A Brief History of American Football - From Early Days to Present Day
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American football is America’s most popular sport, with more than 127 million Americans regularly playing the sport. And while American football has existed as a game for well over one hundred years, it has seen several different transformations along the way. Check out this brief history of how American football came to be so beloved by so many.
American Football in the Ancient World
American football somehow managed to exist as a sport in the early 1900s, when most people were simply playing rugby or soccer, or watching those sports being played. But all that would drastically change over the next few decades, when the sport would find an audience across the country and even gain popularity in Europe. American football entered the ancient world during the late 1700s when interest in the sport was high. In the late 1700s, a few colleges in the United States began playing the sport of football on a regular basis, but it was really the late 1800s and early 1900s when the sport became popular enough to see an organized league form.
Rugby Football in the 19th Century
American football was hardly the only sport with a footy variant during the 1800s, though. Rugby football, which is still a popular sport today, had been played in England since the mid-1800s when the modern game of rugby was first played. Even though American football was just beginning to gain traction, rugby football was already a popular sport in England. Rugby played with a ball that was slightly larger than an American football, which was made of cork instead of leather. The ball was kicked, and there were few rules of the game. That meant players could tackle each other with reckless abandon, and there were no end zones to mark for scoring. In fact, there weren’t even many rules at all, other than that there had to be a ball on every team’s side of the field — a bit like today’s soccer.
The First American Football League
American football began to take off in the late 1800s, thanks to the organizing efforts of Walter Camp. In 1876, Walter Camp, the son of a Civil War soldier and himself a Civil War veteran, began his career by organizing a football team for the New York Athletic Club. The New York Athletic Club would go on to win the first American football championship, in 1886. Camp, who had seen rugby played in schools and colleges, believed American football had more potential than casual and free-flowing rugby. He even wrote an article entitled “The American Game of Football” in 1885, in which he made bold claims about the future of American football, including that the game would become “the most popular of all games in the country” within a few decades.
The National Football League and NFL Today
After Camp wrote his article, the American football movement grew substantially in the early 1900s, thanks to the efforts of Walter S Eaton and Alexander Galt. Galt was a football coach who organized the Toronto Rugby Football Club. Eaton was president of the New York baseball team the New York Knickerbockers. Both men had been fans of rugby and football and wanted to bring that sport to the United States. Eaton and Galt wanted to organize a national American football league, and in 1919, the NFL was formed. The NFL officially began in 1920, with five teams: the Decatur Staleys, the Chicago Staleys, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the New York Giants, and the New York Yankees.
College Football: Bowl Games and Division I-FBS Conferences
As American football grew in popularity in the 1900s, it began to attract attention from college administrators. In 1912, Harvard and Yale played the first intercollegiate American football game, known as the "Boston Game." By 1930, the number of colleges playing American football had grown to almost 200, and the first intercollegiate championship game was played in 1917. College football has evolved significantly since its early days, and today there are more than 1,500 high school teams in the country playing American football. There are also over 100 college football teams, with the most popular being the FBS conferences. The most popular college football conference, the SEC, is made up of nine teams, including the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers.
High School Football: Classifications, Bowl Games and State Championships
College football, as a whole, has become the most popular level of play in American football. High school football, however, has remained popular, particularly in large cities and areas with large populations of immigrants. Over the years, the rules governing high school football have changed significantly, including the introduction of classifications. All high schools are classified by the state as either a 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A, or 4B school. As such, high school football teams compete in either the 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A, or 4B classification. Class 1A teams are generally the largest schools in the state, while class 4A schools typically include smaller, public high schools.
What’s Next for American Football? A look at the future of the game
American football is one of the most popular sports in the world, and the game remains more popular than any other professional sport in the United States. However, it has faced stiff competition in recent years from other popular sports, like soccer and professional basketball. American football players are also making a lot of money these days, thanks to the high salaries that are paid in the NFL and by professional football players. While the sport doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon, it will still face challenges as the world of sports continues to change.