FLORIDA'S FIRST GAME OF FOOTBALL

Mission San Luis has a great tee shirt that they sell through their gift shop.  It has an artist's rendition of the rough and tumble ball game they played The Apalachee Indians were fierce, often violent competitors at this ball game.

These ball games were tradition, and involved some ancient beliefs.  Once organized and begun they lasted half a day, and would include at least 50, sometimes 100 people on a side.  On course, even then there was bettin on the results.  Players often got hurt, and some died.  A game would involve entire towns.  The competition would begin when one town would challenge another.  A courier who painted his face and part of his body red and black, and wore bells, rattles, horns, and a badger's tail, carried the challege. 

The game included a seven-foot high goalpost in the home team's open area.  Pegs made out of sassafras, and wild grape vines were wrapped around the structure.  Six women and six men used this to hoist the pol up.  An anchoring hole had already been created.  Atop the pole went an eagle's nest and shells.  Omens and rituals surrounded every part of the game.  The night before the villages dance, and were, to use one of current words, "rowdy."

The ball used during the game was created from deerskin, packed with Spanish moss.  Players kicked the ball at the goalpost.  If they hit the goalpost the team got one point.  Kicking the ball into the nest yielded two points.  The first team to reach eleven points won the game.

In the late 1600s the friars began to wonder about the game, and whether it was tied to demonic practices.  Games were usually dedicated to  the supernatural beings associated with the sun, thunder, rain, and other elements important to a successful harves.

A friar wrote a description of the game, including noting that when a scrimmage pile was broken up, some players were lifeless.  Some had their eyes gouged out, and bones were broken.  Each team would pour water on the survivors, and the game would continue until sunset.  The friars considered the entire spectacle un-Christian, and badgered the chiefs, until eventually the games were halted.