This American game was forged from blood, sweat, and tears. From thrilling plays to heart-wrenching moments, football captures the passion of its players and fans.
Walter Chauncey Camp is known as “The Father of American Football.” Born in New Britain, Conn., April 7, 1859, He went on to become a member of the Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee for 48 years. His smart mind would restructure the game from rugby to American football, creating the scrimmage line, the 11-man team, signal-calling, and the quarterback position. Camp was the creator of the rule where a team had to give up the ball unless it had advanced a specified distance within a set number of downs.
Camp studied medicine at Yale for two years, but gave it up to go to work in his uncle’s watch factory and coach the 1888 Yale football team. Camp and Caspar Whitney collaborated in selecting the first All-America team one year later. Camp was the first man to publish a book on football, and was also a pioneer in the use of pictures and illustrations as coaching aids. The game of football originated from a combination of European rugby and Soccer.
Football and rugby are alike because both sports have an oval-shaped ball, both have to carry a ball into a zone, and they are also physical sports with tackling one another to get the ball. Football is also like soccer because they both play with 11 players on each team at once, and the idea of kicking the ball in football came from soccer. This is where and how football got started from other sports.
Football was made after the Civil War to make sure the men of America stayed strong and tough. The ” how it was” was created.
According to President Theodore Roosevelt, “The birth of American football came in 1869 on College Avenue in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The game was between Rutgers University and the College of New Jersey (now known as Princeton University).
The equipment used in football when the game was just developing was made of leather, which doesn’t keep you safe with hardly any protection. In today’s game, equipment like shoulder pads and helmets is now made of hard plastic for better protection and will keep players from injury. Even in your football pants, there are pads to keep your upper and lower legs safe. This is important because this gear keeps the game people know and love going by keeping players safe.
According to NEHS 2, before all the rules were set in football, all you could do was run instead of pass, and, because of the lack of protection with little padding. “Then in 1905, the Chicago Tribune reported, 19 people died playing football that season.”
Furthermore, due to the high death rate, a rule was added: the rule to throw. This rule was first used to lower the death rate of players, and it worked. The first throw happened when St. Louis University quarterback Bradbury Robinson stepped back and launched the play through the air. He had thrown the first legal forward pass in a game against Carroll College on September 5, 1906, for 20 yards. The game was played in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
At the time, President Thredore Roosevelt used his bulky political power to urge the Harvard coach and other leading authorities to push for radical rule changes, and he united other rulers in the offseason at the white house to discuss the deal of a rule change. Finally, the NCAA approved the rule Changes for the 1906 season. These are the rules that they changed for the 1906 season and beyond: “They legalized the forward pass, abolished the dangerous mass formations, created a neutral zone between offense and defense, and doubled the first-down distance to 10 yards, to be gained in three downs.” ( Klein 7).
Now there is a big league of football called the NFL, or the ‘National Football League’, where the best of the best football players and teams play. The NFL started in 1920 in Canton, Ohio. The league started with 14 teams in the early days, but now has grown to 32 teams. The NFL used to be only on the eastern side of the USA because it would take a while to travel, but in 1940, they started using planes, which shortened the time of travel and opened the NFL to the West Coast. Abbott 26 NFL teams were created, and this opened up the games to millions of other people around America.
Although numerous modifications have been introduced, the sport of football is now played all over America, from youth leagues to high schools. Not many rules have changed; numerous safety rules have been introduced, along with modifications to penalties and official guidelines. To continue, the pads the players wear have been greatly advanced to ensure maximum safety and comfort. This has ensured that no fatalities have happened since 1971 (NBC 1).