without the first down marker. I would be lost. Almost as lost as I would be without navigation in my car!

I could write for days about all the negative effects of technology. Don’t forget I am a school social worker and have to deal with TikTok trends on a daily basis. But of course, there are some positives. I can FaceTime my mom, who lives across the country, search any question on Google, and watch football in color, with that helpful yellow first-down line, while watching an instant replay of my guy Cam Skattebo scoring a touchdown and doing a backflip.