The Professional Football Researchers Association Camp and his Followers American Football 1876-1889 By PFRA Research Originally Published in The Journey to Camp: The Origins of American Football to 1889 (PFRA Books) Tell one important fact about Walter Camp. In the fall of 1876, Yale was in the throes of learning a new game. The beating they'd been handed by Harvard the year before still If your answer is that he invented All-American teams, go to the smarted, and the Elis were determined to see it didn't happen foot of the class. again. No more halfway, concessionary rules! Yale planned on playing straight rugby and knocking the hell out of Harvard. All-American football teams have produced inumerable friendly arguments among fans and more than a smidgin of honor for the Rugby was the new deal at Princeton, too. In fact, the Tigers had designees, but Camp's annual selections -- though they became much to do with the nearly overnight conversion to rugby all across the most respected -- were one of his lesser contributions to New England. W. Earle Dodge and Jotham Potter, the pair of American sport. As a matter of fact, he didn't invent the idea of All- Princetonians who watched Harvard lick Yale in 1875, had American teams at all. succeeded in selling the rugby game to their own campus, a feat only slightly inferior to selling refrigerators to Eskimos. As Princeton Instead, he invented American football. went, so should everybody else, figured Messrs. Dodge and Potter. They fired off invitations to Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, inviting A Natural them to Springfield, Massachusetts, so they could all sit down and Walter Camp was born April 17, 1859, in the city of New Haven, decide to play the game the way Princeton wanted to. Connecticut, the son of Leverett L. and Ellen Cornwell Camp. He attended Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, entered Yale in Yale and Harvard, already hearts and souls for rugby, were easy. the Centennial Year of 1876 and was graduated in 1880. For two Columbia came, having won more games than they lost in 1875 -- more years, he continued at Yale as a graduate student in the a rare feat for the Lions during the next century. On November 23, Medical School, finally giving that up to enter the world of business. 1876, with the season far along, each school sent two He joined the sales force of the New Haven Clock Company and representatives to the Massasoit House in Springfield: H.C. Leeds worked successfully through the positions of Assistant Treasurer, and C.S. Eaton from Harvard, E.W. Price and C.D. Brewer from Treasurer, General Manager, President, and finally Chairman of Columbia, Eugene V. Baker and J.B. Atwater from Yale, and, of the Board. He matched his business success with leadership and course, Dodge and Potter from Princeton. Yale lobbied for eleven generosity in New Haven civic and charitable enterprises. men on a side -- the complement they'd learned from Eton in 1873 Respected and honored by all, he died peacefully in his sleep on -- but, generally, everyone was in agreement. They adopted nearly March 14, 1925. verbatim the Rugby Union Code used in England. However, neither his stewardship of a well-known clock company The only serious bone of contention involved touchdowns. nor his New-Haven civic-mindedness could have occasioned the Columbia and Yale objected to counting them in the score, outpouring of national mourning that marked his passing. The preferring the Rugby Union Rule: "A match shall be decided by the recognition of loss came in recognition of his accomplishments in majority of goals alone." However, Princeton thought touchdowns football. ought to count, and Harvard was adamant about it. Young Camp was a natural athlete, perhaps the best in the history They had good reason to be. Only five days before the Massasoit of Hopkins Grammar School, excelling at track and water sports. In House Meeting, the Crimson played their second game against baseball, he starred as a pitcher, reportedly being the first of his Yale. Before the game, Harvard bowed to Eugene Baker's request mates to master the intricacies of delivering curveballs. When the to play only eleven men on a side and to ignore touchdowns in the weather turned cool, New England youth played variations of scoring. Sure enough, Harvard pushed over three touchdowns but soccer. Again, Camp stood out. missed all the following goal attempts. Yale made a single successful kick to win the game, 1-0. When he matriculated to his hometown college of Yale, he naturally went out for the football team. After a loss they considered undeserved, Harvard was not about to throw touchdowns to the wind. Finally, a compromise was worked His timing was exquisite. out. The adopted rule read: "A match shall be decided by a majority of touchdowns. A goal shall be equal to four touchdowns, but in the The Football Bandwagon case of a tie, a goal kicked from a touchdown shall take precedence over four touchdowns." The Professional Football Researchers Association obvious from the remembrances of teammates that Baker very Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia formed what they called the soon treated Camp as an equal. In Davis words, Camp was Intercollegiate Football Association at the meeting. Yale held out "resourceful, courageous, thinking continually in terms of football, for a couple of years so they could make private agreements with swiftly solving new situations, and indomitable." individual opponents to play only eleven men, ignore touchdowns, or do whatever they thought might help. By 1879, that had become Despite his great abilities, Davis maintained that Camp was more trouble than it was worth, and they joined the I.F.A. unlucky as a player, detailing several "breaks" that went against him. Although the stories told by Davis lose much of their tragic Camp at Yale quality to a modern reader, they are worth recounting if only to Princeton clearly had the dominant team during the 1870's. show how the game was played in Camp's day: Historian Parke H. Davis accorded them the "National Football Championship" or a share thereof every year but 1871 (when no No player in the history of the game contended against games were played) and 1876. Of course, with only a half-dozen greater misfortune in his scoring plays than Walter schools playing any brand of football, the national championship Camp. Four times in his career he actually accomplished took on considerably less lustre than it does today. Nonetheless, scoring plays only to have them nullified. The first of the Tigers' 23-3-2 record from 1869 through 1879 was impressive. these catastrophes occurred in the Princeton- Yale game of 1877. In a 1904 issue of The Independent, Walter Camp -- from the perspective of a former Yale halfback -- listed the following "leading In the preliminaries to the game, Captain Eugene V. Baker of Yale players of the game" for the period 1876-1879: exacted the special rule that touchdowns should not count at all in determining the score, but that the latter should be based upon Forwards - J.S. Harding, Yale; John Moorehead, Yale; goals alone. As the playing eventuated, Walter Camp, in the first Bland Ballard, Princeton; J.E. Cowdin, Harvard half, catching a long, sailing punt, dashed 80 yards up the field Halfbacks- W.D. Hatch, Yale; Oliver D. Thompson, Yale; through the entire Princeton team and made a touchdown. In the W. Earle Dodge, Princeton; Theodore M. McNair, second half, getting the ball out of "scrum", Camp again dashed up Princeton; R. Winsor, Harvard the field, fifty yards. As he was crossing Princeton's line, he was Backs - Eugene V. Baker, Yale; Robert Bacon, Harvard sharply tackled by McNair, Minor, and Clarke thrown in, but, rising to his feet, he shook off his tacklers and by the great strength that Oliver Thompson and John Moorehead, both from the Pittsburgh was his forced his way over the line for a second touchdown. In area, would later be instrumental in creating professional football. both instances the try was missed. No score by either side With admirable modesty, Camp did not include himself among the occurred and the game technically thus ended in a draw, 0-0. leading players, although, by many accounts, he was the best of the lot. His third misfortune came in the Harvard-Yale game of 1878. It is near the end of the first half. Wetherbee of Harvard has carried the Writing in the 1925 Football Guide, his friend and admirer, Parke H. ball almost to the Yale goal line, where it is lost. Watson and Camp Davis, recounted Camp's career at Yale: of Yale, alternately carrying the ball, sweep down the field. Finally Camp bursts away and carries the ball to a point thirty-five yards When he entered Yale in 1876 he instantly became one from Harvard's goal line. Here, as he was about to be tackled, he of the best all-around athletes in the university. In his suddenly stops in his flight, drops the ball, and, with a drop kick, undergraduate days he made every varsity team that lifts it high in the air. existed in that period. He was pitcher and captain of the nine. He was halfback and captain of the eleven. He ran The ball spins down its groove directly towards Harvard's goal. the hurdles and is credited at Yale with having invented While it is in the air the whistle sounds the end of the half. The ball the present hurdle step.