The History of Football and the Evolution of Football Through Time

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The image features a historical collage centered around a mustached man holding a football, surrounded by vintage football players, schematics, and scenes illustrating the evolution of the sport.
Theodore Roosevelt "saved" football by convening college football leaders in 1905, compelling them to reform the violent game through rule changes like the forward pass, and fostering the creation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAA) (later the NCAA) to oversee collegiate sports and ensure player safety. Faced with public outcry and calls to abolish football due to numerous fatalities and injuries, Roosevelt's intervention transformed the sport from a rugby-like brutal game into a more strategic and safer American pastime. American football history began with a soccer-style college game between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869 and evolved through rugby-like rules, with Walter Camp's 1880 rule changes—introducing the line of scrimmage, downs, and safeties—being critical to its unique gridiron identity. Professional football emerged in 1892 with Pudge Heffelfinger's payment, leading to the formation of the American Professional Football Association (later the NFL) in 1920. The sport's popularity boomed after World War II with television, and today, professional and college football are the most popular forms of American football.