Walter Camp “The Father of American Football”

           Walter Camp was born April 17, 1859 , in New Haven , Connecticut . He attended Yale from 1876 to 1882, where he studied medicine and business. Walter Camp was a novelist, athletic director, chairman of the board of the New Haven Clock Company, and director of the Peck Brothers Company. He was general athletic director and head advisory football coach at Yale University from 1888-1914, and chairman of the Yale football committee from 1888-1912. Camp played football at Yale and helped develop the rules of the game away from Rugby and Soccer rules into the rules of American Football as we recognize them nowadays. 

One pioneer to Walter Camp’s idea was William Ebb Ellis, a student at the Rugby School in England . During 1823, Ellis was the initial person noted for picking up the ball during the soccer game and running with it, thus breaking and altering the rules. In 1876, at the Massosoit convention, the first attempts at writing down the rules of American football were made. Walter Camp abridged each American Football rulebook until his decease during 1925.  

Walter Camp contributed the following changes from Rugby and soccer to American Football:

 Other Football History 

®                       One side undisputed possession of the ball, until that side gives up the ball as a  result of it’s own violations.

®                       The line of scrimmage.

®                       11 on a team instead of 15.

®                       Created quarter-back and center positions.

®                       Forward pass.

®                       Standardized the scoring system, numerical scoring.

®                       Created the Safety, interference, penalties, and the neutral zone.

®                       Tackling as low as the knees was permitted.

®                       A touchdown increased in value to six points and field goals went down to three points.