American football was started in 1879 with rules
instituted by Walter Camp.
Derived from the English game of rugby,
American football was started in 1879 with rules
instituted by Walter Camp, player and coach at
Yale University.
Walter Camp
Walter Camp was born April 17,
1859, in New Haven, Connecticut. He attended Yale
from 1876 to 1882, where he studied medicine and
business. Walter Camp was an author, athletic director,
chairman of the board of the New Haven Clock Company,
and director of the Peck Brothers Company. He was
general athletic director and head advisory football
coach at Yale University from 1888-1914, and chairman
of the Yale football committee from 1888-1912.
Camp played football at Yale and helped evolve
the rules of the game away from Rugby and Soccer
rules into the rules of American Football as we
know them today.
One precursor to Walter Camp's influence was
William Ebb Ellis, a student at the Rugby School
in England.
In 1823, Ellis was the first person noted for picking
up the ball during the soccer game and running
with it, thereby breaking and changing the rules.
In 1876, at the Massosoit convention, the the first
attempts at writing down the rules of American
football were made. Walter Camp edited every American
Football rulebook until his death in 1925.
Walter Camp contibuted the following changes
from Rugby and Soccer to American football:
- one side retained undisputed possession
of the ball, until that side gives up the
ball as a result of its own violations
- the line of scrimmage
- 11 on a team instead of 15
- created the quarter-back and center positions
- forward pass
- standardized the scoring system, numerical
scoring
- created the safety, interference, penalties,
and the neutral zone
- tackling as low as the knee was permitted
- 1888
- a touchdown increased in value to six points
and field goals went down to three points -
1912
The NFL or the National Football League, was formed
in 1920.
