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Are
You Ready for Some Football?
Football in America began as a college sport,
but soon athletic associations also got
in the game. Though these early athletic
clubs promoted the ideal of amateurism,
it wasn’t long before clubs began
offering the best players “incentives”
to join their team. According to the Pro
Football Hall of Fame, William “Pudge”
Heffelfinger, became the first professional
football player when the Allegheny Athletic
Association gave him a $500 performance
bonus for a game against the Pittsburgh
Athletic Club in 1892. Allegheny won the
game when Heffelfinger recovered a fumble
and ran for a touchdown. Others believe
that long before Heffelfinger, top college
and club football players had been secretly
receiving bonuses and incentives.
By the early 1900s, contracts
between players and athletic associations
were common. Clubs often paid college players
to join their team. A player might play
for their college team one day and a club
team the next. Players also moved from club
to club based on which team offered the
most money. Knute Rockne played for as many
as six teams in a single season.
In the early years, pro
football games drew far fewer fans than
college match ups. Pro football had no stars
of to really call its own until Jim Thorpe
signed with the Canton Bulldogs in 1915.
Thorpe was already considered the world’s
greatest athlete after winning both the
pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 summer
Olympics. Thorpe helped the Bulldogs win
three consecutive league championships and
drew thousands of spectators to pro football
games.
In 1920, eleven clubs joined
together to start the American Football
Association. The Association elected Thorpe
as president and sold franchises for just
$100. In 1922, the AFA expanded to 18 teams
and changed its name to the National Football
League. Thus the stage was set for what
would become the all day Sunday and Monday
night pastime of an entire nation.
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