History of American Football: Professional Football, American Football on Thanksgiving, List of High School Football Rivalries

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 37. Chapters: Professional football, American football on Thanksgiving, List of high school football rivalries, Steroid use in American football, Professional American football championship games, Black players in American professional football, Pro Football Hall of Fame, American football at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Excerpt: American football can be traced to early versions of rugby football and association football. Both games have their origin in varieties of football played in Britain in the mid-19th century, in which a football is kicked at a goal and/or run over a line. American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby, most notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp, considered the Father of American Football. Among these important changes were the introduction of the line of scrimmage and of down-and-distance rules. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, gameplay developments by college coaches such as Eddie Cochems, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Knute Rockne, and Glenn Pop Warner helped take advantage of the newly introduced forward pass. The popularity of collegiate football grew as it became the dominant version of the sport in the United States for the first half of the 20th century. Bowl games, a college football tradition, attracted a national audience for collegiate teams. Bolstered by fierce rivalries, college football still holds widespread appeal in the US. The origin of professional football can be traced back to 1892, with William Pudge Heffelfinger's $500 contract to play in a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. In 1920 the American Professional Football Association was formed. This league changed its name to the National Football League (NFL) two years later, and eventually became the major league of American football. Primarily a sport...