There is nothing like those bright lights cutting through
the darkness on a calm Friday night. These lights seen for miles around, and
everyone knowing what they mean. Football or some form of football has been
around for centuries and over the years have evolved into three different
sports that are played around the world today. These sports known as Soccer, Rugby
and American football, and all have their history.
Football originated from an ancient Greek game called harpaston. The rules of this early game were really
simple. Points were scored when a player would cross the goal line by kicking the
ball, running the ball across the goal line, or throwing the ball across the
line to another player. The defending team’s goal was to stop them in any way
possible. There was no designated field
length, no side line boundaries, no specified number of players per team, just
a lack of rules. The modern version of
this game originated in England in the 12th century. The game became
very popular at them time. So popular in fact that the kings at that time
(Henry II and Henry IV) banned the game because they believed that it was
taking interest away from the more traditional games of the time.
Football began to change and evolve into what it is today
when rules were added and made the game into more of a game. The rules were
added when it was picked up by seven major schools in England in the early 1800’s.
Six of these seven schools took the game and it evolved into what is known
today as soccer. The other school, Rugby School was playing a very different
version of the game. This version of the game, running the ball was more
common. This version of football also included 18ft goal posts with a horizontal
bar 10ft off the ground. The purpose of this “goal post” is to make scoring
easier and a goal could be scored from a distance. A player would either place
kick or drop kick the ball and if the ball passed through the two vertical bars
and over the horizontal bar it would be counted as a goal. This version also
added the off-sides rules, the touchdown rule and the two point or one point
conversion. This version of football became so popular through the 1860’s that
many other schools and universities began to adopt this version of the game. It
began so popular in fact the this version got the name of the school that had originally
played it, Rugby.
Football (Rugby) came to America in the late 1860’s. The
official birth day of many football historians is November 6, 1869 when the first
official game played on American soil between Rutgers and Princeton
Universities. When football first came to America it was played similar to the
rugby version but over time rules were added to make the game more exciting and
to ensure safety for the players. The game at the time was so brutal that many
colleges began to ban the game. In 1905, President Theodor Roosevelt got together
three colleges (Harvard, Princeton, and Yale) to help save the sport. At the
meeting there three schools set up a reform. At a second meeting nearly 60
schools appointed a seven member Rules Committee and set up what later became
known as the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA.) This committee legalized
the forward pass which led to the new design of the ball (the modern design
that is used today) and a more open style of play on the field. The committee
also made the game much safer by adding rules that made all the brutality that
once injured many and killed 18 people illegal.
Football has a very large history compared to many other sports
but I think that that is what makes the sport so interesting. It has changed
and evolved over the years creating three different sports all together. It has
changed the lives of many people around the world. That is why I believe that
football is the best sport not just because of the modern American football because
it has three forms that are completely different offering people a very different
atmosphere with each sport.
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