History of Football
History of Football
By Christopher Fister
Few sports combine speed, grace, strength, strategy and violence in the same package the way American football does. The brutal ballet that takes place on gridirons across the nation has become one of America’s favorite pastimes.
Since the first organized game in the United States was played in 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton, football has become a multi-billion dollar business and is now watched and enjoyed by millions of loyal fans worldwide.
American football is said by historians to be an off-shoot of the English game of Rugby, which began in 1823 at the Rugby Boys’ School.
A group of students at Princeton began playing what they called “ballown” around the same time as rugby became popular. Players used their fists and feet with the object being to advance the ball past the opposing team. There were no rules applied to this earliest attempt at the game we now call football.
One of the earliest recorded competitions of a football-like game was played by the freshman and sophomore classes at Harvard on the first Monday of each school year. The game was referred to as “Bloody Monday” because of the brutality involved. Similar games to the one played at Harvard were played out on the Boston Common around 1860.
Around the end of the Civil War, in 1865, many colleges began to organize and hold their own football events. In 1867, Princeton established a rough set of rules of the game. The football was patented for the very first time in 1867 as well.
Rutgers College set forth its own set of rules in 1867, and soon thereafter a game was decided upon by Rutgers and Princeton. So it was that, on November 6, 1869, Rutgers by a score of six goals to four defeated Princeton in what has been recorded as the first intercollegiate football game.
With the game’s popularity on the rise, officials from Rutgers, Princeton, Yale and Columbia established the first set of intercollegiate rules in 1873. The initial rules still included many of the rules of soccer and the four teams, who formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, set as 15 the number of players allowed per team.
Perhaps the most instrumental figure in the early days of football was Yale coach Walter Camp, who disagreed with the rules set forth in 1873, arguing for 11-man teams over 15. With Camp leading the way, the IFA began the evolution from rugby-style rules to the modern game of American football. The IFA soon cut the number of player from 15 to 11, and made the playing filed 110 yards long.
The first system of downs was also formulated by Camp in 1882, with three downs to advance the ball five yards. In 1906 it was changed to 10 yards, and the fourth down was added in 1912.
While the rules of the game were becoming more clear, the brutal nature of early American football was a major concern and led to the game being banned by some colleges. Some 180 players suffered serious injuries and 18 deaths were reported in college games, where players would mass together in an attempt to move the ball forward.
While it was Camp who revolutionized the game, it took a plea from President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 to save it. The president called upon Harvard, Princeton and Yale to reform the rules and reduce the violence.
The three colleges agreed to change the rules, then banded together with more than 60 other schools to appoint a seven-member Rules Committee. Those schools would also establish what is known today as the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or the NCAA.
The initial rules committee was also responsible for bringing the forward pass to football, enabling teams a more open style of play. The committee also abolished the brutal mass plays which had caused so many injuries, and even deaths. Teammates were no longer allowed to lock arms in an effort to clear the way for their ball carriers, paving the way for the modern system of blocking. The length of the game was shortened, from 70 to 60 minutes, and the neutral zone, which separates the teams by the length of the ball before each play begins, was also established.
=========================
Christopher Fister is a former sports editor at the New York Post.
=========================