Rugby, Soccer, and Football
Why do Brits call what we know in America as soccer, football? From an article in the Smithsonian Magazine,”Brits coined the term soccer in the late 1800’s to refer to Association Football, the sport now known as soccer/football. “Soccer” was picked as a way to differentiate from another kind of football-Rugby Football”
There were approximately 100 spectators to this game, and Rutgers won with a score of 6-4. There was one other game played that same year, using the same teams, and this time Princeton grabbed the win 8-0. Rutgers as the host of the very first game, proclaimed itself the “Birthplace of Football”.
As you can see in the picture, no helmets were worn, no protection at all. It was just about 50 players on the field, brawling it out to make a score for their team. Something had to be done to rein this game in and keep it from having all the injuries that happened that day, and making new rules for all to follow would be the start.
There would be one man who would turn up and make this game into what we know today as American Football, he would help make the rules, change the way the game was run, and soon become known as “The Father of American Football”.
Walter Camp
Walter Chauncey Camp, born in New Britain, Conn. in 1859, would grow up to be the most important man in football. While growing up he started out by going to school to become a doctor, but would change his mind when he was on the Yale football team, as a halfback, and captain. The game would seep into his blood, and for the rest of his life he lived football.
By 1876, football was very popular on the East Coast and Canada. After finishing at Yale, in about 1880, Camp would help write and produce new rules for this very prevalent new sport. For one of the first changes, he proposed that teams of 15 players then, would go down to 11. To many on the field caused so many injuries, and he envisioned a game that relied on speed instead of muscle. His most notable switch was when he created the line of scrimmage, and the snap of the ball, from the center position to the quarterback, a position he help manufacture. While in the first games the center would kick it to the quarterback, it was later changed to a hand-off. You see when Camp was playing football they still used the rules from Rugby style football in Britain, and now the American version needed its own identity. Other rules Camp thought would help the game were: Use of downs, a point system, and a team would have to give up the ball if said team did not advance a specified distance within a set of downs. He also devised the art of signal calling. Wow for a guy that wanted to be a doctor, we are certainly glad he changed course. Camp also dabbled with how the game was scored, remember to start out with you got 1 point for each ball you got in the endzone, but he changed that rule to: 4 points for a touchdown, 2 points for kicks after touchdowns, 2 points for safeties, [ just like today,] and 5 for field goals in 1883. In 1888 rules were changed again to allow tackling below the waist, and in 1889, the officials were given whistles and stopwatches. The officials game into the game in 1887 when a referee and an umpire were dictated for each game. The last and most important creation, that made American Football it’s own game was the legalization of blocking, because in Rugby style rules that was prohibited.
Camp also coach college football, in 1888-1892 he coached Yale, and for the years 1894-1895, he coached Stanford, and in 1892 he coached both teams. That would be unheard of in today’s college games.
Walter Camp would retire from coaching and work at The New Haven Clock Co. until his death in 1925. Although he didn’t coach or change the game anymore he still remained a fixture when it was time for selecting the ALL AMERICAN Team every year, he personally picked them each year from 1889-1924.
Intercollegiate Football, Then and Now
Walter Camp may have been the “Father of Football” but without the support of the colleges, and players, and the zeal of the fans, we wouldn’t have the falls favorite pastime. Each weekend, millions of Americans are glued to their television as they watch their favorite team play against an opponent, and hope against all odds their team will be victorious. College football today is more than just a sport it is also a million dollar business. Few from the first teams could not even imagine how this fun sport would prosper.
When Princeton and Rutgers played that very first game, a course was set to making it the most beloved sport of all. As mentioned above the first games took their rule from British Rugby, and scoring a game that way was ludicrous. on a game played in 1884, Yale pounced over Dartmouth 113 to 0 making it the first time a team scored over a hundred points. All college teams at the time was on the East Coast. The University of Michigan, west of Pennsylvania, was the first college team formed off the East Coast. Michigan also would be the first team to travel and play against the east coast teams. Teams travel so much today it is just routine, but back then it was a spectacle to have a Mid Western college to play a East Coast college such as, Yale, Harvard, or Princeton.
Many major rivalries came about when new teams formed across the U.S. in the last 2 decades of the 19th century. The first nightime football game was played at Mansfield Penn. fans had the pleasure of seeing Mansfield State Normal, and Wyoming Seminary play until halftime, with a 0-0 tie, the game ended. This was on Sept. 28,1892.
The Army-Navy game was the first the first time a player would don a helmet. It was made of leather, and had been made by a shoemaker in Annapolis for Joseph M. Reeves. Reeves wore it i the game that day because his doctor told him if he ws going to play football he needed someting to protect his head, because in an earlier game he was kicked in the head, and had a bad concussion.
Football was almost outlawed in 1906 because there had been about a dozen deaths caused by the game, and many more serious injuries. No protection for such a physical game that could become heated, was a farce. President Theodore Roosevelt convince the colleges representatives to establish new rules that would make the sport far more safer, and less brutal and dangerous. Even with all the devices and padding, and rule changes, todays college games can still be quite hazardous.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s more and more colleges were forming teams, and with that came different conferences, such as The Atlantic Coast, Southeastern, and West Coast. College football was moving across America like a train, and nothing would stop it.
Known as the “Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry” the University of Georgia, and Auburn, played a game in 1892 and Auburn came up the victor against Georgia 10-0, in front of a crowd of 2000 onlookers. when the teams get together now it is still a game not to be missed. The oldest rivalry in the West is between Stanford and California. Their first game was played in March of 1892 at the San Francisco”s Haight Street Grounds, with Stanford going for the win. The term “The Big Game” came into being in the 1900s, when the a game was played on Thanksgiving Day in San Francisco. What started out as a holiday /Big Game day soon turned to a tragedy. A large group of men and boys that was watching the game on top of the S.F. and Pacific Glass Works building, fell into its fiery interior, as the roof collapsed and resulted in 13 dead, and 78 injured. This “Thanksgiving Day Disaster” remains as the deadliest spectator accident at a U.S. sporting event.
Today Intercollegiate Football is enormous,and on a single weekend you can watch or go see your team play. There are so many games that you could start a watch party on Friday night, and watch games till late on Saturday night. Rules have been added and changed, most for the better, to make it safer and fairer to all involved. The teams have huge backing and play with best equipment. Injuries, still are a big part of the game, and no matter how padded you are and how rule protected you are they happen, because football is a physically demanding game.
Random Facts about College Football
- Red Grange, Jim Thorpe, and Bronko Nagurski would transition to the NFL, and help turn it into the powerhouse we know today.
- The first halftime show featuring a marching band was in Chicago in 1907
- On Oct 8, 1921 the first radio broadcast of a college game, Pittsburgh vs West Virginia {go Mountaineers!] came into being, known as the “Backyard Brawl”.
- In 1939 there were nine games that featured college footballers against Pro teams. At that time The NFL was not all that popular as college games.
- Gerald Ford a student at Michigan played football and later became our 38th President.
- Jackie Robinson, famed baseball superstar, play a football game for UCLA and scored a touchdown.
- The first college football game on television was a game between Fordham Univ. and Waynesburg in 1939. It was broadcast on NBC.
- First use of instant reply was used at an Army-Navy game in 1963.
- First Associated Press Poll came about in 1939.
- The college team with the most wins in history goes to the UNiversity Of Michigan. They have 962 wins.
Thanks for going with me on this trip through college football. I found out so many things I never knew, and I hope you did too. Drop me a comment and let me know about your favorite team, and why they are so special to you!
Next week we will be taking a walk down Broadway and find out how it got it’s start, and why it’s such a wonderful place to go to.