Brief History Of American Football

By Nathan Lambert  

    One of the sports that had an influence on American football was an old English sport called rugby. Some similarities are how they have to move a ball in opposing goals, and they both have to use their legs instead of horse back because most old sports had to use horses. The changes that led to American football were at Harvard during a rugby competition. A student named Walter Camp imagined the auditions like the quarterback, line of scrimmage, and the ‘down and distance’ system.

    For a while, football was only a college sport and you were never paid for playing, although some people were given expensive trophies or watches. In turn, they would pawn them for money. This went on until William Pudge was openly paid 500 dollars in 1892, which would be $16,869.56 today. There were problems with people getting paid to play football by the  Allegheny Athletic Association, which wanted it to stay an unpaid college sport. People kept doing it behind their back anyway, so that better players would be more interested to play on the team. Soon, The Allegheny Athletic Association would learn that they can also make money off of the games. With that in mind, they let players get paid until it grew into the NFL, the classic football league that we all know and love today.