History of American Football

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History of American Football Mr. Britton/Francis PSE4U Per. 3 Friday, January 17, 2014 The sport of American football has originated from two sports, soccer and rugby, which are popular around the world. In the 1880s a rugby player from Yale, Walter Camp, made slight changes to the rules of rugby that transformed it into the new game of American football. Camp contributed many changes from rugby and soccer to American football from the line of scrimmage to the snap from center to quarter-back. The most significant difference from rugby and American football was the system of ‘downs’ in which a team is only given a number of plays to cover a certain area of the field in order to keep possession of the ball. From all these changes the game was evolving into the sport of American football. November 12, 1892 an important date in sport history. It was the day the Allegheny Athletic Association football team defeated the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, the game was not as important as was the fact that one of the AAA players, William Heffelfinger was openly paid $500 to play the game, making him the first known professional football player. Although payments to players were considered unsporting and dishonourable and even though PAC had suspicions it was kept a secret for years. After almost 80 years the Pro Football Hall of Fame received and displayed a document of an expense accounting sheet of the Allegheny Athletic Association, also known as “the birth certificate of pro football.” Therefore pro football made its way after more than 100 years of being invented, as an official professional sport. The game of American football caught on quickly, having intercollegiate teams in over 43 universities in 1900. Although the game became very popular it started to cause controversy because of all the violence in the sport, many players

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