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5 Tips for Successful Bird Watching
5 Tips for Successful Bird Watching Chuck Fitzgerald ©2004. All Rights Reserved. Can you name the number one spectator sport in North America? It’s not baseball, figure skating or racing. It’s bird watching. That’s right, more people are watching...
Making All City Baseball In Newark NJ
Making All City
This Was a Great Moment In My Life.
Toward the end of my junior year at Weequahic High School in Newark New Jersey, I started hearing from my friends that I was going to make All City. How did they know I asked myself? In my...
Montreal Misery
We've all done it before. Sportscenter is on showing the highlights off the latest Expos game and they show a snap shot off the bare bleachers. Of course the jokes follow like "It's easier to grab a foul ball at an Expos game than at a Little...
Ness Notes (Jan 11)
Was it really just a week ago that Texas beat USC 41-38 in the
Rose Bowl? Can Vince Young possibly be as good in the NFL as he
was in his two Rose Bowl appearances? Is the 'monkey' finally
off Mack Brown's back?
Putting to rest the CFB...
Pedro, Beltran, and the Mets as seen by one true Yankee Fan:
Pedro, Beltran, and the Mets as seen by one true Yankee Fan: It’s the middle of the NFL playoffs, and what has grabbed the interest of many sports fans has been the off-season maneuvering and acquisitions of the Mets and Yankees. In the past, the...
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From Bare Bones to Big Bucks-The Evolution of American Football
By the end of October, baseball fans pack up the party with the
boys of summer, and prepare for the cold months ahead with a
long list of hard-hitting heavyweights ready to take the field
as the Sunday afternoon, Monday night, and holiday highlight for
the winter months. But, football as we know it today started as
a bare bones game, evolving through continents, colleges and
contracts over the years.
Like most things, football can be traced back to the ancient
Greeks and Romans, who played a version of football which then
carried over to medieval Italy, where a game called "calcio,"
the Italian word for "soccer," began to flourish. Years later,
in England, a young man at the Rugby Boys' School got tired of
kicking the ball around the field, and decided to pick it up and
run. That was the beginning of Rugby.
Rugby merged back and forth through different sets of rules
from Australia to England, and eventually to the States in 1869,
when Rutgers and Princeton played a game that resembled
something more like soccer than football. It wasn't until 1875
that the ball came off the ground. Harvard and Yale fixed a
field meeting of the Ivy Leagues, and the Intercollegiate
Football Association (IFA) was created to finalize the match up
in 1876.
In upcoming years, a prominent Yale player named Walter Camp
convinced the IFA to change a series of rules that pushed the
game closer to the version of football we know today.
Intercollegiate football evolved through the 1800's, until the
downfall of the IFA in 1895. In 1920, organizers from 10
professional football teams across the country met, and the
American Professional Football Association was born. It was
reorganized a year later, and in 1922 renamed the National
Football League, and that was just the beginning.
The
rules changed, the league expanded with conferences and
changed again with the addition of conference divisions. In the
1970's throwing the ball accompanied the traditional run, and in
the 90's the emphasis moved from field goals to two-point
conversions.
Today, football is big business. Players demand more money,
entertainment is a regular part of televised games, and the
retail industry makes a fortune helping fans maintain team
loyalty and personal nostalgia for a game they grew up with.
Sports Nostalgia Company, Mitchell &
Ness sells everything from jackets to pennants to remember
unforgettable moments of games past, and the players that made
them happen. Mitchell & Ness's business was born out of
fans' desire to remember the old days with throwback jerseys of
NFL favorites like Joe Namath, Marcus Allen, and Steve Young.
Although baseball is known as America's favorite past time,
football is certainly in the running for taking the title.
Football has become as much a staple at Thanksgiving as turkey
and pie. Sunday tailgates are planned months in advance, and
office pools change weekly with team standings.
Football is a modern game with ancient roots. It's a game with
loyal fans that brave the cold, suffer defeat, and turn up in
droves to one of the most watched sports showdowns in February,
right before the boys of summer head south for spring training.
About the author:
Nina Nocciolino is a copywriter with DMI Partners, an
interactive marketing agency specializing in higher education,
finance, retail and real estate. For more information, visit www.dmipartners.com
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