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Black College Football Hall of Fame
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innings
Rutgers and Princeton played a high school football game, the former on Nov. 6. The game used the amended regulations of the London Football Association. Over the next seven years, rugby won the favor of the great schools of the East over football, and the fashion for football began to expand from rugby.
At the convention in Massasoit, the first rules of American football were written. Walter Camp, who would become the father of American football, was the first to take an interest in the sport.
At a time when soccer was the main draw for local sports clubs, the intense festival between two Pittsburgh-area clubs, the Allegheny Athletic Association (AAA) and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club (PAC), led to the creation of the first professional soccer player. Former Yale All-America guard William (Pudge) Heffelfinger received $500 from AAA to play in a game opposed to the PAC, becoming the first user to be paid to play football, on Nov. 12. AAA won the game 4-0 when Heffelfinger picked up a fumble from the PAC and ran 35 yards for a score.
The Pittsburgh Athletic Club signed one of its players, running back Grant Dibert, the first known professional football contract, covering all PAC games of the year.
John Brallier has become the first professional football player to brazenly accept $10 and expenses to play for the Latrobe YMCA instead of the Jeannette Athletic Club.
The Allegheny Athletic Association roster introduced the first fully professional player for its shortened two-game season.
The Latrobe Athletic Association football team is fully professional, becoming the first team to play a full season solely with professionals.
A landing went from 4 numbers to five.
Chris O’Brien formed a community team, playing as Morgan Athletic Club, on Chicago’s South Side. The team then known as the Normals, then Racine (for a Chicago street), Cardinals, Chicago Cardinals, St. LouisJohn’s Cardinals and St. John’s. Louis Cardinals of the Phoenix Cardinals and, in 1994, the Arizona Cardinals. The team remains the oldest uninterrupted operation in professional football.
William C. Temple took over payments for the Duquesne Country team and Athletic Club, the first known individual owner of a club.
Professional football’s first World Series, a five-team tournament, was played between a team made up of players from the A’s and Phillies, but newly named New York; the New York Knickerbockers; Syracuse AC; the Warlow AC; and the Orange (New Jersey) AC at New York’s original Madison Square Garden. New York and Syracuse played their first futsal games in front of 3,000 people on Dec. 28. Syracuse, with Glen (Pop) Warner in charge, won 6-0 and won the tournament.
Canton AC, which would later be known as the Bulldogs, has evolved into a professional team. Massillon won the Ohio League championship again.
A basket went from 4 numbers to three.
Jim Thorpe, a former track and field and boxing star at Carlisle Indian School (Pennsylvania) and a two-time gold medalist at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, played for the Pine Village Pros in Indiana.
Once again, Massillon fielded a prime team, reviving the old rivalry with Canton. Cusack Thorpe will play for Canton for $250 a game.
With Thorpe and Carlisle’s former teammate Pete Calac starring, Canton went 9-0-1, won the Ohio League championship and was hailed as a professional football champion.
Despite Massillon’s wonder, Canton won the Ohio League championship again.
The league had 18 franchises, adding new ones in Kansas City, Kenosha and Frankford, a segment of Philadelphia. The Canton League champion, a box office success but not a box office success, was acquired through the franchise owner from Cleveland. who kept the Canton franchise inactive, while the most productive players of his team Cleveland, which he renamed the Bulldogs. Cleveland earned the name with a 7-1-1 record.
Five new franchises were admitted to the NFL: the New York Giants, who were awarded to Tim Mara and Billy Gibson for $500; the Detroit Panthers, with Jimmy Conzelman as owner, coach and guard; the Providence steam roller; a new team of the Canton Bulldogs; and the Pottsville Maroons, who were the most successful independent professional team. The NFL has set its first player limit at 16 players.
At a special meeting in Cleveland on April 23, Carr sought to secure the future of the NFL by eliminating the financially weaker teams and consolidating quality players into a limited number of more successful teams. The NFL’s new look was narrowed down to 12 groups, and the league’s center of gravity left the Midwest, where the NFL had begun, and began to emerge in major cities in the East. One of the new groups was Grange’s New York Yankees, however, Grange suffered a knee injury and the Yankees finished in the middle of the group. The NFL championship was won through the New York Giants, their rivals across town, who recorded 10 shutouts in thirteen games.
Both Grange and Nevers retired from football and Duluth disbanded, with the NFL reduced to just 10 teams. Jimmy Conzelman and Pearce Johnson’s Providence Steam Roller won the championship by betting on the Cycledrome, a 10,000-seat oval built for bike racing.
George Preston Marshall, Vincent Bfinishix, Jay O’Brien and Dorland Doyle were all franchised for Boston on July 9. Despite the presence of two rookies, running back Cliff Battles and Glen (Turk) Edwards, the new team, named the Braves, lost money and Marshall remained the sole owner at the end of the year.
The NFL club has fallen to 8 teams, the lowest number in history. For the first time official statistics were compiled. The Bears and Spartans finished the season tying for the first time. After the end of the season, the league office held another regular season game to determine the league champion. The game was moved inside Chicago Stadium due to heavy snow and snow. The sand only allowed a playing field of 80 meters up to the walls. The goal posts were moved from the goal lines to the goal lines and, for protection reasons, the access lines or marks where the ball would be put into play were drawn 10 meters from the walls that collided with the side lines. The Bears won 9-0 on December 18, scoring the winning touchdown on a two-yard pass from Nagurski to Grange. The Spartans claimed that Nagurski’s pass was thrown less than five yards from the line of scrimmage, violating the existing passing rule, but the play stood.
1940-1959>>