The Up Rights

The kick is up and it’s good sailing through the up rights. The up rights for those of you who are unfamiliar with football arte the field goal posts. Each post is precisely measured at a 90 degree angle thus the name up rights. Not many people know how or why they are where they are. Well let’s kick this subject off! Now a day you can locate the goal post in any football game across America. It is the big bright yellow poles that stand tall in the back of the end zone. This is not the original placement for the goals. In fact the goal posts at one point in time were located in the front of the end zone. Why would you do this? Almost everyone asks this question. It seems very easy for someone to get hurt by running into this pole when it is in their way. The NFL I believe very quickly recognized and addressed this issue moving the goal posts to the back of the end zone, a much smarter place that probably should have been the starting area they were placed and not in front of the end zone. The field goal design used to day in the National Football League is known as the Slingshot based on the fact that is looks like a sling shot. This design was created by Joel Rottman. Rottman started his idea from the bottom and worked his way up. Once his goal post idea was accepted by colleges it did not take very long for the national football league to adapt the same types of goals. Rottman is the3 only man who created and attributed ideas to this project he worked solely alone on this design and created it himself with no ones help. These are now one of the biggest contributing factors to the game of football. The up rights allow each team a chance to score any where from one to three extra points. These up rights are also used to win the game. With minimal amount of seconds left on the clock many teams look to kick the game winning field goal by kicking the ball through the up rights giving that team just enough points to come out victorious in their game. Believe it or not the up rights have a greater impact on the game of football than many people are willing to give them. All thanks to one man, Joel Rottman.