Greetings from the desk of Dr Footius Balloonicus.
The football tradition of the play action
pass, along with any number of other deceptive
plays, find echoes in the ancient past.
As we hear from the 2nd century Greek rhetorician
Ioulios Polydeukes, commonly known as Julius
Pollux, there was a game known as phaininda,
which may have taken its name from Phaenides,
its inventor; "But," he conjectures, "perhaps
the name comes from phenakizein, 'to deceive',
because in this game, they show the ball to
one man and then throw to another, contrary
to expectation."
