Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Origins of American Football

Episode Date: July 9, 2022

In the mid-19th century, the various games called football separated and evolved into their own games.  While association football and rugby became dominant on one side of the Atlantic, a totally different version of football evolved on the other side of the Atlantic.  That version of the game over the course of 150 years has grown into the move valuable professional sports league in the world. Learn more about American Football and how it grew into the game it is today, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Search Past Episodes at fathom.fm Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the mid-19th century, the various games that were called football separated and evolved into their own sports. While association football and rugby became dominant on one side of the Atlantic, a totally different version of football evolved on the other side. That version of the game, over the course of 150 years, has grown into the most valuable professional sports league in the world. Learn more about American football and how it grew into the game it is today on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now.

Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. The origin of this episode actually came from one of my listeners in New Zealand who suggested an episode on the origins of Gridiron. which is what American football is called in many countries. People outside of the United States and Canada probably are vaguely aware of what American football is based on references in movies or television, but they might not know exactly what's happening if they were to watch a game. People in the United States or Canada may be very familiar with the game, but they have no clue how the game came to be what it is today. So regardless of how familiar you are with the game, I think there might be something that you'll learn. I previously did an episode on the common origins of association football, aka soccer, rugby, and American football.

It's hard to believe that they all had the same origins, but it's actually true. Kind of like how dolphins, monkeys, and bats are all mammals. They look totally different, but they all have similar origins. What we know as American football has its origins in rugby. If you are a rugby fan or an American football fan, you could watch the other game and get the basic gist of what was going out. I, as an American, attended the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, and I was able to watch games and basically understand what was happening, even without knowing the minutia of the rules. There's a rectangular field, goalposts, an oval-shaped ball. Each team is trying to advance the ball down the field to a zone at the end of the field to score points.

While the very basics of the game are the same, anyone watching the two sports would very quickly realize that they're watching two very different things. As early as 1820, there were ball games being played at American universities on the East Coast. Each school tended to have its own rules, and the games were mostly an excuse for a mob of people to get wild. Dartmouth College in New Hampshire had an annual game called Old Division Football, and there's a photo of the game from 1874 you can find, and it's basically a field full of people chasing after a ball. Because every university had its own set of rules, there was an attempt to try to create a standardized set of rules that every college would adopt.

The first intercollegiate game took place on November 6, 1869, when Rutgers University faced Princeton University. This game would probably not be recognized by anyone today as American football. For starters, the ball was round, and there were 25 players on each side. You would win the game by kicking the ball over the other team's goal, and you could not touch or carry the ball. This early game was more like a violent version of association football than it was like rugby. As more colleges wanted to play each other, the intercollegiate football association was

established in 1873. This organization supported college teams playing each other. Prior to this point, teams are often to negotiate the rules before each match. In October of 1873, students from Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Rutgers all met in New York City to establish a uniform set of rules. These rules were, again, more like association football than the new rugby union, which had formed in 1871 in England. Harvard refused to attend as their version of the game allowed for picking up the ball and running, whereas the Intercollegiate Football Association did not. Harvard wasn't able to find any opponents at American colleges, so they scheduled two games against McGill University in Montreal in 1874. The first game used Harvard rules and the second

game used rugby union rules. In June 1875, Harvard faced Tufts University with a new version of the rules. In this game, they adopted the rugby concept of a try, which became known as a touchdown in American football. They also had 11 players on a side, and play stopped when the ball carrier was tackled to the ground. In October of that year, Harvard played Yale for the first time using these new rules, but with 15 players on a side. There were spectators in attendance from Princeton who really liked the new rules, and one person in the stands who would attend Yale the next year, who created the modern version of the game, Walter Camp. Walter Camp entered Yale in 1876 and became influential in codifying many new rules which would define the game that are still in place today.

For starters, he set the number of players on each side at 11. That is still the size of a team at most levels of competition today. He also created the concept of a line of scrimmage. This is the invisible line in the field which is determined by the placement of the ball. The line of scrimmage came from the rugby union scrum and scrum is just short for the line. the word scrumage. Along with the line of scrimmage, Camp also created the position of center and quarterback, as well as the idea of the center snapping the ball to the quarterback from the line of scrimmage. The initial rule regarding snaps stipulated that it had to be done by the center's

foot, not their hands. They would literally kick it backwards with their heel. The entire concept behind these rules was that it allowed for one team, the offense, to have an uncontested attempt to advance the ball until they either scored or lost control of the ball. Each team would line up on opposite sides of the line of scrimmage until the ball was snapped, and then play would continue until the player carrying the ball was tackled down. And that is why each play is called a down. The idea of a line of scrimmage radically changed the game. However, there was a problem.

A team could control the ball forever so long as they just didn't turn it over. Some teams, in particular Princeton, just kept advancing incrementally in very short distances. In 1882, Camp suggested a rule to solve this problem. The offensive team had to advance the ball five yards within three downs. If they failed to do that, they would forfeit control of the ball. In 1881, the field was set at its current dimensions. The length of the field was set at a hundred yards long, with 10-yard end zones, and a width of 53 and 1-3rd yards. There was also experiments with different point values for different methods of scoring. In 1883, a touchdown was worth four points, the points after a touchdown was worth two points, a safety was worth two points,

and a field goal was worth five. This system of different points for different types of scoring was actually adopted by Rugby Union from American football. And for those of you unfamiliar with the game, a touchdown is getting the ball into the zone at the end of the field. If you do that, you can kick the ball through the uprights for additional points. A field goal is kicking the ball through the uprights without a touchdown, and a safety is when you push the opponents all the way back into their end zone. There was one other big advance in the early 1880s which would truly set American football apart from rugby. They legalized interference, or as it's called an American football, blocking. Blocking is totally illegal in rugby. Walter Camp first saw blocking

in the 1879 Harvard Princeton game where he was an official, and he was shocked at what he saw. However, he soon realized how powerful it was and began using it with Yale the next year. Blocking soon led to formations like the Flying Wedge and players interlocking their arms to form a wall for players to run behind. The Flying Wedge was actually a sports adaptation of an ancient military formation. The Flying Wedge was made illegal in 1884 because it was considered to be too dangerous. The new sports saw rapid growth in the last two decades of the 19th century, with colleges all over the country establishing football teams and playing other universities. The Army Navy game of 1893, which is the annual game between the Army Military Academy in West Point, New York,

and the Navy Military Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, saw the first use of a helmet. Navy player Joseph M. Reeves had a leather helmet made by a shoemaker to protect his head after suffering a concussion. And fun fact, in addition to inventing the football helmet, Admiral Joseph Reeves is also known as the father of the aircraft carrier. There's something else that I haven't mentioned yet, which is also a huge difference between rugby and American football, the forward pass. The forward pass was initially just a trick play. It was technically illegal, but it happened so infrequently that it was often allowed because the referees had never seen it happen and weren't familiar with the rules. Also at this time, football began to get a very violent reputation.

In 1904, 19 players had been killed and 159 seriously injured, and another 1905 were killed in 1905. President Theodore Roosevelt held a meeting with 60 schools in 1905 and threatened to ban football unless something was done. A new Rules Committee, which assembled in 1906, made a series of changes, one of which was making the forward pass legal. The idea was that it would spread out players on the field, reducing collisions. The first forward pass attempt was by Bradbury Robinson of St. Louis University on September 5, 1906. It was an incomplete pass. This Rules Committee became the basis of what would eventually become the National Collegiate Athletic Association or the NCAA. Later that decade, the Rules Committee also changed in the number of points awarded. Fields Goals were reduced

to three points in 1909, and touchdowns were raised to six points in 1912. They also changed the number of downs from three to four and increased the distance you had to move from five yards to 10. The first several decades of American football was dominated by college teams. However, other teams began springing up, not aligned with universities, and that was the beginning of players being paid. The first person believed to have been paid to play a football game was Pudge Hefflefinger in 1892, but that was done in secrecy and it wasn't revealed until years later.

In 1897, the Latrobe Athletic Association of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, became the first holy professional football team. In 1902, the first professional league was established known as the National Football League. Despite having the same name, it was not the predecessor of the modern league called the National Football League. In 1920, the American Professional Football Association was formed with 14 teams. It was a very loose organization as the teams could be. play anyone they wanted, and only four of the 14 teams actually completed their full schedule

of games. In 1921, what was to become the greatest team in professional football history, the Green Bay Packers, joined the organization. The American Professional Football Association changed its name to the National Football League in 1921, which is the league that exists today. Of note is the fact that unlike baseball, which had a very strict color barrier barring black players. Professional football never had such a restriction. There were several black players in the first years of the league. There weren't many, but they did play, including the famous baritone singer Paul Robson. Fritz Pollard became the first black head coach in 1921. The use of football helmets didn't become mandatory until 1939 in college and 1943 in the NFL. However, they were

de facto used by everyone in the NFL before that. The last player not to use a helmet was Dick Paulsman of the Chicago Bears in 1940. The early helmets were just made out of leather and may have had some rubber or foam inside to protect the head. The first plastic helmets were introduced in 1940 by the Riddle Sports Company out of Chicago, and the first face mask, which consisted of a bar in front, was adopted in 1955. The ball used in American football has evolved over time. As I mentioned before, the first balls were actually spherical.

However, they eventually evolved to a more oblong ball like rugby balls. The modern-looking ball was adopted in 1934, that was more tapered at the ends and thinner in the middle. This made the ball much easier to throw and made the forward pass a much more practical play. Despite all the rule changes over the years, there are still some rather obscure rules that are on the books, which are holdovers from the very earliest days of the sport. For starters, rugby passes are still totally legal in American football. You don't see them very often, but they're actually called lateral passes. You'll often see teams do it in desperation.

situations or when doing trick plays. The other thing which is still legal, but almost never done, are drop kicks. A drop kick is not a punt. A drop kick is a kick where you kick the ball after it bounces on the ground. Drop kicks became all but extinct after the ball changes in 1934, as it became much harder to do a drop kick with the tapered ball design. Nonetheless, it's still legal. There has only been one successful scoring drop kick in the NFL since 1941. On January 1st, 2006, Doug Flutie, the backup quarterback for the New England Patriots, did a drop kick on a point after touchdown. It was done because it was his last NFL game, and turned out it was his last play in the NFL.

The Patriots coach, Bill Belichick, let him do it as a gesture for his last game, because he knew he was one of the few players in the league who could pull it off. The last thing I'll mention is that there's another variant of gridiron, which is known as Canadian football. Canadian football is very similar to the American variant with some important differences in rules. However, due to time constraints, I will leave that for a future episode. American football, despite being loosely based on rugby union,

is now a totally different animal. Despite being over 150 years old, the game is still evolving with new rules being adopted to make the game safer and more competitive. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener Big Boy 1865 over at Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write,

definite no-brainer. Um, what's not to like? Topics vary so you don't lose interest, gives you enough info to know if it's worth digging into a subject further, et cetera, et cetera. P.S, there's one thing I don't like, it's not long enough, but I know it takes a lot of work, which I appreciate. PPS, what are your family's feelings on the podcast given how much time the prep takes. Thanks, big boy. As for the episode length, you might not have noticed, but the episodes have been getting slightly longer over time. The average length used to be about 10 minutes, and now it seems to be around 12 to 13 minutes. I wouldn't expect any dramatic increase in the length beyond what it is currently. As for the amount of time it takes, I don't have way for kids,

so I don't really have to worry too much about the family. And even if I did, I just treat it like a job. I've gotten pretty good at writing episodes now, so if I focus, I can get them done much faster than I could when I started two years ago. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you too can have it read on the show.