4.5 Inch football sports Christmas ornament.
A football helmet, a pair of football shoes, and a referees whistle hang down from the football Christmas ornament. A wonderful sport Christmas ornament for the person who enjoys football and all its game day activities.
The History of Football.
Football began during the mid 1800’s, when a game similar to soccer was played in the eastern United States. The object of the game was simply to kick a round ball across the other team’s goal line. The teams sometimes had 30 or more players. As the soccer like game became popular, stricter rules were adopted and schools began to organize teams. The first college game was played on November 6, 1869, in New Brunswick New Jersey. In that game Rutgers defeated the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, 6-4.
The first game resembling present day football was played in 1874, when a team from McGill University in Montreal, Canada visited Harvard University. The Canadian team wanted to play the English game of rugby, which permitted running with the ball and tackling. Harvard preferred to play its soccer like game, in which players advanced the ball mainly by kicking. The teams agreed to play two games, the first under Harvard rules and the second under McGill rules. Harvard liked McGill’s rugby game so much that it introduced the sport to other colleges. Running and tackling soon became as important as kicking in the U.S. game.
The most influential figure in modernizing football was Walter Camp, who had played for Yale University from 1876 to 1882. During the 1880’s Camp led colleges to adopt rules that increased the game’s action and competition. Camp was largely responsible for establishing the system of downs and yards to gain and for introducing the center snap to the quarterback. He also helped set up the scoring system in which touchdowns, conversions, field goals and safeties were worth different umbers of points. In 1889, he and sportswriter Caspar Whitney began the tradition of picking an annual all American team to honor the best college players in the country.
By 1900 football consisted mostly of running, blocking, and tackling. In 1906 college coaches and faculty members tried to find ways to eliminate some of the violence in football. One new rule permitted a back to throw the ball forward to another back or to one of the ends. According to many historians, the first forward pass was thrown in 1906 by Wesleyan University in a game against Yale.
The forward pass was ignored at first because in was not considered a logical way to advance the ball. Then, during a game between Notre Dame and Army, in 1913, the stronger Army team was favored to defeat Notre Dame. Notre Dame head coach Gus Dorais led his team to a 35-13 victory by throwing the ball several times to his end Knute Rockne. Rockne later became a famous head coach at Notre Dame. By the 1920’s the forward pass had become a basic part of football and helped make the game more exciting.