football: College and Amateur Football

The first intercollegiate football match in America (actually a 50-person soccer game) was played (1869) at New Brunswick, N.J. The Intercollegiate (Soccer) Football Association, composed of Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers, and Yale, was created (1873) to standardize rules. Harvard, meanwhile, refused to join the group and, looking for other opponents, accepted a challenge from McGill Univ. of Montreal to play a series of games (1874–75) under Rugby rules. The Rugby-type game soon caught on at the other schools also, and within a decade the distinctive game of American football evolved.

Since the late 19th cent. football has enjoyed tremendous popularity as a collegiate sport. In 1902 the first Rose Bowl game was played at Pasadena, Calif., and that postseason tournament has been conducted annually since 1916. Other annual, postseason, collegiate games include the Sugar, Orange, Sun, and Cotton bowls. In 1996 a national system to pick bowl opponents so as to determine a national champion was introduced. Selection of All-America teams, begun (1889) by Walter Camp and Caspar Whitney, has also contributed to football's popularity. The Heisman trophy, originated in 1935, is awarded annually to the nation's outstanding college football player.

Most collegiate teams play in athletic conferences. Among the best-known are the Ivy League, Big Ten, Atlantic Coast, Southeastern, and Pacific 10 conferences. Famous collegiate rivalries include Army–Navy and Yale–Harvard. With an atmosphere enhanced by bands and cheering sections, football is not only the most popular collegiate sport of the fall season but also a big business.

Revenues from football often finance other sports at a college, and some games are played before crowds of 100,000 people in university-owned stadiums. Despite the strict amateur code of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and its member conferences, illegal subsidization of football players is a recurrent issue. Football also is extremely popular in U.S. high schools. Six-man football and touch football, both usually played for recreation, are other forms of the amateur game.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Professional Football
• College and Amateur Football
• Basic Rules
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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