A 4.

0 Student Understands:
The place that football traces it origins
back to in the 1800s
The first two teams that played college
football, why they played, who won,
and what the score was
Why is a football not Round?
What teams played in the first
nighttime football game?
 Harvard
Freshmen vs.
Harvard
Sophomores
1827 starts
tradition
Football starts
off as the
Boston Game
1872 First
Football Club
started at
Harvard
 This annual freshman-sophomore
football game was apparently the
successor of another annual contest,
a wrestling match between the two
classes, a Harvard custom in the
eighteenth century. Because the
freshman-sophomore affair usually
ended in a brawl, students got to
calling game-day "Bloody Monday."
 The annual slaughter increased in brutality each year
until finally in 1860 the Faculty outlawed its existence.
There were, in that year, better ways for Northern
gentlemen to vent their spleen. With an air of defiance,
a group of players held a funeral service--complete with
procession and eulogy for the sport.
They dug a grave and buried a pigskin. Football at
Harvard was officially dead.
The two colleges were,
and still are, of course,
about 20 miles apart. The
rivalry between them was
intense. For years each
had striven for possession
of an old Revolutionary
cannon, making night
forays and lugging it back
and forth time and again.
Not long before the first
football game, the canny
Princetonians had settled
this competition in their own
favor by ignominiously
 It all started on a cold day. There was, in fact, a
threat of snow in the air that November 6, 1869,
when a team of 25 and some faithful followers
boarded a train in Princeton for New Brunswick.
There, starting at 3 oclock after a leisurely
dinner, some billiards and some girl-watching,
Rutgers and Princeton played the first game of
intercollegiate football.
Accounts of this game are rather hazy, as might
be expected. The players simply took off their
hats, coats and vests and they were ready. No
uniforms. The only color was provided by scarlet
 1st College
Football Game
Rutgers vs.
Princeton
November 6,
1869
Final Score 6 to 4
 How footballs got to be prolate spheroids? ("round
but pointy) rather than perfectly spherical as all
other balls are shaped. As usual with these pivotal
episodes in history, it was an accident.
Henry Duffield, who witnessed the second
Princeton-Rutgers game in 1869, tells why: "The
ball was not an oval but was supposed to be
completely round. It never was, though it was
too hard to blow up right. The game was stopped
several times that day while the teams called for a
little key from the sidelines. They used it to unlock
the small nozzle which was tucked into the ball,
and then took turns blowing it up. The last man
generally got tired and they put it back in play
somewhat lopsided."
Why is a football not Round?
The odd shape of the ball, eventually enshrined
in the rules, was turned to advantage with the
introduction of the forward pass in 1906, which
was made possible by the fact that you could grip
the ball (barely) around the narrow part.
Passing got a lot easier in the 1930s when the
rules committee ordered the watermelon of
previous decades slimmed down by an inch and
a half, opening the door for the modern aerial
game.
How fortunate for the future shape of the game
that the Ivy Leaguers of yesteryear didn't have
any more lung power than today's.
THE FIRST NIGHTTIME FOOTBALL
GAME WAS PLAYED IN MANSFIELD,
PENNSYLVANIA ON SEPTEMBER 28,
1892 BETWEEN MANSFIELD STATE
NORMAL AND WYOMING SEMINARY
AND ENDED AT HALFTIME IN A 00
TIE.
A 4.0 Student Understands:
Why football was almost outlawed
The US President that saved football
from possibly being outlawed
The rules changes that were made to
make the game safer
Name of organization created to
protect amateur athletes
 Early in the 20th century, football, as
played on college gridirons, was
something close to a street fight.
The rules were lax at best, and were
routinely ignored. During the 1905
season alone, 18 college and amateur
players died.
And despite the growing violence (or,
who knows, maybe because of the
growing violence), fans were flocking to
the games -- the sport was gaining
 It wasnt until 1906, when President
Theodore Roosevelt ordered the
leaders of college football to make their
game safer
Most modern rules actually began to
come into play
Birth of the National Collegiate Athletic
Association to protect the college
players
 Rugby-style mass formations
eliminated
Gang tackling was outlawed
Distance needed for a first down was
changed from five yards to ten
Neutral Zone was instituted at the
line of scrimmage
Increased emphasis on sportsmanship
Most important - a new kind of play
was put into the rulebook - The
forward pass.
OFFENSE DEFENSE
11 members 11 members per
per side side
Can be set or
Must be set
moving before the
before the play play begins
begins
4 chances to
go 10 yards
Football Rules
A 4.0 Student Understands:
Who was the Father of American
Football?
Where does the Heisman award come
from?
Who brought football to the children of
America?
Who was the 1st Professional football
player? How much was he paid?
 Walter Camp
Coach that helped to
spread news about
Football from coast to
coast
Coached and played
at Yale (CONN)
before heading to
Stanford (California)
and bringing game to
West Coast
 Walter Camp came up
with many of the basic
rules of football:
Invents modern job of
Quarterback
Center to Quarterback
exchange no longer rolled
back to QB
System of 4 downs
Points system 6 for a
touchdown, 1 for a kicked
extra point, 2 for a
conversion, 3 for a field
goal
 Originator of the
HIKE call in
Football
Came up with 4
Quarters in football
Award bearing his
name given out
each year to most
outstanding college
football player
Downtown Athletic
Club Award for Most
Outstanding College
Player
 Glenn Pop Warner
also helped start the
popular youth
American football
organization.
Pop Warners Little
Scholars brought
football to millions of
kids in America.
1st

Professional
Football
Player
Paid $500
Allegheny vs.
Pittsburgh
ON SEPTEMBER 3, 1895 THE FIRST
PROFESSIONAL GAME WAS PLAYED, IN
LATROBE, PENNSYLVANIA, BETWEEN THE
LATROBE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION AND THE
JEANNETTE ATHLETIC CLUB.
IN 1899, THE
CHICAGO
CARDINALS WAS
FOUNDED.

TODAY THEY ARE

KNOWN AS THE
ARIZONA CARDINALS
MAKING THEM THE
OLDEST TEAM IN THE
NFL.
THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL
LEAGUE, (THE NFL) WAS
1ST CALLED THE OHIO
LEAGUE AND STARTED IN
1903.
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