With the NFL draft being held this weekend at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, I thought it would be a good time to recall the beginnings of American football, the greatest sport in the world.

Modern American football was developed from many different variances from the sport of Rugby. On November 6, 1869, Rutgers University faced off against Princeton University in a game that is often regarded as the first game of intercollegiate football.

On November 23, 1876, delegates from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia Universities met at the Massasoit House in Springfield, Massachusetts to come up with a new code of rules, which was based on the rugby game first introduced to Harvard by McGill University in 1874.

The rules were basically based on the Rugby Football Union's code from England. The one major rule difference of the two games was the replacement of a kicked goal with a touchdown as the primary means of scoring. At the meetings, three of the schools involved in the meetings, Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton, formed the Intercollegiate Football Association. Yale, and Walter Camp, did not join the group until five years later in 1879, on account of an early dispute about the number of players per team. 

Walter Camp, who is considered the “Father of American Football” is the man that instituted the rule changes that gave the sport of football its own individual image. The most important changes from these rules were the admittance of the line of scrimmage and the down-and-distance rules. 

Walter Camp is widely considered to be the most important figure in the development of American football.

As a boy, Camp excelled in sports such as track, baseball, and soccer. While attending Yale 1876, he was awarded varsity honors in every single sport that Yale offered.

In 1878, Camp proposed his first rule change at the very first meeting he attended at the Massasoit House conventions where the rules of football were discussed and changed. 

One of Camp’s first rule changes adapted was the reduction from fifteen players to eleven. The motion was rejected at first, but was finally passed in 1880. Camp’s reasoning was that it would open up the game and give priority to the speed of the players rather then the strength of the players. The creation of the line of scrimmage and the snap from a center to the quarterback was Camp's most famous change. Prior to this rule change, the ball was actually kicked by the center to the quarterback. 

Camp's newly adapted line of scrimmage rules revolutionized the game of football. Although they did not always materialize as Camp had thought they would. Princeton fo example, used the new rule to slow down the game, making small gains at a time during each down and progressing little by little towards the end zone. Camp’s original idea was to increase scoring, but the rule was exploited to where teams would maintain control of the ball for the whole game, which resulted in slow and uninspiring games. 

During the 1882 rules meeting, Camp recommended that the team with the ball be required to gain a minimum of five yards within three downs. These down-and-distance rules, together with the new line of scrimmage rules, changed the game of football from an adaptation of rugby into the individualistic sport of American football that we know it as today.

Camp was also a key figure to numerous other very important rule changes to the game of American football. The football field was decreased in size to 120 by 53 1/3 yards, which is what it is today in 1881. Camp continuously fiddled with the scoring rules, finally coming up with four points for a touchdown, two points for extra points, two points for safeties, and five points for field goals. In 1887, the time limit for games was set at two halves of 45 minutes each. In addition, that same year, two paid officials, a referee and an umpire, were assigned for each game. In 1888, the rules were changed to allow tackling a player below the waist, and a year later, the officials were given whistles and stopwatches in order to time the game and stop play. 

Camp remained a fixture at the annual rules meetings for the majority of his life, and he personally was involved in selecting a yearly All-American team every year from 1898 to 1924. The Walter Camp Football Foundation continues to this day to select the All-American teams in his honor.

Late in the 1800’s and the early 1900’s, developments to how the game was played by notable college coaches such as Eddie Cochems, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Knute Rockne, and Glenn "Pop" Warner were key in the introduction of the forward pass in the game of football.

From 1900-1950, the popularity of college football grew leaps and bounds into a superior adaptation of the sport. The college football tradition of Bowl games drew attention to a large national audience for college teams. Boosted by numerous fierce rivalries throughout college football, it still holds nationwide attraction throughout the United States.

Professional football can be tracked back to 1892, when William "Pudge" Heffelfinger's signed a $500 contract for the Allegheny Athletic Association to play in a game against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. The American Professional Football Association was formed in 1920. Two years later, the league changed its name to the National Football League (NFL). Over time, the NFL became the major professional league of all American football leagues.

In the beginning, professional Football was mostly a sport made up of Midwestern industrial towns but eventually became a national phenomenon. The 1958 NFL Championship Game, which is called the “Greatest Game Ever Played,” is the game that changed the fortunes and popularity of professional football forever.

In 1920, at a Hupmobile car dealership in Canton Ohio, the American Professional Football Association (APFA), the first professional football league, was founded. The league's first president was Jim Thorpe. After several additional meetings, the league's body of teams was finalized. The original teams were the Akron Pros, the Buffalo All-Americans, the Canton Bulldogs, the Chicago Tigers, the Cleveland Indians, the Columbus Panhandles, the Dayton Triangles, the Decatur Staleys, the Detroit Heralds, the Hammond Pros, the Muncie Flyers, the Racine Cardinals, the Rochester Jeffersons, and the Rock Island Independents.

During it primitive years the APFA was no more than a verbal agreement between the teams in the league to play each other and then declare a champion once the season ended. Teams were still allowed to play teams that were not members of the APFA.

Out of the original 14 teams, only four teams finished the season and played through their schedule. The other teams all dropped out before the season was completed for one reason or the other. The four teams that lasted through the season, Akron, Buffalo, Canton, and Decatur, finished playing all of their games that were scheduled. Among those teams, only Akron was undefeated and they were named the leagues first champion. 

The next season, in 1921, they officially changed to the National Football League (NFL), and several more teams joined the league, bringing the amount of teams to 22. Among the new teams were the Green Bay Packers, which now has the record for the team with longest tenure without changing their name. In addition, that year, A. E. Staley, who was the owner of the Decatur Staleys, sold the team to then player and Coach George S. Halas. Halas went on to become one of the most esteemed figures in the first fifty years of the NFL.

After his purchase of the team, Halas moved the team to Chicago, but continued to call the team the Staleys. A year later, Halas renamed the team the Chicago Bears. Halas had a couple of reasons for renaming the team the Bears. First, if all, they played their games at Wrigley Field, home of Major League baseballs Chicago Cubs, and second, he knew that cubs were baby bears.   

By the middle of the decade, there were 25 teams in the NFL. Several notable college stars joined the NFL, the most famous being Red Grange from the University of Illinois in 1925.

The NFL has continued to grow throughout the years and has expanded quite a few times to get to its current 32-team membership. The Super Bowl has become more than just a football championship. It is one of the most popular televised broadcasts in the United States every year. 

There have been a few other professional football leagues throughout the history of the game that were instituted in an attempt to compete either directly or indirectly with the NFL.  

In the late 1920’s, A rival league known as the original American Football League (AFL) was formed. The NFL rival AFL folded after just one season, but it was attributed to an increasing interest in the professional game of football.

In 1960, The second American Football League (AFL), and a direct rival league to the NFL, started play. It was a faster game with a lot more passing with high scoring games and the pressure it put on the NFL for popularity eventually led to a merger between the AFL and the NFL. The merger also led to the creation of the Super Bowl, which has become the most watched television broadcast every single year in the United States.

In 1974, the World Football League (WFL) formed, but within a year most of the WFL teams were financially ruined and the league folded in 1975. 

In 1982, the United States Football League (USFL) formed as a spring league in order to avoid directly competing with the NFL immediately and enjoyed fair success during its first two seasons. In 1985, after having the success it did, the USFL moved its schedule to the fall and attempted to compete directly with the NFL. However, it was a bad move and the league folded soon there after.

In 2001, the XFL was formed as a joint venture between the World Wrestling Federation and the NBC television network. It was more of a sideshow then anything and it folded even before it even completed its first season because of an absence of any serious fan interest.

There are also a few other professional leagues looking to begin operations in the next couple of years as well. 

The United Football League (UFL), scheduled to open in October 2009, will be a fall league in direct competition with the NFL. They currently have teams set up in Las Vegas, Orlando, New York, and San Francisco. The UFL will be aired on the versus cable television network on Thursday nights. 

The All American Football League (AAFL), a six-team league scheduled to begin play in the spring of 2010, is a league that will be based in cities that have a large college football following but no professional football team in the area.

A third league, which will be bringing back the name of the United States Football League (USFL), is scheduled to begin play in February 2010. It has had considerably less media attention than either the AAFL or UFL.

Whether any of these new leagues will be able to tread water with the NFL is yet to be seen. The NFL has developed throughout the years to become the most popular sports league in the United States.

Photo Credit: VJ Lovero / Icon SMI