How To Play Three Position Football: Pass-Catch-Defend Instructional Game for Boys and Girls

In the summer of 1967 I turned 12. I was a skinny kid no-bigger than four-two at a push. My brother Ben was 13 1/2 and already much bigger. As it turned out, my mother remarried that summer and her new husband had two children, John and Joanne. John was 6 months older than I but played in the same football and baseball bracket. One Fall day, shortly after the wedding, Mom and George up and moved us out to a great little town at the boarder of Michigan and Ohio, and planted us on a 40 acre farm, with horses, manure and hay - though no one else but us three to play sports with. So we played an untitled version of football, that I call Three Position Football - Pass, Catch and Defend. The title I later developed before pitching the game to a San Fernando Valley Parks and Recreation manager in Southern California. In looking back at playing this game, I learned that even though I was much smaller than my brothers, I still had my fair opportunity to keep up with them because of how TPF is structured. I could throw, I could defend, and I could catch, so it didn’t matter that they were so much bigger, better skilled and older than I. I had as much chance of scoring and winning as they did because of the point structure evened the playing field. And that success and chance of winning every time we played stuck in my head and heart. The fond memory of those days in the fall and later in the snow of playing that game wedged itself into my happy-zone. And it festered over many years. Until I finally had a reason to write it down and create a full blown tournament and school curriculum based on that very game we played out in the front lawn of our Jonesville, Michigan farmhouse. And this is the very football game that came out of playing it according to my memories of those days. The differences are: the enhanced scoring structure, the expanded tournament structure, the added Ref/ Coach/Player, the option of multiple sizes of balls and fields, the ability to create coaching jobs, the developing of afterschool programs, the fund raising tournaments at all sports levels, and the giving rise to an easy to construct Play-60 school football curriculum. There is how Three Position Football came to be structured into this tournament game. A game I hope you’ll find as fun and educational as did I when I first strapped on my tennis shoes and played with my two brothers overlooking US 12, halfway between Detroit and Chicago.