Talk:John Heisman/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 14:32, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:32, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• There are a few phrases insufficiently paraphrased from the sources: "the first of many permanent alterations", "too troublesome for Buchtel’s unusually tall quarterback, Harry Clark" are two examples. Please take a look here and clean these up.
• There are a great many quotes used; I think some of them need to be cut completely, or shortened, or paraphrased. For example there are three quotes in the last paragraph of the lead; it would be easy enough to summarize the positive comments and just use one of the quotes. Why do we need the quote from Pope in the "Early life" section? Why do we have two separate eye-witness accounts of the same play? The first paragraph of the Clemson section has three separate quotes; do we really need these? And why do we need the extended blockquote following? I'm not saying we have to get rid of all of these, but at the moment the article reads like a framework largely held together by quotes.
• There are multiple Harvard errors in the footnotes; footnotes 31, 36, 52, 57, 73, and 106 all have CITEREF errors, as do Haney, Magee, McMath, and Powers in the bibliography.

Fixing the first two points will require a fair bit of work, so I'm going to hold off on continuing the review till those are addressed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:44, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I cut a few quotes. Any better? I am partial to the extended quote in the Clemson section about Toots Douglas's punt, given its unreal distance and its showing off Heisman's vocabulary. I am not sure what you mean by the quote by Pope in the early section; that Heisman's father didn't like football? That seemed a fact worth relaying. Cake (talk) 22:38, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

To my eye there are still too many quotes, but let's leave it for now -- if I can't justify the comment under WP:GACR it doesn't matter here. I agree the quote in the Clemson section is nice to have. Yes, the fact that his father disliked football is worth including, but it doesn't have to be conveyed by a quote -- you could say "Heisman's father disliked football [or "considered football uncouth"], and refused to watch his son play at Titusville". As it happens I think quoting "bestial" is reasonable; most of your quotes can be justified -- I just don't think there should be so many. Anyway, as I said, we can let it go, though I think it would be an issue if you were to go to WP:FAC.

The harv errors are still there -- you can see them by installing this script.

I'll do another pass through and make more comments, probably later this morning. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:09, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

I was about to do another pass, but decided to read what I could of the sources first, since some of them are available online. I am starting to wonder if the article is a bit short for the subject. There's a 272-page book about him (Heisman & Schlabach); can we really only have six sentences taking him up to age 18? The chapter by Pope gives a few nice details that I think could be used -- for example, it apparently took Heisman several tries to persuade the rules committee to allow a forward pass, but you only give this a single sentence. Isn't this a fairly major moment in the evolution of American football? I'll look a bit further and see what else I can find, but it does seem a bit thin at the moment. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:07, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

This seems to have some more coverage on the rules change, and given the date I suspect it's one of the sources used by the other books. Will look further; but please say if you disagree with the idea that the article could be expanded. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:39, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and make notes on the article as it stands, and come back to the question of whether it could be expanded afterwards.

• The subsections under "Early coaching career" are so short they look bitty; I'd suggest eliminating them and making it one narrative section. Among other things it would make it easier for you to give the Oberlin-Buchtel-Oberlin sequence, which is confusing at the moment because you give it as 1892-1894-1893 because of the subheads.
• Heisman implemented seven-man interference: the links don't explain this at all, and it's quite opaque to someone who knows little of American football.

  I still think this needs more. I watch a little American football when I'm at the gym; I'm no expert but I understand the most basic rules. I don't know what this means, and I think I'm in the target audience. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:07, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

• He witnessed one of the first illegal forward passes: a short description would be interesting to the reader, particular in light of Heisman's later support for the rule change.
• The quote from Fuzzy Woodruff about selections could be shortened to the last clause: "as good a...ever produced", along with an explanation of what "All-Southern" selections were, and how they were selected, which would also make it clearer to the reader why it's relevant that Heisman was a sportswriter. This is the only mention of his work as a sportswriter, isn't it? Can we get some more indication of what he did and over what time? Did he write articles for sports magazines, or reportage for papers, to qualify as a voter for the All-Southern selection?
• he coached four winning seasons and three Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) titles: needs a little rewording; he didn't coach the titles.
• Heisman once described his style of play at Clemson as "radically different from anything on earth": I've no idea what this is referring to. Can this be expanded?

  Your comment that Heisman clearly thought he was innovative would be a good introduction; perhaps "Heisman considered himself an innovator at Clemson, later saying...". That might justify bringing the Fuzzy Woodruff quote up into the main text as a counterpoint. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:07, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

• Fuzzy Woodruff wrote "the just historian will reach the inevitable conclusion that Heisman never did anything that it wasn't customary for his rivals to do.": I don't follow this either. Also, per MOS:LQ, that period should be outside the quotes.
• The immediate aftermath resulted in the suspension of the rivalry until 1909: not sure what's intended here. Do you mean "in the aftermath the rivalry was suspended"? Or was there some other aftermath than the suspension?
• As one writer describes, "...: "describes" takes a direct object, so I'd use "said" without the comma, or make it "describes the scene" or something like that.
• It seems odd to mention the bushel of apples per point but then not give the score, just the yardage.

  After rereading this and looking at the source, I figured this out, but I found it confusingly worded. We have exact dates in the source; can we give the month and year, at least? And making the sequence chronological would make it much easier to follow -- you give the later score before the earlier score. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:07, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

• the week before, Clemson had beaten Georgia 29–0: the week before what? No date or other time indication has been given other than "the following season".

  This is the same point as the one above, now that I understand the sequence. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:07, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

• The Anderson Daily Intelligencer was just a small-town newspaper; Anderson had a population of perhaps 6-7,000, according to our article on it. I think the paper's opinion of Sitton and Sadler has to be quoted in a way that makes that apparent to the reader, if you use the quote at all; it might be better to leave the quote to the articles about those players, where I see it is included.
• the $415.11 to hire Heisman: annual salary? Later in the article his starting salary at Tech is given as $2,250, which is $50 more than his Clemson salary, but this is only four years later. Did his salary at Clemson get multiplied by four in that time?

  The explanation in Riley could give you a few more words, which I think would be interesting to the reader; how about "Auburn graduate Walter Riggs started an association to help pay Heisman's salary, which was $1,800 per year, and raised $415.11"? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:37, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

• The sequence of events in a couple of places is given out of chronological order; that's often OK, but sometimes it makes it a little harder for the reader to follow. For example, you mention Walter Riggs helping bring Heisman to Clemson only after giving the results of Heisman's career there; it would go more naturally with the mention of his hire. Another example: The Georgia Tech paragraph does exactly the same thing.
• It sounds like Heisman invented, or at least made famous, the jump shift; is that correct? If so I think this article should say so, and give more details. Generally if he was a pioneer in something football-related (and Pope makes him the inventor of multiple football tactics) then I think the article should give details.

  The explanation is helpful, but did he invent it? The article doesn't say. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:07, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

• The second paragraph of the 1915-1918 section says the 1915 was dubbed the greatest, but then says the 1916 team "seemed to personify Heisman", which is a bit abrupt; the details don't come to the next sentence or two, and when they do come, it's just the Cumberland game that was described. So what was it about that team that personified Heisman? And how come the 1916 was the first time to make Tech nationally prominent, when the 1915 team had won a national championship?

  Your explanation, is good, but you say you're not sure; can we be definite enough to give the reader some form of the explanation you give? If that's original research or synthesis then I guess that's not possible; maybe we could do a bit of rewording in that case. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:07, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

• This is exemplified in his speeches, one of which is given here: well, a quote is given. And was that really said to encourage his team? Neither the source you give nor Pope (who also quotes it) says so.

I'll stop there and let you respond; I have some concerns about the prose, but my main concern as far as the GA criteria go is 3a: is it broad enough in its coverage? Rather than finish going through the article I'll wait to see whether you think more can be added, and once we've settled that and the issues above are addressed I'll do another pass. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:53, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again for your time and insight. Unfortunately, I don't know much about Heisman's style of play at Clemson, except for Heisman's quote suggesting it was innovative. Even this is tempered by the following Woodruff quote. The source on the $415.11 also mentions Heisman had an $1800 salary, so I'm a bit unclear what it was for. Riggs deserves some mention, though. Yes, the jump shift was also called the Heisman shift. I added an explanation of how it worked. What about the 1916 team "seemed to personify Heisman"? Not sure, other than they were good. The 1915 team only won a Southern championship. They would not have been considered as good as e. g. Cornell. The 1915 team also wasn't a part of a conference. The 1916 team had a better claim to conference champion, and then it had the 222-0 win over Cumberland. Not sure of any other reason for them to be nationally prominent in 1916. If we cover everything Heisman pioneered, the article would be quite lengthy. Never seen a story for starting the "hike" or the change from quarters to halves, but he is consistently given those. His hall of fame article says he dreamed up the scoreboard, which seems possibly dubious. Surely baseball teams had scoreboards before Heisman. Cake (talk) 00:46, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

I've struck some of the points above. I've responded to your comments mostly at the bullet points that are relevant; it seemed easier to follow that way. Re the hike and quarters/halves and the scoreboard: if these things are commonly said of him I think the article has to cover them, if only to say the truth of the claims is not known. You say the article would be quite lengthy if we covered everything he pioneered, but if he pioneered so many things, shouldn't the article be longer? What would be the justification for omitting them? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:07, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

It should. Sometimes with these college football personalities, confirming an invention is like confirming a quote by an Ancient Greek or Founding Father of America. One will find maybe three different people all claiming it. So, it might be easier to just list at the end. Luckily, I found sources for most of Heisman's, and added those to the article's body. He did seem to invent the jump shift, though the only source found which pinpoints a date says "by 1916" he had implemented it. It was also not the idea of the scoreboard, but downs and yardage (e. g. 1st and 10) being posted on the scoreboard which gets attributed to him. All I found was that it was at Georgia Tech, but not which year. The rest could be pinpointed. He always pulled his guards, the hike was at Auburn, etc. I will try to look more into why 1916 'seemed to personify Heisman'. I've tried to cover Tech football from 1915 to 1928, so if anybody knows I should, but that might be a fancy way of saying "was really good". Cake (talk) 12:36, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

That all sounds reasonable. Let me know when you're ready for me to take another look. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:48, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Hope I've fixed enough. Thanks again. Cake (talk) 15:14, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Just looked through and I think you've fixed everything I commented on. I'll read through again and add any more comments I can find, but I think we're getting close. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:44, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Just a couple of points before I pass this for GA.

• What is the copyright status of the long quote about the 109-yard punt? The book the quote is taken from is dated 2012, so that's obviously not the source; do we know the publication date of the source quote, and whether it's copyrighted?
• Georgia Tech used to play basketball in the Heisman Gym: Not sure what this means -- do you mean the gym was named that when he coached there?
• Since the 1915, 1916, and 1917 each received plaudits and each outdid the previous team, I think it would be good to signpost this for the reader. How about joining the paragraphs like so: "..greatest in Georgia Tech's history up to that point". However, the team continued to improve over the next two seasons. One writer claimed..."
• There's no citation for the sentence about the Auburn Dramatic Club, nor for the sentence about the Heisman Trust taking over from the DAC.

I also have a couple of suggestions for improvements, in case you're thinking of taking this to FAC. These points are not an issue for GA.

• I still think there are too many quotes; it unbalances the article.
• The lead has a slew of date ranges that make for very bumpy reading. Can we eliminate some of them? The details are in the body of the article, and the reader doesn't need to know in paragraph one that Heisman was at Oberlin in 1892 and 1894 but not 1893.
• You don't explain who the "Volunteers" are before using the name; OK for most football fans, I know, but that's not everyone.
• I'm curious as to why this page says 99 yards is the longest punt in college football history.
• "Mythical" is probably not the right adjective for "all-star team"; you mean something like "imaginary" or "ideal", or perhaps just rephrase.

As I said, these don't have to be fixed for me to pass the article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:22, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

The copyright status is a good question, and since I don't know I reluctantly removed it. I can be charitable and assume the NCAA focuses on 99-yard punts as the longest in history since a 109 yard punt is now impossible, but if not because of that it wouldn't be their first error. I decided to strike 'mythical' if that's a problem. It has a precedent, though in another context: mythical national championship. Just didn't want to convey the idea that the All-Southern team played anyone. Hopefully linking "all star" and "all america" is enough to explain. "Imaginary" or "ideal" would make me think Heisman was a Kantian. Cake (talk) 08:09, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, fair enough on "ideal". Your changes look good; passing GA. Thanks for putting up with my nitpicking! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:04, 1 January 2018 (UTC)