Beginnings | football

Football is believed originally have descended from the ancient Greek game Harpastum. Harpastum was popular for around 700-800 years during the Roman Empire time period. It was played with 5-12 players on a rectangular field with boundry lines and a spit down the middle of the field. Each team tried to keep the ball on their side of the field for as long as they could while the other team tried to steal it from them. Only the player with the ball was allowed to be tackled. Julius Caesar used this game to keep his soldiers in good physical condiditon and always battle ready. The game evolved and spread, splitting into what became what we know today as soccer and rugby.

The official game of rugby was reportedly first introduced during a soccer game in England, by a young man named William Webb Ellis. Matthw Bloxam wrote, "Ellis, for the first time, disregarded this rule, and on catching the ball, instead of retiring backwards, rushed forwards with the ball in his hands towards the opposite goal, with what result as to the game I know not, neither do I know how this infringement of a well-known rule was followed up, or when it became, as it is now, a standing rule." It wasn't until 1841 that running with the ball was officially allowed. In 1864, the first Australian Rugby Club was established. Rugby is a sport consisting of two 15-person teams that try to score more points than the other team by running, passing, kicking, and grounding the ball to get into the end zone (goal area).

These two games dominated the sports scene for decades. Relatively unnoticed at the time, a new sport was created in November of 1869, when Rutgers and Princeton Universities met for the first official game. In early versions, there were 20 players to a team, and the game very closely resembled rugby. However, due to a need to expand the excitement for the new sport, rules were constantly changing. In 1873, several Universities met in New York and created the first intercollegiate football rules. They also created a new league, the IFA. Years after, the number of players was cut to 11 from 15 and a size of the playing field was set at 110 yards. In 1912, the system of downs was finalized, allowing only four attempts to advance the ball 10 yards. In the early 1900s, a rules committee named the NCAA was created due to the increasing brutality of the game that lead to around 18 deaths and over 180 serious injuries. The game remained largely a collegiate sport until November of 1892, when the Allegheny Athletic Association defeated the Pittsburgh Athletic Club in the first ever professional football game. However, it wasn't until 1920 that an official pro football league was formed, the American Professional Football Association. In 1922, the name was changed to the National Football League.