Revenge of the Birds
The World Cup is Earth’s most famous sports tournament. Just as the Olympics, it is played every four years and pits countries against each other. It also features the world’s most popular sport: football.
The game of “football” (soccer) began with the Romans as a way to keep their soldiers in shape, remain competitive, and sharp. The game of soccer has since evolved into the sport it is today. For decades, the game was being played without any rule standards. In 1863, a set of unified rules was formed in England and called “Association Football.”
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The term “soccer” came out of the slang use of “Association” with younger players adding an “er” to most things. If you surfed, you were a surf-er, or if you played golf, you were a golf-er. If you played Association Football, you were an assoc-er. That later became shortened to “socc-er.”
Everywhere in the world, this game is called “football.” In North America, the same game is called “soccer.”
In the 1800s, most Ivy League colleges played football (soccer), as most students were European immigrants and football (soccer) was the sport they grew up with. Harvard University predominantly played rugby as a large percentage of its athletes were schooled in England. Other universities were intrigued with the sport of rugby and enjoyed that this game had more contact and was rough. Eventually, more and more colleges began to switch over to rugby as their main sport.
Rugby came from football (soccer). The official name of this sport is “Rugby Football.” Rugby started at the Rugby School in England, a boys’ school. While playing football (soccer), a kid named Webb Ellis picked up the football (soccer) ball and ran with it. Another kid tackled him. The boys liked this because it brought an element of roughhousing and began playing a version of their new sport. A set of rules was developed in 1845.
In 1869, a game between Rutgers University and Princeton University was played that used football (soccer) rules, rugby rules, and some other new rules. It is considered to be the very first American Football game, even if those playing rules do not resemble anything of today’s game.
Eventually, Yale University head coach Walter Camp tinkered with the rugby game and developed a new game. He called it “American Football.”
So, football (soccer) was first, then rugby football came from football (soccer), then American Football came from Rugby football.
Therefore, football (soccer) is the grandfather of American Football. And all three sports call themselves officially “football.” Just like if the grandfather is named Jones, his son is also called Jones, and his son is also a Jones.
The main difference that Camp installed was possession. In basketball, polo, soccer, hockey, lacrosse, and water polo, all of these sports have one thing in common: they have possession as long as they retain the ball. But in American Football, if you fail on a play, you...
