Professor – American football, known in the United States simply as football, is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposite team’s end zone by running with it or throwing it to a teammate. Points can be scored by carrying the ball over the opponent’s goal line, catching a pass threw over that goal line, kicking the ball through the opponent’s goal line, or tackling an opposing ball carrier in his own end zone. In the United States the major forms are high school football, college football, and professional football. Each of these are played under slightly different rules. High school football is governed by the National Federation of State High School Association and college football by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The highest level league of professional football is the National Football League. American football is closely related to Canadian football but with some differences in rules and the field. Both sports can be traced to earlier versions of association football and rugby football.
Student – Can I ask you a question please?
Professor – Of course.
Student – Well, when did football appear? Um, is it related to rugby in any way, historically I mean.
Professor – Well yes, um, the history of football can be traced to earlier versions of rugby football. Both games have their origins in varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century in which a ball is kicked at a goal and/or run over a line. Many games known as football were being played at colleges and university in the United States in the first half of the 19th century. Rutgers University and its neighbor Princeton University played the first game of intercollegiate football on the 6th November, 1869, on a plot of ground where the present day Rutgers gymnasium now stands in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Following rules closely resembling ____ soccer, Rutgers won that first game six to four and rugby star games were introduced into the United States in 1871 when an international match between Harvard’s football team and one out of McGill University in Montreal featured a game of rugby and the game played according to Harvard’s house rules. The rugby ____, still prototypical at the time and yet to separate in to union and league variants seen today, would become the starting point for the American and Canadian game in the late 19th century. Football resulted from several major divergences from rugby football, most notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp, considered the father of football. Among these important changes were the introduction of the line of scrimmage and of down and distant rules. In the late 19th century and 20th century, game play developments by college coaches such as Eddie ___, ___, ___, and ___ helped take advantage of the newly introduced forward pass. The popularity of collegiate football grew as it became the dominant version of the sport for the first half of the 20th century. Ball games, a large football tradition, attracted a national audience for collegiate teams. Bolsted 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 dollars contract to play in a game for the ____ Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. Pittsburgh’s football circuit became fully professional over the course of the 1890s, combinating in the first professional league, the major league baseball backed National Football League of 1902, which folded after one season. The call of professional football moved westward into Ohio beginning in 1903 where it would remain until a mass dispersal throughout the Midwest in the late 1910s. In 1920, the American Professional Football Association was formed as a coallition of teams from regional state associations such as the Ohio League and the New York Pro Football League. The first game was played in Dayton, Ohio on October 3, 1920. The league changed its name to the National Football League (NFL) two years later. From its inception, the NFL had been the de-facto major league of football. Initially a sport of Midwestern industrial towns of the United States, professional football eventually became a national phenomenon. Football’s increasing popularity is usually traced to the 1958 NFL Championship game, a contest that has been dubbed “the greatest game ever played.” A rival league to the NFL, the American Football League, called AFL, began play in 1960. The pressure is put on the senior league ___ between the two leagues and the creation of the Super Bowl which has become the most watched television event in the United States on an annual basis. Other professional leagues, both major and minor, have formed, but almost all have been shortlived. High school football dates to the 1880s and also enjoys regional popularity.
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