The first football games played in early 19th century America were disorganized and frequently violent, like the rugby games of the same era in the United Kingdom. Teams from different towns or schools vied to get a ball past the goal on the opposite end of the field. Today's game of football, with its elaborate set of rules, was created by New England's elite secondary schools and colleges.
Oneida Club
The first organized football club was Boston's Oneida Club, founded in 1862 by a group of students from the Dixwell Private Latin School. The members were students from prominent Boston families like Wolcott, Bowditch, Forbes and Peabody. The Oneida Club "played all comers" on the Boston Commons field for four years, according to a commemorative granite plaque installed in 1925, and the Oneida goal "was never crossed." There were few rules, no time limits and players used a rubber ball.
College Football
The first intercollegiate game played in America was on Nov. 6, 1869, in Rutgers, New Jersey. Home team Rutgers University prevailed over its rival Princeton, 6-4, using rules adopted from the rules of the London Football Association. Contemporary reports of the game, as compiled by Rutgers University, included an account of how two stars of the game who were chasing the ball crashed against the fence so hard that it broke, tumbling some student spectators to the ground.
Father of American Football
In 1891, Walter Camp published his book "American Football," which predicted that his version of football "will very likely" become as well understood some day in America as rugby. Camp was a varsity football player and then the first coach at Yale and Stanford universities. He became known as the father of American football after helping to formalize the rules that differentiate today's football from rugby, including the scrimmage rule and the downs system.
Ivy League
Mark Bernstein, author of "Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession," writes that New England's Ivy League colleges created American football, inventing its equipment, its rules and its strategies. Although Ivy League teams aren't the biggest names in college football anymore, almost every aspect of modern pro ball was shaped by players and coaches at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton and Yale universities.
References
- Santa Monica College Faculty Homepages: Football in the USA: American Culture and the World's Game
- "How Boston Played: Sport, Recreation, and Community, 1865-1915"; Stephen Hardy;
- Celebrate Boston: First Football Club in America
- R Football: Rutgers: The Birthplace of Intercollegiate Football
- "American Football"; Walter J. Camp; 1891
- University of Pennsylvania Press: Football The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession
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