Fall Frenzy Meets Round Robin...

With snow now in the daily forecast, it has become apparent that Fall season has hit Denver.  And with the beginning of Fall marks the date for the our yearly round robin tournament...the Fall Frenzy!  On Saturday, October 3rd, our poet athletes will hit the Regis University field in a morning filled with soccer and hopefully not snow.

The question of the day is where did the term "round robin" come from.  Well, fret no longer because I am about to reveal the secret to the origin of this wonderful phrase.  According to the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson, the round robin was originally a petition, its signatures arranged in a circular form to disguise the order of signing.  The original phrase was "ruban rond" or "round ribbon" stemming from 17th-century France where government officials devised a method of signing their petitions on ribbons that were attached to the documents in a circular form.  This way no signer could be accused of being the ring leader of the grievance, and risk having his head chopped off.  How a phrase originally describing peition signing formed into a sports term is something that I do not have the answer to...but if you have the secret to this little known connection we would love for you to reveal it to us.