Portal:American football/Selected biography/January, 2008

Walter Chauncey Camp was a sports writer and football coach known as the "Father of American Football". Along with John Heisman, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Glenn Scobey Warner, and George Halas, Camp was one of the most significant people in the history of American football.

Camp was born in the city of New Britain, Connecticut, the son of Leverett L. and Ellen Cornwell Camp. He attended Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, entered Yale College in 1876 and was graduated in 1880. At Yale he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

By the age of thirty-three, a scant twelve years after graduating from Yale, Walter Camp had already become known as the "Father of American Football". In a column in the popular magazine Harper's Weekly, sports columnist Caspar Whitney had applied the nickname; the sobriquet was appropriate because, by 1892, Camp had almost single-handedly fashioned the game of modern American football.

For almost 50 years, Camp served on the various collegiate football rules committees that developed the game of football during that time. His opinions, especially in his early years, dominated the sessions. Camp's contributions to early football included the introduction of the scrimmage in place of the rugby union scrum, the reduction of the number of players to eleven, the forward pass, a system of downs for advancing the ball (3 downs to make 5 yards, later amended to 4 downs for 10 yards in 1912), and the introduction of the now standard offensive arrangement of players (a seven-man offensive line and a four-man backfield consisting of a quarterback, two halfbacks, and a fullback). Camp was also responsible for introducing the "safety", the awarding of two points to the defensive side for tackling a ball carrier in his own "end zone". This is significant as rugby union has no point value award for this action. But, as in rugby union, a free kick by the offense from its own 20-yard line (to change possession) occurs immediately following a safety. But Camp knew that developing the game was not enough; in order for it to catch on, the word had to spread.

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