Leather Football Helmet
Hisitory
Football historians, those who have studied the game and its origins,
place the games beginnings in rugby, an English game played with
many similarities to football. Rugby began in eighteen twenty-three
at the famous Rugby Boys School in England. Another cousin of the
game of football is soccer, sometimes called association football;
its beginnings can also be traced to English origin, being played
as early as the eighteen twenties.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: ITS BEGINNINGS
At the same time, a group of students, who did not wear leather
football helmets, at Princeton began playing what was then known
as bal lown. First using their fists to advance the ball, and then
their feet, this game consisted mainly of one goal: to advance the
old watermeoln football past the opposing team. There were no hard
and fast rules applied to this earliest attempt at the game we now
call football .At Harvard, the freshman and sophomore classes, who
also did not at first wear leather football helmets, competed in
a football-type game, played on the first Monday of each school
year; this event came to be known as Bloody Monday because of the
roughness of the game. Pick up games,where there were no leather
football helmets, similar in style to that played on Bloody Monday,
soon became popular on the Boston Common, catching on in popularity
around eighteen sixty .Soon after the end of the American Civil
War, still the leather football helmet had not been invented, around
eighteen sixty five, colleges began organizing football games.None
of these early teams wore leather football helmets. In eighteen
sixty seven, Princeton led the way in establishing some rudimentary
rules of the game. But still , leather football helmets were not
used or invented. Players simply tied a bandana around their heads.
Also in that year, the football itself was patented for the very
first time That early ball was a crude watermelon, almost round
shape. But still no way to protect the players from death or concussins
because there were no leather football helmets even thought of during
these early years..Rutgers College also established a set of rules
in eighteen sixty seven, and with the relatively short distance
between it and Princeton, a game was decided upon by both universities.
A date was chosen, November sixth, eighteen sixty nine; Rutgers
won by a score of six goals to four, and thus was played what has
become known as the very first intercollegiate football game No
leather football helmets were worn during this contest. The flying
wedge plays injured many because they had no leather football helmets..In
eighteen seventy three, representatives from Columbia, Rutgers,
Princeton, and Yale met in New York City to formulate the first
intercollegiate football rules for the increasingly popular game,
still being played with many of the rules of soccer. These four
teams established the Intercollegiate Football Association, and
set as fifteen the number of players allowed on each team.Walter
Camp, the coach at Yale and a dissenter from the IFA over his desire
for an eleven man team, helped begin the final step in the evolution
from rugby-style play to the modernfootball game of American football.
The IFAs rules committee, led by Camp, soon cut the number of players
from fifteen to eleven, and also instituted the size of the playing
field, at one hundred ten yards. But still no one thought to protect
themselves better with a leather footbal hemet. In eighteen eighty-two
Camp also introduced the system of downs. After first allowing three
attempts to advance the ball five yards, in nineteen six it was
changed to ten yards. The fourth down was added in nineteen twelve.
Tackling below the waist had been legalized in eighteen eighty-eight.Within
a decade, concern over the increasing brutality of the game led
to its ban by some colleges.Brutal plays that actually walked and
trampled opposing players were the norm and leather football helmets
still had not been invented to protect the head of the players of
early football. Nearly one hundred eighty players had suffered serious
injuries, and eighteen deaths had been reported from the brutal
mass plays that had become common in practice. The earliest leather
football helmets were invented by a Navy player in 1893. He asked
a local blacksmith to improvise a leather harness hat to protect
his head. As his doctor said that if he continued to play , one
more kick to the head would kill or paralyze him for life. Thus
the first leather football helmet was born. Soon other players created
additional styles of leather football helmets to protect their heads
and ears. Still the early leather football helmets provided littl
protection. There were such styles as the early beehive leather
football helmet, the flat-top leather football helmets and the dogear
leather football helmet. In nineteen hundred five, President Theodore
Roosevelt called upon Harvard, Princeton, and Yale to help save
the sport from demise.At a meeting between the schools, reform was
agreed upon, and at a second meeting, attended by more than sixty
other schools, the group appointed a seven member Rules Committee
and set up what would later become known as the National Collegiate
Athletic Association, or the NCAA.From this committee came the legalization
of the forward pass, which resulted in a more open style of play
on the field. The rough mass plays, which once caused so many serious
injuries, and even deaths, were prohibited by the committee. Also
prohibited was the locking of arms by teammates in an effort to
clear the way for their ball carriers. Still many early teams wotre
no leather football helmets. But eventually the advantages of the
leather football helemt were seen . And soon one could watch a game
and observe half the players with out leather football helmets and
half with leather football helmets to protect their heads.The length
of the game was shortened, from seventy to sixty minutes, and the
neutral zone, which separates the teams by the length of the ball
before each play begins, was also established. The earliest balls
wree called watermelon footballs and they have become almost extinct
along with the earliest leather football helmets . Today these leather
football helmets can only be found in museums or among fine collections
of leather foorball helmets. Today, almost one hundred years since
the inception of the NCAA, the sport of college football flourishes
as one of the most popular of collegiate games. Colleges and universities
are placed into three divisions under NCAA guidelines and each division
has many conferences. Seasonal and conference play leads to post-season
bowl games, where the champions of conferences meet to play in front
of a world-wide television audience. Some of these bowls include
the Rose Bowl, played on New Years Day in Pasadena, California,
between the Big Ten and Pacific Ten conference champions. Other
bowls include the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, the Sugar Bowl
in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, and
the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia. The leather football helmet
evolution follows the great early college game as lether helmets
first showed up in the 1890s and then the leather helmets gradually
develeoped into a stronger and more protective piece of gear. .PROFESSIONAL
FOOTBALL: ITS BEGINNINGSProfessional football was first played soon
after the demise of the Intercollegiate Football Association, around
eighteen ninety-five. In nineteen twenty, the American Professional
Football Association was formed; one year later it was reorganized
and in nineteen twenty-two was renamed the National Football League
Some of the great early Pro players who wore leather football helmets
were Red Grange , Jim Thorpe, the early Packer team , the early
Bear team , the early Giant team , the early Philadelphia team,
and the early Pittsburgh team. Players wore varying style of leather
football helmets . And the colors also began to show up on the early
40s leather football helmet s. Before that most helmets were plain
natural leather either brown, cordovan , or black. Color leather
football helmets allowed the quaterback to better see the receiver
at long distances when he was far down the field. So more and more
teams begab=n to paint their leather football helmets to put some
visibility sizzel into their games. .Unlike the APFA, which handed
out franchises far and wide with little discretion, the NFL, from
nineteen forty-six to forty-nine, was limited to ten teams. Gradually
in the late 1940s the leather football helmet began to be replaced
by early plastics. However many of the early plastic football helmets
shattered and caused injury. So. the leather football helme survived
thru the World war II years and lingered into the early 1950s. But
gradually the old leather football helmet was replaced by the plastics
and more and more teams began to add logos and symbols to their
helmets . the early leather football helmets were spared this clutter
and reamined unadorned right into the 50s eara. Soon howevre the
old leather football helmet faded into history. many pooreer high
school teams and JR high teams still used these old leather helmets
right into the 1960s and 70s . Today the leather football helmet
is practically extinct and can only be found at museums or in fine
collections.The APFA, on the other hand, consisted of twenty three
teams in the year between its inception and the change-over in becoming
the NFL.A merger in nineteen seventy, fifty years after the inception
of the first pro football association, combined sixteen NFL teams
with ten AFL teams to comprise one league with two conferences.
In the nineteen eighties, further expansion was proposed and by
the ninety three-ninety four NFL season, approval was given for
a thirty-team league. The next step towards growth of the league
would be to realign the NFL into eight different divisions, each
with four teams.Pro football, like its college counterpart, was
not without its failures. Among the number of competitive leagues
that have folded in failure are the All-American Football conference,
nineteen forty-six to forty-nine, the American Football League,
nineteen sixty to sixty-nine, and the World Football League, nineteen
seventy-four to seventy-five.Arena Football, an indoor league played
in the spring with eight man teams, debuted in nineteen eighty-seven.
It is still played, but does not enjoy the popularity or success
that is found in the National Football League.PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL
TODAY: A BUSINESSFrom its humble beginnings in eighteen sixty-nine,
when the first intercollegiate game was played between Rutgers and
Princeton, football has become a multi-billion dollar business in
its professional form.Once watched by no more than a handful of
loyal sideline enthusiasts, football is now available for worldwide
viewing. With the advent of cable television, dozens of high school
and college games can be watched over Friday and Saturday afternoons.
Pro games are televised on Sunday and Monday nights, with at least
half a dozen games televised each weekend during the season. At
the end of each NFL season, champs from both the National and American
conferences meet in the Super Bowl to determine a national champion.
This game, always played in January, has been called the most watched
sporting event of all time, with a viewing audience from around
the entire globe, watching and listening to the televise in dozens
of languages.Although television commercials foot a very large part
of the bill, the competition between networks for the coverage rights
highly inflates the value of NFL franchises. In nineteen twenty,
a franchise cost one hundred dollars. By nineteen sixty, each was
worth approximately two million dollars. In nineteen ninety three,
when the league decided to expand, selling teams to Charlotte, North
Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida, the cost rose to one hundred
forty millions dollars per franchise.In the same year, the NFL signed
a five-network, four year television contract, totaling almost four
and a half billion dollars.Some may say that if cheerleading was
truly a sport then it would have been included with other sports
long ago. He will frequently use the word draw here for lack of
a more precise term to refer to the use of graphics software. All
bodies will rotate easiest about their center of mass. In the year
2000, the popularity of arena football led to the formation of arena
football 2, an expansion league. The ancient egyptians swam, raced,
wrestled, and played games with balls. Pass patterns are the routes
the receivers run downfield after the snap of the ball.The rare
kinds and styles of leather football helmets worn by college and
Pro teams can still be seen at their respective college campus museums
, at the College football hall of Fame Museum and or the Pro Football
hall of Fame Museum in Canton Ohio. Today many sports history enthusisasts
look for old leather football helmets for their collections or to
offer as awards or commemoratives. These olfd battle helmets, the
leather football helmet, will always represent the great history
and evolution of the game itself.
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