History of Football
Updated 13 Dec 2018
Ya'll may think that football is awesome...but have ya'll ever looked into it? This timeline does just that.
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Created byDWChamp2
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In 1892, William Pudge
paid a $500
contract to play a
professional football game.
This later led to more advanced
things in football.In 1920
the American Professional
Football Association was
formed. This league changed
it's named to the National Football
League (NFL) two years later,
and eventually became the major
league of American football.In the early 1930s,
the college game continued
to grow, particularly in the South,
bolstered by fierce rivalries such
as the ”South’s Oldest Rivalry",
between Virginia and North
Carolina and the ”Deep South’s
Oldest Rivalry", between Georgia
and Auburn. Although before the
mid-1920s most national powers
came from the Northeast or the
Midwest, the trend changed when
several teams from the South and
the West Coast achieved national success.In 1935, New York City
Downtown Athletic Club
awarded the first Heisman
Trophy to University of
Chicago halfback Jay
Berwanger who was
also the first ever NFL
Draft pick in 1936.On November 6,
1869, Rutgers University
faced Princeton University
(then known as the College
of New Jersey) in a game
that was played with a round
ball and, using a set of rules
suggested by Rutgers captain
William J. Leggett, based on
the Football Association's first
set of rules, which were an
early attempt by the former
pupils of England's public
schools.1980, an additional
20 bowl games were added
to the schedule.
Some have criticized this growth,
claiming that the increased number
of games has diluted the
significance of playing in a bowl game.
Yet others have countered that the
increased number of games has
increased exposure and revenue
for a greater number of schools,
and see it as a positive development.On September 3, 1895,
the first wholly professional
game was played, in
Latrobe, Pennsylvania,
between the Latrobe Athletic
Association and the Jeannette
Athletic Club. Latrobe won
the contest 12–0.As professional football
became a national television
phenomenon, college football
did as well. In the 1950s,
Notre Dame, which had a
large national following,
formed its own network
to broadcast its games, but
by and large, the sport still
retained a mostly regional
following. In 1952, the NCAA
claimed all television broadcasting
rights for the games of its member
institutions, and it alone negotiated
television rights.In its early years, the league
was little more than a formal
agreement between teams to
play each other and to declare
a champion at season's end.
Teams were still permitted to
play non-league members. The
1920 season saw several teams
drop out and fail to play through
their schedule. Only four
teams: Akron, Buffalo, Canton, and
Decatur, finished the schedule. Akron
claimed the first league champion,
with the only undefeated record
among the remaining teams.Football is a popular
participatory sport among
youth. One of the earliest
youth football organizations
was founded in Philadelphia,
in 1929, as the Junior Football
Conference. Organizer Joe
Tomlin started the league to
provide activities and guidance
for teenage boys who were
vandalizing the factory he owned.
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