Monday, February 05, 2007
History of American Football
Ok, Superbowl is over, but did you ever wonder how football got started?
I did.
Walter Camp is known as the "Father of American Football" By 1892 Camp had almost single-handedly fashioned the game. Its rising popularity was in a large part his doing. He took the game of rugby and changed it into an American game. He did this all by the age of thirty-three, just twelve years after graduating from Yale. For almost 50 years, Camp served on the various collegiate football rules committees that developed the game of football. His contributions to early football included the introduction of the scrimmage, the number of players, the forward pass, and the introduction of the now standard offensive arrangement of players (a seven-man offensive line and a four-man backfield consisting of a quarterback, two halfbacks, and a fullback).
Camp knew that developing the game was not enough and in order for it to catch on, the word had to spread. With a full-time job at the New Haven Clock Company and being advisor to the Yale football team, Camp still managed to write articles and books on football and sports in general, having written nearly 30 books and more than 250 magazine articles before his death. His stories also appeared in major New York City and Philadelphia daily newspapers as well as national periodicals such as Harper's Weekly, Collier's, Outing, Outlook, and The Independent. They also appeared in juvenile magazines such as St. Nicholas, Youth's Companion and Boys' Magazine.
According to his biographer, Richard P. Borkowski, "Camp was instrumental through writing and lecturing in attaching an almost mythical atmosphere of manliness and heroism to the game not previously known in American team sports." He wrote to instruct Americans on his beloved game of football, becoming one of the highest paid non-fiction writers in America.
Rutgers University and Princeton University played the first game of college football on Nov. 6, 1869 in New Brunswick, N.J. Rutgers won that first game, 6-4.
For more information as to the origins going back to the very beginning go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football
or for more answers:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_game_of_football
I did.
Walter Camp is known as the "Father of American Football" By 1892 Camp had almost single-handedly fashioned the game. Its rising popularity was in a large part his doing. He took the game of rugby and changed it into an American game. He did this all by the age of thirty-three, just twelve years after graduating from Yale. For almost 50 years, Camp served on the various collegiate football rules committees that developed the game of football. His contributions to early football included the introduction of the scrimmage, the number of players, the forward pass, and the introduction of the now standard offensive arrangement of players (a seven-man offensive line and a four-man backfield consisting of a quarterback, two halfbacks, and a fullback).
Camp knew that developing the game was not enough and in order for it to catch on, the word had to spread. With a full-time job at the New Haven Clock Company and being advisor to the Yale football team, Camp still managed to write articles and books on football and sports in general, having written nearly 30 books and more than 250 magazine articles before his death. His stories also appeared in major New York City and Philadelphia daily newspapers as well as national periodicals such as Harper's Weekly, Collier's, Outing, Outlook, and The Independent. They also appeared in juvenile magazines such as St. Nicholas, Youth's Companion and Boys' Magazine.
According to his biographer, Richard P. Borkowski, "Camp was instrumental through writing and lecturing in attaching an almost mythical atmosphere of manliness and heroism to the game not previously known in American team sports." He wrote to instruct Americans on his beloved game of football, becoming one of the highest paid non-fiction writers in America.
Rutgers University and Princeton University played the first game of college football on Nov. 6, 1869 in New Brunswick, N.J. Rutgers won that first game, 6-4.
For more information as to the origins going back to the very beginning go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football
or for more answers:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_game_of_football
posted by DSL | 12:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home