“He who does the right thing is bound to prosper” and “nothing good comes easily” (Thomas Muller). Imagine of a journey of a thousand miles. How does it start? It starts with a single step and progresses to the end of the journey. That is exactly how American football started. As the sun sets in each an everyday, American football evolves to where it is currently. We are going to look at the origin of the American football we know today, where it urinated from and the changes it has underwent so far.
Football originated from rugby, a game that began in 1823 in the famous boys’ school in England. Another game that was closely related to football is soccer. It was being played as early as 1820s. At the same time, started playing what was called ball own. There were no hard or fast rules applied to this earliest kind of game that eventually gave rise to football. They started by using their fists and then their feet to advance the ball past the opposing team.
At Harvard, sophomore and freshmen classes competed in a football kind of game played on the first Monday of any school year. Later, the event was named bloody Monday due to the roughness of the game. It was indeed a tough game. Not many of us could withstand it if it did not evolve.
After the end of American civil war, 1867, colleges started organizing football games. In the same year, Princeton established some what we can call rudimentary rules of the game and for the first time real football was patented.
In the year 1873, there was a meeting of representatives from different states who convened together so that they could come up with rules of the American football which was becoming very popular. The representatives came from the following states: Princeton, Columbia, Rutgers, and Yale. The four teams formed an American football association. Every team was supposed to be made up of fifteen players. When the figure is compared to the with the current statistics, it shows that the game has many followers. The game looks very chaotic because it will have thirty players governed with very simple and few rules.
Walter camp a dissenter from IFA and a coach at Yale, came up with idea of an 11 man team. This transformed the rugby-style play to the modern American football we have today. Walter led the IFA’s committee in reducing the number of players to 11. The size of the field was fixed at 110 yards. Just compare that size with what we have today! Surely,” change is inevitable and we just have to accept it when it comes” (Winston Churchill).
In 1880, tackling below the waist was legalized. Is it legal today? A decade later, the game was banned in many colleges due to its brutality. Many deaths of players and serious injuries among them raised a major concern.
The committee legalized forward pass, illegalized rough play and also interlocking of arms. The length of the game was shortened to 60 minutes from the earlier time of 70 minutes. Professional football started in 1895 after the demise of college football. Today, so many people earn their living by playing football and I believe we all enjoy watching the game
Football has evolved overtime. It stated from a crude rugby-like game with less rules to marvelous game we know today. The rules have been changed overtime so as to improve the quality of the game. This is why virtually everybody enjoys football. Isn’t it a great improvement? Let’s cherish football.
References
American Football Coaches Association. (1995). Football coaching strategies. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetic
Netter, G., Hancock, J. L., Kivilo, A., Smith, M., Bourne, T. M., Stoff, E., Kosove, A. A Warner Home Video (Firm). (2010). The blind side. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video.
Falk, G. (2005). Football and American identity. New York: Haworth Press.
American Football Coaches Association. (2000). Defensive football strategies. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
American Football Coaches Association. (2002). The football coaching bible. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
