History of American football
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History of American football |
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Origins of American football |
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The history of American football can be traced to early versions of rugby football and association football. Both games have their origin in multiple varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, in which a football is kicked at a goal or kicked over a line, which in turn were based on the varieties of English public school football games descending from medieval ball games.
The origin of
The modern era of American football can be considered to have begun after the
History of American football before 1869
Predecessors
In Ancient Greece, men played a similar sport called Episkyros where they tried to throw a ball over a scrimmage while avoiding tackles.[7]
Forms of traditional football may have been played throughout Europe and beyond since antiquity. Many of these may have involved handling of the ball, and scrummage-like formations. These archaic forms of football, typically classified as mob football, could be played between neighboring towns and villages, involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams, who could clash in a heaving mass of people struggling to drag an inflated
Football in America
Although there are some mentions of
The game began to return to college campuses by the late 1860s. Yale, Princeton, Rutgers University, and Brown University began playing the popular "kicking" game during this time. In 1867, Princeton used rules based on those of the London Football Association.[11] A "running game", resembling rugby football, was taken up by the Montreal Football Club in Canada in 1868.[2] While the game between Rutgers and Brown is commonly considered the first American football game, several years prior in 1862, the Oneida Football Club formed as the oldest known football club in the United States. The team consisted of graduates of Boston's elite preparatory schools and played from 1862 to 1865.[13]
Intercollegiate football (1869–present)
Pioneer period (1869–1875)
On November 6, 1869,
Rutgers was first to extend the reach of the game. An intercollegiate game was first played in the state of New York when Rutgers played Columbia on November 2, 1872. It was also the first scoreless tie in the history of the fledgling sport.[15] Yale football started the same year and had its first match against Columbia, the nearest college to play football. It took place at Hamilton Park in New Haven and was the first game in New England. The game used a set of rules based on association football with 20-man sides, played on a field 400 by 250 feet. Yale won 3–0, Tommy Sherman scoring the first goal and Lew Irwin the other two.[16]
By 1873, the college students playing football had made significant efforts to standardize their fledgling game. Teams had been scaled down from 25 players to 20. The only way to score was still to bat or kick the ball through the opposing team's goal, and the game was played in two 45 minute halves on fields 140 yards long and 70 yards wide. On October 20, 1873, representatives from Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Rutgers met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City to codify the first set of intercollegiate football rules. Before this meeting, each school had its own set of rules and games were usually played using the home team's own particular code. At this meeting, a list of rules, based more on the Football Association's rules than the rules of the recently founded Rugby Football Union, was drawn up for intercollegiate football games.[11]
Harvard refused to attend the rules conference organized by the other schools and continued to play under its own code,
Harvard quickly took a liking to the rugby game, and its use of the
Walter Camp: Father of American football
Following the introduction of rugby-style rules to American football, Camp became a fixture at the Massasoit House conventions where rules were debated and changed. Dissatisfied with what seemed to him to be a disorganized mob, he proposed his first rule change at the first meeting he attended in 1878: a reduction from fifteen players to eleven. The motion was rejected at that time but passed in 1880. The effect was to open up the game and emphasize speed over strength. Camp's most famous change, the establishment of the
Camp's new scrimmage rules revolutionized the game, though not always as intended. Princeton, in particular, used scrimmage play to slow the game, making incremental progress towards the end zone during each
Camp was central to several more significant rule changes that came to define American football. In 1881, the field was reduced in size to 110 by 531⁄3 yards (100.6 by 48.8 meters). Several times in 1883, Camp tinkered with the scoring rules, finally arriving at four points for a touchdown, two points for
The last, and arguably most important innovation, which would at last make American football uniquely "American", was the legalization of interference, or
After his playing career at Yale ended in 1882, Camp was employed by the New Haven Clock Company until his death in 1925. Though no longer a player, he remained a fixture at annual rules meetings for most of his life, and he personally selected an annual All-American team every year from 1889 through 1924. The Walter Camp Football Foundation continues to select All-American teams in his honor.[25]
Scoring table
Era | T.D. | F.G. | Con. | Con. (T.D.) | Saf. | Con.
(S) |
Def.
con. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1883 | 2 | 5 | 4 | – | 1 | – | – |
1883–1897 | 4 | 5 | 2 | – | 2 | – | – |
1898–1903 | 5 | 5 | 1 | – | 2 | – | – |
1904–1908 | 5 | 4 | 1 | – | 2 | – | – |
1909–1911 | 5 | 3 | 1 | – | 2 | – | – |
1912–1957 | 6 | 3 | 1 | – | 2 | – | – |
1958–present | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
Note: For brief periods in the late 19th century, some penalties awarded one or more points for the opposing teams, and some teams in the late 19th and early 20th centuries chose to negotiate their own scoring system for individual games. |
Period of the American Intercollegiate Football Association (1876–1893)
On November 23, 1876, representatives from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia met at the
The first game where one team scored over 100 points happened on October 25, 1884 when Yale routed Dartmouth 113–0. It was also the first time one team scored over 100 points and the opposing team was shut out.[27] The next week, Princeton outscored Lafayette by 140 to 0.[28]
The University of Michigan became the first school west of Pennsylvania to establish a college football team. On May 30, 1879 Michigan beat Racine College 1–0 in a game played in Chicago. The Chicago Daily Tribune called it "the first rugby-football game to be played west of the Alleghenies."[29] Other Midwestern schools soon followed suit, including the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Minnesota. The first western team to travel east was the 1881 Michigan team, which played at Harvard, Yale and Princeton.[30][31] The nation's first college football league, the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives (also known as the Western Conference), a precursor to the Big Ten Conference, was founded in 1895.[32]
On April 9, 1880 at
On November 13, 1887 the
College football expanded greatly during the last two decades of the 19th century.[39] Several major rivalries date from this time period.[40]
November 1890 was an active time in the sport. In
The first
Period of Rules Committees and Conference (1894–1932)
The beginnings of the contemporary
It is thought that the first
The
The first college football game in Oklahoma Territory occurred on November 7, 1895 when the 'Oklahoma City Terrors' defeated the Oklahoma Sooners 34 to 0. The Terrors were a mix of Methodist college students and high schoolers.[56] The Sooners did not manage a single first down. By next season, Oklahoma coach John A. Harts had left to prospect for gold in the Arctic.[57][58] Organized football was first played in the territory on November 29, 1894 between the Oklahoma City Terrors and Oklahoma City High School. The high school won 24 to 0.[57]
In 1891, the first Stanford football team was hastily organized and played a four-game season beginning in January 1892 with no official head coach. Following the season, Stanford captain John Whittemore wrote to Yale coach Walter Camp asking him to recommend a coach for Stanford. To Whittemore's surprise, Camp agreed to coach the team himself, on the condition that he finish the season at Yale first.[59] As a result of Camp's late arrival, Stanford played just three official games, against San Francisco's Olympic Club and rival California. The team also played exhibition games against two Los Angeles area teams that Stanford does not include in official results.[60][61] Camp returned to the East Coast following the season, but coached Stanford for two further years from 1894–1895.[62]
USC first fielded an American football team in 1888. Playing its first game on November 14 of that year against the Alliance Athletic Club, in which USC gained a 16–0 victory. Frank Suffel and
The Big Game between Stanford and California is the oldest college football rivalry in the West. The first game was played on San Francisco's Haight Street Grounds on March 19, 1892 with Stanford winning 14–10. The term "Big Game" was first used in 1900, when it was played on Thanksgiving Day in San Francisco. During that game, a large group of men and boys, who were observing from the roof of the nearby S.F. and Pacific Glass Works, fell into the fiery interior of the building when the roof collapsed, resulting in 13 dead and 78 injured.[65][66][67][68][69] On December 4, 1900, the last victim of the disaster (Fred Lilly) died, bringing the death toll to 22; the "Thanksgiving Day Disaster" remains the deadliest accident to kill spectators at a U.S. sporting event.[70]
In May 1900,
In 1906, citing concerns about the violence in American Football, universities on the West Coast, led by California and Stanford, replaced the sport with rugby union.[76] At the time, the future of American football was very much in doubt and these schools believed that rugby union would eventually be adopted nationwide.[76] Other schools followed suit and also made the switch included Nevada, St. Mary's, Santa Clara, and USC (in 1911).[76] However, due to the perception that West Coast football was inferior to the game played on the East Coast anyway, East Coast and Midwest teams shrugged off the loss of the teams and continued playing American football.[76] With no nationwide movement, the available pool of rugby teams to play remained small.[76] The schools scheduled games against local club teams and reached out to rugby union powers in Australia, New Zealand, and especially, due to its proximity, Canada. The annual Big Game between Stanford and California continued as rugby, with the winner invited by the British Columbia Rugby Union to a tournament in Vancouver over the Christmas holidays, with the winner of that tournament receiving the Cooper Keith Trophy.[76][77][78]
Violence and controversy (1905)
"No sport is wholesome in which ungenerous or mean acts which easily escape detection contribute to victory."
Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard University (1869–1909) opposing football in 1905.[79]
From its earliest days as a mob game, football was a very violent sport.[11] The 1894 Harvard-Yale game, known as the "Hampden Park Blood Bath", resulted in crippling injuries for four players; the contest was suspended until 1897. The annual Army-Navy game was suspended from 1894 to 1898 for similar reasons.[80] One of the major problems was the popularity of mass-formations like the flying wedge, in which a large number of offensive players charged as a unit against a similarly arranged defense. The resultant collisions often led to serious injuries and sometimes even death.[81] Georgia fullback Richard Von Albade Gammon died on the field from a concussion received against Virginia in 1897, causing some southern universities to temporarily stop their football programs.[82]
In 1905 there were 19 fatalities nationwide. President Theodore Roosevelt reportedly threatened to shut down the game if drastic changes were not made.[83] However, though he lectured on eliminating and reducing injuries, and held a meeting of football representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton on October 9, 1905, he never threatened to completely ban football. He lacked the authority to abolish the game and was actually a fan who wanted to preserve it. The President's sons were playing football at the college and secondary levels at the time.[84]
Meanwhile,
As a result of the 1905–1906 reforms, mass formation plays became illegal and
Besides these coaching innovations, several rules changes during the first third of the 20th century had a profound impact on the game, mostly in opening up the passing game. In 1914, the first roughing-the-passer penalty was implemented. In 1918, the rules on eligible receivers were loosened to allow eligible players to catch the ball anywhere on the field—previously strict rules were in place only allowing passes to certain areas of the field.[93] Scoring rules also changed during this time: field goals were lowered to three points in 1909[3] and touchdowns raised to six points in 1912.[94] In addition, 1912 saw the introduction of the 10-yard long end zone at each end of the field, thus reducing the size of the main field from 110 to 100 yards, and a fourth down was added, among other rule changes.[95]
Star players that emerged in the early 20th century include
In 1907 at Champaign, Illinois Chicago and Illinois played in the first game to have a halftime show featuring a marching band.[97] Chicago won 42–6. On November 25, 1911 Kansas and Missouri played the first homecoming football game.[98] The game was "broadcast" play-by-play over telegraph to at least 1,000 fans in Lawrence, Kansas.[99] It ended in a 3–3 tie. The game between West Virginia and Pittsburgh on October 8, 1921, saw the first live radio broadcast of a college football game when Harold W. Arlin announced that year's Backyard Brawl played at Forbes Field on KDKA. Pitt won 21–13.[100] On October 28, 1922, Princeton and Chicago played the first game to be nationally broadcast on radio. Princeton won 21–18 in a hotly contested game which had Princeton dubbed the "Team of Destiny."[101]
Notable intersectional games
In 1906 Vanderbilt defeated Carlisle 4–0, the result of a Bob Blake field goal.[102][103] In 1907 Vanderbilt fought Navy to a 6–6 tie. In 1910 Vanderbilt held defending national champion Yale to a scoreless tie.[103]
Helping Georgia Tech's claim to a title in 1917, the
1917 saw the rise of another Southern team in
Vanderbilt's line coach then was Wallace Wade, who in 1925 coached Alabama to the south's first Rose Bowl victory. This game is commonly referred to as "the game that changed the south".[109] Wade followed up the next season with an undefeated record and Rose Bowl tie.[110]
Modernization of intercollegiate American football (1933–1969)
In the early 1930s, the college game continued to grow, particularly in the
Several major modern college football conferences rose to prominence during this time period. The
As it grew beyond its regional affiliations in the 1930s, college football garnered increased national attention. Four new
The 1930s saw growth in the passing game. Though some coaches, such as General Robert Neyland at Tennessee, continued to eschew its use and was the last college team to produce an undefeated, untied and unscored upon season in 1939. Several rules changes to the game had a profound effect on teams' ability to throw the ball. In 1934, the rules committee removed two major penalties—a loss of five yards for a second incomplete pass in any series of downs and a loss of possession for an incomplete pass in the end zone—and shrunk the circumference of the ball, making it easier to grip and throw. Players who became famous for taking advantage of the easier passing game included Alabama end Don Hutson and TCU passer "Slingin" Sammy Baugh.[117]
In 1935, New York City's
During World War II, college football players enlisted in the
The 1950s saw the rise of yet more
In January of 1956, Bobby Grier became the first black player to participate in the Sugar Bowl. He is also regarded as the first black player to compete at a bowl game in the Deep South, though others such as Wallace Triplett had played in games like the 1948 Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Grier's team, the Pittsburgh Panthers, was set to play against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.[122] However, Georgia's Governor Marvin Griffin beseeched Georgia Tech to not participate in this racially integrated game.[123][124] Griffin was widely criticized by news media leading up to the game, and protests were held at his mansion by Georgia Tech students. Despite the governor's objections, Georgia Tech upheld the contract and proceeded to compete in the bowl. In the game's first quarter, a pass interference call against Grier ultimately resulted in Yellow Jackets' 7-0 victory. Grier stated that he has mostly positive memories about the experience, including the support from teammates and letters from all over the world.[125]
Modern intercollegiate football (1970–present)
Following the enormous success of the National Football League's 1958 championship game, college football no longer enjoyed the same popularity as the NFL, at least on a national level. While both games benefited from the advent of television, since the late 1950s, the NFL has become a nationally popular sport while college football has maintained strong regional ties.[126][127][128]
As professional football became a national television phenomenon, college football did as well. In the 1950s, Notre Dame, which had a large national following, formed its own network to broadcast its games, but by and large the sport still retained a mostly regional following. In 1952, the NCAA claimed all television broadcasting rights for the games of its member institutions, and it alone negotiated television rights. This situation continued until 1984, when several schools brought a suit under the
New formations and play sets continued to be developed.
Growth of bowl games
Growth of bowl games 1930–2020[133] | |
Year | # of games |
---|---|
1930 | 1 |
1940 | 5 |
1950 | 8 |
1960 | 8 |
1970 | 8 |
1980 | 15 |
1990 | 19 |
2000 | 25 |
2010 | 35 |
2020 | 40[134] |
In 1940, for the highest level of college football, there were only five bowl games (Rose, Orange, Sugar, Sun, and Cotton). By 1950, three more had joined that number and in 1970, there were still only eight major college bowl games. The number grew to eleven in 1976. At the birth of cable television and cable sports networks like ESPN, there were fifteen bowls in 1980. With more national venues and increased available revenue, the bowls saw an explosive growth throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In the thirty years from 1950 to 1980, seven bowl games were added to the schedule. From 1980 to 2010, an additional 20 bowl games were added to the schedule.[133][135] Some have criticized this growth, claiming that the increased number of games has diluted the significance of playing in a bowl game. Yet others have countered that the increased number of games has increased exposure and revenue for a greater number of schools, and see it as a positive development.[136]
With the growth of bowl games, it became difficult to determine a national champion in a fair and equitable manner. As conferences became contractually bound to certain bowl games (a situation known as a
Bowl Championship Series
In 1998, a new system was put into place called the Bowl Championship Series. For the first time, it included all major conferences (ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10, and SEC) and all four major bowl games (Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta). The champions of these six conferences, along with two "at-large" selections, were invited to play in the four bowl games. Each year, one of the four bowl games served as a national championship game. Also, a complex system of human polls, computer rankings, and strength of schedule calculations was instituted to rank schools. Based on this ranking system, the No. 1 and No. 2 teams met each year in the national championship game. Traditional tie-ins were maintained for schools and bowls not part of the national championship. For example, in years when not a part of the national championship, the Rose Bowl still hosted the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions.[137]
The system continued to change, as the formula for ranking teams was tweaked from year to year. At-large teams could be chosen from any of the
College Football Playoff
Due to the intensification of the college football playoff debate after nearly a decade of the sometimes disputable results of the BCS, the conference commissioners and Notre Dame's president voted to implement a Plus-One system which was to be called the 'College Football Playoff'. The College Football Playoff is the annual postseason tournament for the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and just as its predecessors, has failed to receive sanctioning from the NCAA. The playoff began with the 2014 NCAA Division I FBS football season.[143] Four teams play in two semifinal games, and the winners advance to the College Football Playoff National Championship game.[144] The first season of the new system was not without controversy, however, after TCU and Baylor (both with only one loss) both failed to receive the support of the College Football Playoff selection committee.[145] After the first season, the playoff has been dominated by two teams, Alabama and Clemson. At least one of them has appeared in every championship game except the first, and they have combined to win five of the seven games through 2021; include three times when they played each other.
Professional football (1892–present)
Early players, teams, and leagues (1892–1919)
In the early 20th century, football began to catch on in the general population of the United States and was the subject of intense competition and rivalry, albeit of a localized nature. Although payments to players were considered unsporting and dishonorable at the time, a Pittsburgh area club, the Allegheny Athletic Association, of the unofficial western Pennsylvania football circuit, surreptitiously hired former Yale All-American guard Pudge Heffelfinger. On November 12, 1892, Heffelfinger became the first known professional football player. He was paid $500 to play in a game against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. Heffelfinger picked up a Pittsburgh fumble and ran 35 yards for a touchdown, winning the game 4–0 for Allegheny. Although observers held suspicions, the payment remained a secret for years.[2][3][146][147]
On September 3, 1895 the first wholly professional game was played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe Athletic Association and the Jeannette Athletic Club. Latrobe won the contest 12–0.[2][3] During this game, Latrobe's quarterback, John Brallier became the first player to openly admit to being paid to play football. He was paid $10 plus expenses to play.[148] In 1897, the Latrobe Athletic Association paid all of its players for the whole season, becoming the first fully professional football team. In 1898, William Chase Temple took over the team payments for the Duquesne Country and Athletic Club, a professional football team based in Pittsburgh from 1895 until 1900, becoming the first known individual football club owner.[149]
Later that year, the Morgan Athletic Club, on the
The first known professional football league, known as the
The first black person to be paid for his play in football games is thought to be two-sport athlete Charles Follis, A member of the Shelby Steamfitters for five years starting in 1902, Follis turned professional in 1904.[152]
The game moved west into Ohio, which became the center of professional football during the early decades of the 20th century. Small towns such as Massillon, Akron, Portsmouth, and Canton all supported professional teams in a loose coalition known as the "Ohio League", the direct predecessor to today's National Football League. In 1906 the Canton Bulldogs–Massillon Tigers betting scandal became the first major scandal in professional football in the United States. It was the first known case of professional gamblers attempting to fix a professional sport. Although the Massillon Tigers could not prove that the Canton Bulldogs had thrown the second game, the scandal tarnished the Bulldogs' name and helped ruin professional football in Ohio until the mid-1910s.[153]
In 1915, the reformed Canton Bulldogs signed former Olympian and
Early years of the NFL (1920–1932)
Formation
In 1920, the American Professional Football Association (APFA) was founded, in a meeting at a Hupmobile car dealership in Canton, Ohio. Jim Thorpe was elected the league's first president. After several more meetings, the league's membership was formalized. The original teams were:[94][155]
|
In its early years the league was little more than a formal agreement between teams to play each other and to declare a champion at season's end. Teams were still permitted to play non-league members. The 1920 season saw several teams drop out and fail to play through their schedule. Only four teams: Akron, Buffalo, Canton, and Decatur, finished the schedule. Akron claimed the first league champion, with the only undefeated record among the remaining teams.[94][156]
The APFA, which became the National Football League (NFL) in 1922,[157] had a limited number of black players. In the league's first seven years, nine African-Americans played in the APFA/NFL. Two black players took part in the league's inaugural season: Fritz Pollard and Bobby Marshall. In 1921, Pollard coached in the league, becoming the first African-American to do so.[158]
Expansion
In 1921, several more teams joined the league, increasing the membership to 22 teams. Among the new additions were the
By the mid-1920s, NFL membership had grown to 25 teams, and a rival league known as the
1932 NFL playoff game
At the end of the
Stability and growth of the NFL (1933–1969)
The 1930s represented an important time of transition for the NFL. League membership was fluid prior to the mid-1930s. In 1933, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles were founded. 1936 was the first year where there were no franchise moves,[170] prior to that year 51 teams had gone defunct.[155] In 1941, the NFL named its first Commissioner, Elmer Layden. The new office replaced that of President. Layden held the job for five years, before being replaced by Philadelphia Eagles co-owner Bert Bell in 1946.[171]
During World War II, a player shortage led to a shrinking of the league as several teams folded and others merged. Among the short-lived merged teams were the Steagles (Pittsburgh and Philadelphia) in 1943, the Card-Pitts (Chicago Cardinals and Pittsburgh) in 1944, and a team formed from the merger of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Yanks in 1945.[155][171]
1946 was an important year in the history of professional football, as that was the year when the league reintegrated. The Los Angeles Rams signed two African American players, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode. Also that year, a competing league, the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), began operation.[171]
During the 1950s, additional teams entered the league. In 1950, the AAFC folded, and three teams from that league were absorbed into the NFL: the
The Greatest Game Ever Played
At the conclusion of the
American Football League and merger
In 1959, longtime NFL commissioner Bert Bell died of a heart attack while attending an Eagles/Steelers game at Franklin Field. That same year, Dallas businessman Lamar Hunt led the formation of the rival American Football League, the fourth such league to bear that name, with war hero and former South Dakota Governor Joe Foss as its first Commissioner. Unlike the earlier rival leagues, and bolstered by television exposure, the AFL posed a significant threat to NFL dominance of the professional football world. With the exception of Los Angeles and New York, the AFL avoided placing teams in markets where they directly competed with established NFL franchises. In 1960, the AFL began play with eight teams and a double round-robin schedule of fourteen games. New NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle took office the same year.[172]
The AFL became a viable alternative to the NFL as it made a concerted effort to attract established talent away from the NFL, signing half of the NFL's first-round draft choices in 1960. The AFL worked hard to secure top college players, many from sources virtually untapped by the established league: small colleges and predominantly black colleges. Two of the eight coaches of the
Modern, post-merger NFL (1970–present)
The NFL continued to grow, eventually adopting some innovations of the AFL, including the two-point conversion. It has expanded several times to its current 32-team membership, and the Super Bowl has become a cultural phenomena across the United States. One of the most popular televised events annually in the United States,
One of the things that have marked the modern NFL as different from other major professional sports leagues is the apparent parity between its 32 teams. While from time to time, dominant teams have arisen, the league has been cited as one of the few where every team has a realistic chance of winning the championship from year to year.[180] The league's complex labor agreement with its players' union, which mandates a hard salary cap and revenue sharing between its clubs, prevents the richest teams from stockpiling the best players and gives even teams in smaller cities such as Green Bay and New Orleans the opportunity to compete for the Super Bowl.[181] One of the chief architects of this labor agreement was former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who presided over the league from 1989 to 2006.[182] In addition to providing parity between the clubs, the current labor contract, established in 1993 and renewed in 1998 and 2006, has kept player salaries low—the lowest among the four major league sports in the United States—[183] and has helped make the NFL the only major American professional sports league since 1993 not to suffer any player strike or work stoppage.[184]
Since taking over as commissioner before the
Other professional leagues
Minor professional leagues such as the original United Football League, Atlantic Coast Football League (ACFL), Seaboard Football League and Continental Football League existed in abundance in the 1960s and early 1970s, to varying degrees of success.[189] In 1970, Patricia Barzi Palinkas became the first woman to ever play on a men's semipro football team when she joined the Orlando Panthers of the ACFL.[190][191]
Several other professional football leagues have been formed since the AFL–NFL merger, though none have had the success of the AFL.[192][193] In 1974, the World Football League formed and was able to attract such stars as Larry Csonka away from the NFL with lucrative contracts.[194] However, most of the WFL franchises were insolvent and the league, despite having finished out its 1974 season, shut down late it its second season in 1975.[195]
In 1982, the original
The NFL founded a developmental league known as the
In 2001, the original
Youth and high school football
Football is a popular participatory sport among youth. One of the earliest youth football organizations was founded in Philadelphia, in 1929, as the Junior Football Conference. Organizer Joe Tomlin started the league to provide activities and guidance for teenage boys who were vandalizing the factory he owned. The original four-team league expanded to sixteen teams in 1933 when Pop Warner, who had just been hired as the new coach of the Temple University football team, agreed to give a lecture to the boys in the league. In his honor, the league was renamed the Pop Warner Conference.[209][210]
Today, Pop Warner Little Scholars—as the program is now known—enrolls over 300,000 young boys and girls ages 5–16 in over 5000 football and cheerleading squads, and has affiliate programs in Mexico and Japan.[210] Other organizations, such as the Police Athletic League,[211] Upward,[212] and the National Football League's NFL Youth Football Program also manage various youth football leagues.[213]
Football is a popular sport for high schools in the United States. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) was founded in 1920 as an umbrella organization for state-level organizations that manage high school sports, including high school football. The NFHS publishes the rules followed by most local high school football associations.[209][214] More than 13,000 high schools participate in football, and in some places high school teams play in stadiums that rival college-level facilities. For example, the school district serving the Houston suburb of Katy, Texas opened a 12,000-seat stadium in 2017 that cost over $70 million to host the district's eight high school teams.[215] The growth of high school football and its impact on small town communities has been documented by landmark non-fiction works such as the 1990 book Friday Night Lights and the subsequent fictionalized film and television series.[216]
American football outside the United States
American football has been played outside the US since the 1920s and accelerated in popularity after World War II, especially in countries with large numbers of U.S. military personnel, who often formed a substantial proportion of the players and spectators.[217][218]
In 1998, the International Federation of American Football, was formed to coordinate international amateur competition. At present, 45 associations from the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania are organized within the IFAF, which claims to represent 23 million amateur athletes.[219] The IFAF, which is based in La Courneuve, France,[220] organizes the quadrennial World Championship of American Football.[221]
A long-term goal of the IFAF is for American football to be accepted by the International Olympic Committee as an Olympic sport.[222] The only time that the sport was played was at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, but as a demonstration sport. Among the various problems the IFAF has to solve in order to be accepted by the IOC are building a competitive women's division, expanding the sport into Africa, and overcoming the current worldwide competitive imbalance that is in favor of American teams.[223]
Similar codes of football
Other codes of football share a common history with American football.
American football's parent sport of rugby continued to evolve. Today, two distinct codes known as rugby union and rugby league are played throughout the world. Since the two codes split following a schism on how the sport should be managed in 1895, the history of rugby league and the history of rugby union have evolved separately.[226] Both codes have adopted innovations parallel to the American game; the rugby union scoring system is almost identical to the American game, while rugby league uses a gridiron-style field and a six-tackle rule similar to the system of downs in American Football.
Another game that can trace it history to
Gaelic football is an Irish-specific sport, that can also trace its roots to the early days of football. The game is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kicking or punching the ball into the other team's goals (3 points) or between two upright posts above the goals and over a crossbar 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) above the ground (1 point). Unlike other similar football codes, the game ball is round (a spherical leather ball resembling a volleyball), and players advance it up the field with a combination of carrying, bouncing, kicking, hand-passing, and soloing (dropping the ball and then toe-kicking the ball upward into the hands). The game playing code was formally arranged by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in 1885, and was played in the 1904 Summer Olympics as a demonstration sport.
See also
- American football rules
- Comparison of American football and rugby league
- Comparison of American football and rugby union
- Comparison of Canadian and American football
- Gridiron football
- History of American football positions
- Homosexuality in American football
- History of association football
- History of the football helmet
- List of historically significant college football games
- Timeline of college football in Kansas
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g "Camp and His Followers: American Football 1876–1889" (PDF). The Journey to Camp: The Origins of American Football to 1889. Professional Football Researchers Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 29, 2010. Retrieved January 26, 2010.
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- Nelson, David M. (1994). The Anatomy of A Game. Newark, New Jersey: University of Delaware Press. ISBN 0-87413-455-2.
- Peretz, Howard (1999). It Ain't Over 'Til The Fat Lady Sings: The 100 Greatest Sports Finishes of All Time. New York: Barnes and Noble Books. ISBN 0-7607-1707-9.
- Perkins, Brett (2009). Frantic Francis: How One Coach's Madness Changed Football. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-1894-9.
- Pettegrew, John (2007). Brutes in Suits: Male Sensibility in America, 1890–1920. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8603-4.
- Quirk, James P.; Fort, Rodney D. (1997). Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Team Sports. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-01574-3.
- Ryczek, William J. (2014). Connecticut Gridiron: Football Minor Leaguers of the 1960s and 1970s. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-7833-0.
- Schmidt, Raymond (2007). Shaping College Football: The Transformation of an American Sport, 1919–1930. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-0886-8.
- Umphlett, Wiley Lee (1992). Creating the Big Game: John Heisman and the Invention of American Football. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-28404-0.
- Vancil, Mark (Ed.) (2000). ABC Sports College Football All-Time All-America Team. New York: Hyperion Books. ISBN 0-7868-6710-8.
- Wagg, Stephen (Ed) (2011). Myths and Milestones in the History of Sport. London: Springer Publishing. ISBN 978-1-349-31693-9.
Further reading
- Balhaser, Joel D. (2004). Images of America: Pop Warner Little Scholars. Arcadia Publishing SC. ISBN 0-7385-3505-2.
- Bissinger, H. G. (2004). Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81374-2.
- Davis, Parke H. (2010). Football, the American intercollegiate game. Nabu Press. ISBN 978-1-171-91212-5.
- Fox, Stephen (1998). Big Leagues: Professional Baseball, Football, and Basketball in National Memory. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-688-09300-0.
- MacCambridge, Michael (Ed.) (2005). ESPN College Football Encyclopedia: The Complete History of the Game. New York: Hyperion Books. ISBN 1-4013-3703-1.
- Perrin, Tom (1987). Football: A College History. McFarland & Co Inc. ISBN 0-89950-294-6.
- Smith, Ronald A. (1988). Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506582-4.
- Watterson, John Sayle (2000). College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6428-3.
- Whittingham, Richard (2003). Sunday's Heroes. Chicago: Triumph Books. ISBN 1-57243-517-8.
External links
- Football Almanac Archived February 16, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- Professional Football Researchers Association
- National Football Foundation Archived September 13, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
- College Football Hall of Fame
- Pro Football Hall of Fame