1.
Saskatchewan Roughriders
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The Saskatchewan Roughriders are a professional Canadian football team based in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Roughriders play in the West Division of the Canadian Football League, the Roughriders were founded in 1910 as the Regina Rugby Club. Although they were not the first team to play football in Western Canada, the Roughriders are the third-oldest professional gridiron football team in existence today, and one of the oldest professional sports teams still in existence in North America. The team changed their name to the Regina Roughriders from the Regina Rugby Club in 1924, the Roughriders have played their home games at Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field since 1936. The team draws fans from across Saskatchewan and Canada who are known as the Rider Nation. The Roughriders play in the smallest market in the CFL, and they have finished first in the Western Division seven times and have won the Western championship a record 28 times. They have played in the championship game 19 times and won four Grey Cups, the team has had 20 players inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. The Riders biggest rival is the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, games between the two are sold out before the beginning of the season. The Roughriders Football Club and the city of Regina have hosted the Grey Cup three times, including a Roughrider win in the 101st Grey Cup, in July 2012, the Province of Saskatchewan announced that the Roughriders will have a new stadium completed in time for the 2017 season. They played most of their games at Park Hughes on 10th Avenue in Reginas north central section. The team was also a member of the Saskatchewan Rugby Football Union as it was organized on September 22 of that year. Regina played their first game against the Moose Jaw Tigers on October 1,1910, the Regina Rugby Club changed their colours again in 1912 to red and black and began an era of western football dominance. For every season of play in the SRFU, Regina won the championship, exerting their prowess over teams from Moose Jaw, Saskatoon. Beginning in the 1912 season, Regina won seven straight WCRFU titles, in 1923, Regina returned to power as they won their eighth western championship over the Winnipeg Victorias and earned the right to compete in the national playoffs. The club was given a bye and advanced straight to the Grey Cup finals for the first time, but were severely outmatched, losing 54–0 to Queens University at Varsity Stadium in Toronto. This was, and still is, the most lopsided defeat in Grey Cup history as the defending champion Queens won their third national championship at the expense of the Regina Rugby Club. Following their first Grey Cup loss, the changed their name to the Regina Roughriders in 1924 while retaining the colours of red. Ottawa also had a called the Ottawa Rough Riders, but the spelling was different
2.
Vicksburg, Mississippi
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Vicksburg is the only city and county seat of Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is located 234 miles northwest of New Orleans on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and 40 miles due west of Jackson and it is located on the Mississippi River across from the state of Louisiana. The city has increased in population since 1900, when 14,834 people lived here, the population was 26,407 at the 2000 census. In 2010, it was designated as the city of a Micropolitan Statistical Area with a total population of 49,644. This MSA includes all of Warren County, the area which is now Vicksburg was long occupied by the Natchez Native Americans as part of their historical territory along the Mississippi. The Natchez spoke a language isolate not related to the Muskogean languages of the major tribes in the area. Before the Natchez, other cultures had occupied this strategic area for thousands of years. The first Europeans who settled the area were French colonists, who built Fort-Saint-Pierre in 1719 on the bluffs overlooking the Yazoo River at present-day Redwood. They conducted fur trading with the Natchez and others and started plantations, on 29 November 1729, the Natchez attacked the fort and plantations in and around the present-day city of Natchez. They killed several hundred settlers, including the Jesuit missionary Father Paul Du Poisson, as was the custom, they took a number of women and children as captives. The Natchez War was a disaster for French Louisiana, and the population of the Natchez District never recovered. But, aided by the Choctaw, traditional enemies of the Natchez, the French defeated and scattered the Natchez and their allies, the Choctaw Nation took over the area by right of conquest and inhabited it for several decades. Under pressure from the US government, in 1801 the Choctaw agreed to cede nearly 2,000,000 acres of land to the US under the terms of the Treaty of Fort Adams. The treaty was the first of a series that led to the removal in 1830 of most of the Choctaw to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Some Choctaw remained in Mississippi, citing article XIV of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, they became citizens of the state and they struggled to maintain their culture against the pressure of the binary slave society, which classified people as only white or black. In 1790, the Spanish founded a military outpost on the site, when the Americans took possession in 1798 following the American Revolutionary War and a treaty with Spain, they changed the name to Walnut Hills. The small village was incorporated in 1825 as Vicksburg, named after Newitt Vick and they captured and hanged five gamblers who had shot and killed a local doctor. The historian Joshua D. Rothman calls this event the deadliest outbreak of violence in the slave states between the Southampton Insurrection and the Civil War
3.
Canadian Football League
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The Canadian Football League is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football and its nine teams, which are located in nine separate cities, are divided into two divisions, the East Division, with four teams, and the West Division with five teams. As of 2016, the features a 20-week regular season. The CFL was officially founded on January 19,1958, the league was formed from a merger between the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union founded in 1907 and the Western Interprovincial Football Union founded in 1936. Rugby football began to be played in Canada in the 1860s, the CRFU was reorganized as the Canadian Rugby Union in 1891, and served as an umbrella organization for several provincial and regional unions. The Grey Cup was donated by Governor General Earl Grey in 1909 to the winning the Senior Amateur Football Championship of Canada. By that time, the sport as played in Canada had diverged markedly from its rugby origins, in 1956, the IRFU and WIFU formed a new umbrella organization, the Canadian Football Council. In 1958, the CFC left the CRU and became the Canadian Football League, as part of an agreement between the CRU and CFL, the CFL took possession of the Grey Cup, even though amateurs had not competed for it since 1954. The CRU remained the governing body for amateur play in Canada, initially, the two unions remained autonomous, and there was no intersectional play between eastern and western teams except at the Grey Cup final. This situation was analogous to how the American baseball leagues operated for years. The IRFU was renamed the Eastern Football Conference in 1960, while the WIFU was renamed the Western Football Conference in 1961, also in 1961, limited intersectional play was introduced. It was not until 1981 that the two agreed to a full merger, becoming the East and West Divisions of the CFL. With the merger came a full interlocking schedule of 16 games per season, Other team names had traditional origins. With rowing a national craze in the late 19th century, the Argonaut Rowing Club of Toronto formed a team for its members off-season participation. The football team name Toronto Argonauts still remains though it. After World War II, the two teams in Hamilton—the Tigers and the Flying Wildcats—merged both their organizations into the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, after the 1981 season, the Alouettes folded and were replaced the next year by a new franchise named the Concordes. In 1986 the Concordes were renamed the Alouettes to attract more fan support, the demise of the Alouettes forced the League to move its easternmost Western team, Winnipeg, into the East Division. In 1993, the league admitted its first United States-based franchise, after modest success, the league then expanded further in the U. S. in 1994 with the Las Vegas Posse, Baltimore Stallions, and Shreveport Pirates
4.
American football positions
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In American football, each team has 11 players on the field at one time. The specific role that a player takes on the field is called his position, under the modern rules of American football, teams are allowed unlimited substitutions, that is, teams may change any number of players after any play. This has resulted in the development of three platoons of players, the offense, the defense, and the special teams, within those platoons, various specific positions exist depending on what each players main job is. In American football, the offense is the side in which the players have possession of the ball and it is their job to advance the ball towards the opponents end zone to score points. The backs and receivers are also known as skill position players or as eligible receivers. Offensive linemen are not usually eligible to advance the ball past the line of scrimmage during a play, the organization of the offense is strictly mandated by the rules, there must be at least seven players on the line of scrimmage and no more than four players behind it. The only players eligible to handle the ball during a play are the backs. The remaining players are considered ineligible, and may only block, within these strictures, however, creative coaches have developed a wide array of offensive formations to take advantage of different player skills and game situations. The following positions are standard in every game, though different teams will use different arrangements of them. The offensive line is responsible for blocking. The offensive line consists of, Center The center is the player who begins the play from scrimmage by snapping the ball to the quarterback. As the name suggests, the center usually plays in the middle of the offensive line, like all offensive linemen, the center has the responsibility to block defensive players. The center often also has the responsibility to call out blocking assignments, offensive guard Two guards line up directly on either side of the center. Like all interior linemen, their function is to block on both running and passing plays, in such cases, the guard is referred to as a pulling guard. Guards are typically shorter builds than tackles but taller than centers, offensive tackle Two tackles play outside of the guards. Their role is primarily to block on both running and passing plays, the area from one tackle to the other is an area of close line play in which blocks from behind, which are prohibited elsewhere on the field, are allowed. For a right-handed quarterback, the tackle is charged with protecting the quarterback from being hit from behind. Like a guard, the tackle may have to pull, on a running play, the six backs and receivers are those that line up outside or behind the offensive line
5.
Running back
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A running back is an American and Canadian football position, a member of the offensive backfield. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback for a play, to catch passes from out of the backfield. There are usually one or two running backs on the field for a play, depending on the offensive formation. A running back may be a halfback or a fullback, a running back will sometimes be called a feature back if he is the teams starting running back. The halfback or tailback position is responsible for carrying the ball on the majority of running plays, in the modern game, an effective halfback must have a blend of both quickness and agility as a runner, as well as sure hands and good vision up-field as a receiver. Quarterbacks depend on halfbacks as a safety valve receiver when primary targets downfield are covered or when they are under pressure, occasionally, halfbacks line up as additional wide receivers. As a trick play, running backs are used to pass the ball on a halfback option play or halfback pass. The difference between halfback and tailback is the position of the player in the offensive formation. In historical formations, the lined up approximately halfway between the line of scrimmage and the fullback. Because the halfback is usually the main ball carrier, modern offensive formations have positioned the halfback behind the fullback. As a result, some systems or playbooks will call for a tailback as opposed to a halfback, in most modern college and professional football schemes, fullbacks carry the ball infrequently, instead using their stronger physiques as primary lead blockers. On most running plays, the leads the halfback, attempting to block potential tacklers before they reach the ball carrier. When fullbacks are called upon to carry the ball, the situation calls for gaining a short amount of yardage. Fullbacks are technically running backs, but today the term running back is used in referring to the halfback or tailback. Although modern fullbacks are rarely used as carriers, in previous offensive schemes fullbacks would be the designated ball carriers. In high school football, where player sizes vary greatly, fullbacks are still used as ball carriers. In high school and college offenses, the triple option uses the fullback as a primary ball carrier. The fullback plays a role by establishing an inside running threat on every play
6.
College football
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It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. No minor league farm organizations exist in American football and it is in college football where a players performance directly impacts his chances of playing professional football. The best collegiate players will declare for the professional draft after 3 to 4 years of collegiate competition. Those not selected can still attempt to land an NFL roster spot as a free agent. Even after the emergence of the professional National Football League, college football remained extremely popular throughout the U. S, in many cases, college stadiums employ bench-style seating, as opposed to individual seats with backs and arm rests. This allows them to more fans in a given amount of space than the typical professional stadium. College athletes, unlike players in the NFL, are not permitted by the NCAA to be paid salaries, colleges are only allowed to provide non-monetary compensation such as athletic scholarships that provide for tuition, housing, and books. Modern North American football has its origins in various games, all known as football, by the 1840s, students at Rugby School were playing a game in which players were able to pick up the ball and run with it, a sport later known as Rugby football. The game was taken to Canada by British soldiers stationed there and was soon being played at Canadian colleges, the first documented gridiron football match was a game played at University College, a college of the University of Toronto, November 9,1861. One of the participants in the game involving University of Toronto students was William Mulock, a football club was formed at the university soon afterward, although its rules of play at this stage are unclear. In 1864, at Trinity College, also a college of the University of Toronto, F. Barlow Cumberland, modern Canadian football is widely regarded as having originated with a game played in Montreal, in 1865, when British Army officers played local civilians. The game gradually gained a following, and the Montreal Football Club was formed in 1868, early games appear to have had much in common with the traditional mob football played in England. The games remained largely unorganized until the 19th century, when games of football began to be played on college campuses. Each school played its own variety of football, Princeton University students played a game called ballown as early as 1820. A Harvard tradition known as Bloody Monday began in 1827, which consisted of a mass ballgame between the freshman and sophomore classes, in 1860, both the town police and the college authorities agreed the Bloody Monday had to go. The Harvard students responded by going into mourning for a figure called Football Fightum. The authorities held firm and it was a dozen years before football was again played at Harvard. Dartmouth played its own version called Old division football, the rules of which were first published in 1871, all of these games, and others, shared certain commonalities
7.
Washington State University
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Washington State University is a public research university located in Pullman, Washington, in the Palouse region of the northwest United States. It is ranked in the top 140 universities in America with high research activity, with an undergraduate enrollment of 24,470 and a total enrollment of 29,686, it is the second largest institution of higher education in Washington state behind the University of Washington. The university also operates campuses across Washington known as WSU Spokane, WSU Tri-Cities, in 2012, WSU launched an Internet-based Global Campus, which includes its online degree program, WSU Online. These campuses award primarily bachelors and masters degrees, freshmen and sophomores were first admitted to the Vancouver campus in 2006 and to the Tri-Cities campus in 2007. Total enrollment for the four campuses and WSU Online exceeds 29,686 students, WSUs athletic teams are called the Cougars and the school colors are crimson and gray. Six mens and nine womens varsity teams compete in NCAA Division I in the Pac-12 Conference, both mens and womens indoor track teams compete in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. Washington State College was established by the Washington Legislature on March 28,1890, the institution was one of the land-grant colleges created under the 1862 federal Morrill Act signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. The federal land grants for the new institution included 90,000 acres of land for an agricultural college and 100,000 acres for a school of science. After an extended search for a location, the states new land-grant college opened in Pullman on January 13,1892, the year 1897 saw the first graduating class of seven men and women. The school changed its name from Washington Agricultural College and School of Science to State College of Washington in 1905, the name was changed by the state legislature to Washington State University 58 years ago in 1959. Prior to Bryans arrival, the university suffered through significant organizational instability. Bryan guided WSU toward respectability and is arguably the most influential figure in the history of the university, the landmark clock tower in the center of campus is his namesake. WSUs role as an institution became clear in 1894 with the launch of its first Agricultural Experiment Station west of the Cascade Mountains near Puyallup. WSU has subsequently established extension offices and research centers in all regions of the state, with research facilities in Prosser, Mount Vernon. In 1989, WSU officially gained branch campuses in Spokane, the Tri-Cities, overall, the Federal Government and the State of Washington have entrusted 190,000 acres of land to WSU for agricultural and scientific research throughout the Pacific Northwest. The veterinary school was elevated to status in 1916, becoming the College of Veterinary Medicine in 1925. Graduate education began in the years and, in 1902, the first masters degree was conferred. In 1917, the institution was organized into five colleges and four schools, in 1922 a Graduate School was created
