Single Wing Formation

It was a sunny weekday morning and I was out on the deck reading an excellent new biography of Jim Thorpe and absorbed in the violent and corrupt early history of college football (nothing has changed in a 110 years). The author was discussing the invention of the single wing offense by Thorpe’s coach, Pop Warner, when it occurred to me that my father played in the single wing offense in high in the late 40s in Oklahoma. This was roughly 30 years after Jim Thorpe’s college football heyday and Olympic stardom.

I stopped reading and went into the living room to discuss this with my dad. We discussed all the particulars of the single wing offense in that era and frankly it shocked me to realize that the same offense could be used successfully at every level of football today. All you need is several backfield players who can run, block, pass and catch. They have to do it all. Surely there are athletes like that today, although so much specialization goes into football coaching where an offensive player only does one thing well that no coach really considers the idea.

A few teams at the pro level have infused elements of the single wing offense into their game plans, but the potential is there for so much more and fans would eat it up. It would also win.

There is such an apt metaphor in life with the single wing offense: doing many things well, no obsessive specialization, and keeping the defense off guard.

I only wish when Dad and I coached junior high football together in the 80s we had run the single wing offense. Why didn’t he suggest it!