Delanceyplace.com 12/3/08-The Invention of Football

In today's excerpt-in the restless, expansionary America of the late 1800s, the America of Jesse James, John D. Rockefeller and Manifest Destiny, the public demanded a sport more exciting than the European imports of rugby and soccer, and so American football was invented:

"Princeton and Rutgers played a game in 1869, a contest that has often been called the first intercollegiate American football game. But this Old World game--a blend of soccer and rugby--had no compelling action or story line. It was just a mass of humanity moving in what was then called a 'scrummage.' Not enough happened. ... And the players and, most important, the spectators quickly grew tired of it.

"The boys at Harvard made the first move. They called it the Boston Game, which allowed running with the football and tackling. Their game was a little more open and much more physical brand of rugby that had for years been played in Wales and England. ... As the Harvard Advocate said in 1874, the Boston Game was much better 'than the somewhat sleepy game now played by our men.'

"In 1876, however, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania still competed under soccer rules, while Harvard and Yale competed under the modified Boston Game. Something had to be done. The four schools held a convention on November 26, 1876, in Springfield, Massachusetts, and formed the Intercollegiate Football Association. The Harvard boys convinced the group to adopt the Boston Game. It was far more compelling. It simply asked the players to do more in more wide-open space. ..."

[But American] fans 'demanded [even more] action,' wrote Parke H. Davis in Football--The American Intercollegiate Game. 'A great clamor broke out.' So, the tinkering was over. Time for dramatic change. The year was 1880. Another convention was held [in Philadelphia]. ... First thing to go: the scrum. It suggested everything that was un-American: a mass of humanity moving in no particular direction, with no particular purpose. Instead, one team was given possession of the ball, and a line of scrimmage was created--a line on the field clearly delineating which team had the ball, and which team did not. ... 'The man who first receives the ball from the snap-back shall be called the quarter-back,' a new rule stated. By creating the position of 'quarter-back,' football's founders created a man on the field who would stand out among equals (a deliciously American concept).

"That was not enough. Another convention was held in 1882, and the participants implemented a great idea, an idea completely foreign to the football/rugby/soccer players around the world: the concept of the first down. It was like somebody flipped a light switch. Here was the new rule they created: 'If on three consecutive fairs and downs a team shall not have advanced the ball five yards or lost ten, they must give up the ball to the other side at the spot where the fourth down was made.' ... Ah, Manifest Destiny! Now, that's something American players and spectators could embrace. Capture territory. Hold it. Advance."

Sal Palantonio, How Football Explains America, Triumph, Copyright 2008 by Sal Palantonio, pp. 4-7