On September 17, 1920, some men gathered in Canton, Ohio at the Hupmobile showroom of Ralph Hay (“NFL Founded” 1). At the end of this meeting between these men the American Professional Football Association was formed but later will become the National Football League. This is a story of how the National Football League has transformed into the league it is today (1). First known as the American Professional Football Association or APFA and later named the National Football League in 1922, the league's first president official was Jim Thorpe (“NFL Founded” 1). Without a debate the most known athlete of his time, Thorpe helped improve reliability to the sport. Although it wasn’t in the news in 1920, the league's creation was the start of a journey that has made the NFL this country's preferred sport (1). Pro football originally started in 1892 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania after previous Yale star William "Pudge" Heffelfinger was funded a notable sum of $500 to play in a single game for the Allegheny Athletic Association on November 12(“NFL Founded”1). For the next 30 years, pro football faced its highs and lows as the game was played primarily in small towns throughout western Pennsylvania and the Midwest of America(1). Many complications overwhelmed the game of pro football with increasing regularity (“NFL History by Decade” 1). The need for a sense of order for rules and regulations brought these men, which also included George Halas, together in Canton to create the first professional football league(1). “Eleven franchises were represented at the meeting: Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Decatur Staleys, Chicago Cardinals, Cleveland Indians Dayton Triangles, Hammond Pros, Massillon Tigers, Muncie Flyers, Rock Island Independents, an... ... middle of paper ... ... with this rule a rule was made that whenever a play was stopped outside of the hash marks the ball would be put at the closes hash mark (46). Also the ball was changed to be easier to carry and pass (46). The hash mark rule made it less of a danger going to the outside and it spread out the defense. Another important change made in 1933 was the creation of Eastern and Western divisions and the establishment of a championship game putting the winner of each division against each other in the championship game showing who the best team was. These are just a few ways of how the NFL has changed into the game it is today. Although I didn’t cover a lot of the other years I covered the starting years that got this show on the road. Most of the things I talked about in this paper are still in use today so that means that that transformed the game into the game it is today.
America’s newfound favorite pastime, football, came from a bizarre chain of events. Football started when a soccer player got fed up with just kicking the ball, so he picked up the ball and ran to the goal. His actions of picking up the ball and running with it fathered a new European sport, rugby, which was soon brought over to American shores, and was altered slightly, the shape of the ball and a few other small rules. The sport became organized into a league and produced the NFL(National Football League). The NFL had a slow beginning, but has picked up popularity, currently having a $9 billion yearly revenue.
Football is something as American as apple pie. It is thought of as gritty, physical, and all around fun just as most Americans like to be thought of. For decades the NFL has dominated the world of football. However, Vince McMahon, the founder of the WWF, has introduced a new and controversial professional football league called the XFL. Much of the controversy is about whether the XFL is a force to be reckoned with or just another of McMahon’s clever marketing ploys. Although the XFL’s survival has been questioned by many, it promises to be a league full of the smash-mouth, trash-talking, fan-oriented football every fan deserves.
Playing football comes with several risks factors that players’ acknowledge prior to playing the game starting a young age. Regardless, these players still chose to play the game, which they end up loving and cherishing despite all the risks accompanied with it. Football is one of the toughest sports in the world; it takes a certain amount of strength, speed, and aggressiveness to play 48 minutes of hard-nosed football. However, the National Football League (NFL) is in the midst of a controversial issue. Is the NFL getting soft? This has been a debatable issue for several years. While some believe that implementing all these rules in the NFL is progressively turning the game soft, others say that the NFL is not getting soft; it is just trying to make the game safer for its players.
Flag football was created in 1933, and was played by many military officers by the 1940s. The soldiers could not play tackle football due to the risk of injure. The officers needed to be uninjured for battles. When the officers went back home to their families they brought flag football home with them. Early leagues began in the 1960s and the first flag football association was formed. The National Touch Football League changed the rules to touching being the way to “tackle” a player instead of the grabbing the flag. Flag football infiltrated colleges and championships started to be held by various universities. Flag football went pro in 1997 and the Professional Flag Football League, Inc. was formed.
The National Football League has always been evolved in some sort of scandal and Nick Anderson, the cartoonist of Football Emergency, has a very strong opinion of the NFL. His cartoon is easy enough for anyone to understand whether or not they follow the NFL but is much more interesting with a little football knowledge. He tries to argue that the NFL is focusing on useless scandals like deflated footballs instead of the more pressing issues of domestic violence and concussions.
It all started in 1946 when the San Francisco 49ers first began their franchise. In 1950 is when the moved to the National Football League. They earned their name from the gold miners who surged in San Francisco, in 1849, in search for gold so they could start a new life. Their first owner, Anthony J. Morabito, who was from the University of Santa Clara alumnus, had a dream of bringing a football team to the west. He had been moderately successful in the lumber hauling business. To make this happen, Anthony was put in touch with Arch Ward, an editor of the Chicago Tribune. Mr. Ward is credited with the All-American Conference, which was first held in October 1944. Anthony, after a long talk and negotiating with Mr. Ward, was granted a franchise with help from his younger brother, Victor, and partners in his lumbering business, Allen E. Sorrell, and E. J. Turre (“Niner’s history” www.49ersparadise.com).
The National Football League was formed on August 20, 1920. Players wore pads, not quite as protective as the ones today, helmets and legs pads. Even though their protective gear wasn 't all that protective they still made contact with the players of the opposing teams. As the years progressed the league made many changes to the rules due to player safety. They invented better protective gear for the players and they also made more strict rules regarding playing guidelines. The main goal of those rules, like the targeting rule that is so controversial today, is to protect the players. The targeting rule itself states that no player shall target and initiate contact against an opponent with the crown of his helmet, when in
On November 9, 1869, rutgers university faced Princeton university in what is know as the first american football game. But there was many different types of football before american football. One type of football was mob football, where anyone could join any time they wanted. The field was a small town where each team would be able to do anything to in order to score, unless it ended in manslaughter or murder. Also the first footballs were inflated pig bladders.
Bradbury Robinson threw the first forward pass in football and after that the popularity of the sport went up. In 1905 before the first ever pass and catch there were 84 college teams but not all of them had enough players. 1906 was when the first ever pass and catch was recorded, the year after there were 68 teams but the teams were all full, some colleges for the first time had to cut people. The forward pass made football more popular but some people did not agree on this new concept. Some colleges wanted to make a new league where they couldnt pass. Most teams considered it a gambling play, like going for it on fourth down today. Just 14 years later the NFL was created, there were 14 teams and they played 11 games.
“The Green Bay Packers are a non-profit corporation held by the citizens of Green Bay to run it’s football team”,who I think are the best, arguably are the most storied franchise in the National Football League, were organized on Aug,11, 1919, in the dingy second-floor editorial rooms of the old Green Bay Press-Gazette building, located on Cherry Street in downtown Green Bay. Never imagining what might become of the semipro football team being formed that day, nobody documented who was there or how many were on hand. There had been no announcement of the meeting beforehand, and the Press-Gazette provided no details about it the day after.Whether a full complement of players attended or if it was simply a
Until the AFL’s inception in 1960, the NFL dodged several of its rivals and went undefeated. Despite the common conception that American Football League (AFL) was a weaker league than its counterpart National Football League (NFL), AFL proved competitive enough to earn the popularity and win the Super Bowl III that led to the historic NFL-AFL merger in 1966. In spite of bad press NBC, CBS network coverages AFL was able to grow and survive. AFL signed many star players to play in their league to gain that competitive edge. AFL introduced many policies and rules to professional football, which was later adopted by the NFL as well. AFL proved its competency as a league to win a spot within the NFL organization in the later years.
Jim Thorpe was one of the first to change the game. He was an American Indian who was tremendously talented at football. He became the president of the league after he was done playing on a team. He named the league the NFL, which stands for National Football League. This name still stands today for the name of the league where the pros play.
... from its most humble beginnings to now being the most viewed game and valued form of entertainment, the NFL and the Super Bowl have become a staple and reliable boost for our economy. Everyone knows about football and it is on pace to become, if not already, the most influential and dependent resource ever.
... in the USA. N.p., 6 Nov. 2004. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. This source was very general and it gave the history of the nfl is sections/ It did not really tell me how it affected america and was kind of short compared to my other sources.
This essay is about the birth of the Super Bowl and how it changed football and America forever. The Super bowl changed Football in a positive, permanent way. With the birth of the Super Bowl, I believe the sport started to become more and more popular because the winner of the Super Bowl would be the true champion instead of there being two champions (one in each of the two leagues). There was also much more money to be made with the birth of the Super Bowl because it would end up make the game more popular beyond belief which was another goal. I do not think that football would not have come as far as it has today without the Super Bowl. The first Super Bowl was held in Los Angeles California on January 16, 1967.But before this pro football