When Did Football Start in America?

Like many other sports, American football evolved from earlier activities. It has no specific "start" date because other games bearing a close resemblance to it were played and refined for many years before it. It's thus difficult to pinpoint a single moment in which the game was said to begin. However, a number of specific developments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries highlight key events, and mark the origins of American football as we know it today.

Football initially arose from rugby and soccer, which had been played in North America since the mid 19th century. It shared a common premise with these other sports--driving a ball towards a goal line--as well as the rough number of players and terms like "halfback" and "fullback." It was an extremely rough and unorganized sport, though it catalyzed on university campuses where intramural teams would play against each other.

Walter Camp is largely regarded as the founder of American football: an outstanding athlete who excelled at sports during his tenure at Yale in the 1870s. Between 1878 and 1889, he was a staple at the Massasoit House conventions, the annual meetings between Ivy League schools to codify the various rules for football. During these meetings, he introduced many of the conventions of modern football, including the line of scrimmage, the snap back to the quarterback, the rules for downs and distance, and the basic scoring scheme.

Intercollegiate football can be traced to 1869, when a team from Princeton University traveled to Rutgers to play the first official college football game. Over the next 20 years, as the rules become standardized, the sport quickly picked up in popularity: jumping from eight teams in 1880 to over 40 by the turn of the century. The Ivy League initially remained the center of college football activity, but schools further west soon picked up on the sport: most notably the University of Michigan, who established the first football team in the Midwest. They were soon followed by other schools in the area--including Northwestern, Minnesota and the University of Chicago--which prompted the formation of the first intercollegiate conference in 1895. It was called the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives, and eventually became known as the Big Ten Conference.

Outside of college, football was largely played by athletic clubs in the early years. They were based around local civic organizations such as the YMCA, and initially, they were played largely for fun. Though paying players was frowned upon, the practice picked up as a means of keeping the best athletes, which led to the gradual establishment of football as a professional sport. The first pro football game was played in 1895 between a team from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and another team from Jeanette.

It wasn't until 1920 that professional football catalyzed into the leagues we know today. The American Professional Football Association--later known as the NFL--first met in Canton, Ohio that year and established 14 teams to play against each other. Expansion was slow and pro football remained in the shadow of the college game for many decades. It was only during the late 1950s--with the emergence of stars like Johnny Unitas and Jim Brown, and in particular with the 1958 championship dubbed "The Greatest Game Ever Played"--that the NFL began to come into its own.

Though it never matched the popularity of hockey in its native country, or of the NFL in the U.S., the Canadian Football League remains North America's other predominant professional football league. Football bloomed in Canada in the 1800s just as it did in the United States, marked most notably by the establishment of the Grey Cup in 1909. In 1958, Canadian football catalyzed in to the CFL, consisting of nine teams which would compete every year for the Grey Cup. The rules were similar to American football, but differed in a few key points (notably the size of the field).