Walter Camp
This episode we fire up the DeLorean and head back to explore the life and career of Walter Camp, the Father of American Football.  He was an excellent halfback at Yale University in the late 1800’s, but his biggest contribution to the game of football was leading the charge to make the game a mainstay in the country.  Walter Camp worked tirelessly to make rule changes to the game to make it more appealing and resemble what you and I now know as the National Football League.  Strap on your seat belt, and let’s get ready to take this baby up to 88mph.
 
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Read Full Transcript The Father of American Football’s Early Life
The Father of American Football was born on April 7, 1859, in New Britain, Connecticut. Our hero’s name is Walter Chauncey Camp. He attended Hopkins Grammar High School in New Haven, Connecticut as a young man. Yale was the college of choice for our hero, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1880. While at Yale it was said he was given the honor of class poet, which I believe helped him convey his message to the masses when he would inevitably end up suggesting monumental rule changes to the game of football. Upon graduating with his bachelor’s degree from Yale, our hero attended the Medical School of Yale to pursue his dream of being a doctor. He would later realize he had more interest in sports, and the millions of NFL fans around the world will end up being grateful for this life audible he called. In 1882, he gave up his dream of being a doctor and started working at the Manhatten Clock Company. A year later he would start with the New Haven Clock Company, where he would rise through the ranks to ultimately becoming the President in 1903. An article from the New England Historic Society had a fitting quote that stated, “leave it to a clockmaker named Walter Camp to turn a chaotic excuse for a brawl into the game of precision and time limits we now know as football.”
Walter Camp’s Playing and Coaching Days
Camp played Varsity for Yale as a halfback from 1877 to 1882. He was apparently small (156 pounds), because there was a quote from Nathaniel Curtis to then Yale captain Gene Baker that stated, “you don’t mean to let that child play, do you? He will get hurt.” It makes me wonder how much the diminutive size of Camp played into the yearning to generate innovation and propose safety changes to the game of football. While at Yale, Camp was the captain of the team in 1878, 1879, and 1881. This was the equivalent of a head coach during these days because there was not a true designated head coach. Walter would end up becoming part of the Intercollegiate Football Association in 1880, which allowed him to participate in many of the meetings that would ultimately change the game into what it looks like today. In 1888 he served as Yale general athletic director, head advisory football coach, and chairman of the Yale football committee. He held this position up until World War 1, which at the time was called The Great War. While serving as the treasurer of Yale’s Financial Union, Camp helped the school accumulate $100,000, which would help aid in the construction of the Yale Bowl in 1914. This stadium was the first bowled stadium in America, and it helped pave the way for other bowled stadiums to be built. Camp would go on to become the first official head coach of the Yale team from 1888 to 1892. Due to his clockmaking background, he provided order and designed practices for each player that were tailored to the position the player played. This was somewhat a revolutionized way to practice. What made it more impressive was he alleged