Kee On Sports Magazine Volume 1: “The Genesis”

The Penalty Flag Turns 80

By Jason Hannum

The penalty flag. It’s been a part of the game of football since……1941?
Before penalty flags, officials would blow horns & whistles. This caused confusion for those watching the game because not everyone in the stands could hear a horn or whistle. This caused confusion for players & coaches as well.

So a college coach in Northeast Ohio wanted to try something different.
Before a game on October 17, 1941, Dwight ‘Dike’ Beede, who was the head coach of Youngstown College (now Youngstown State University) asked his wife Irma Beede to sew strips of cloth from an old Halloween costume that was worn by their daughter. The costume was red & white so the flags that Mrs. Beede had sown together were red with white stripes.

On the day of the game before kickoff Beede held a meeting with all 4 members of the officiating crew as well as Os Doenges, the head coach of Oklahoma City University who was Youngstown’s opponent that day. ‘It’s just an experiment’ is what it was believed that Beede said in that pregame meeting. All the officials as well as Doenges agreed to use the flags during the game.

A few years later Jack McPhee, who was one of the officials for the Youngstown- Oklahoma City game, kept his flag & decided to use it when he officiated a Big Ten contest between Ohio State & Iowa. Big Ten commissioner Major John Griffith was in attendance that day & became very curious as to why he thought rags were being thrown. McPhee & Griffith spoke after the game. Griffith really liked the idea of the flags as the use of flags quickly spread to all levels of football.

At the 1948 American Football Coaches rules session the penalty flag was officially adopted. Later that year on September 17 the penalty flag was used for the very first time in an NFL game between the Green Bay Packers & the Boston Yanks.

Originally penalty flags used in NFL games were white. In 1965 the color of penalty flags was changed to yellow. In college football penalty flags were red up until the 1970’s when the NCAA decided to follow the NFL & have yellow penalty flags. Today all levels of football from youth leagues to high school to college & the NFL use yellow penalty flags to signify a penalty.
Not bad for ‘just an experiment.’