Walter Camp facts for kids
Camp in 1910
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| Biographical details | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 7, 1859 New Britain, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Died | March 14, 1925 (aged 65) New York, New York, U.S. |
| Playing career | |
| 1876–1881 | Yale |
| Position(s) | Halfback |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1888–1892 | Yale |
| 1892, 1894–1895 | Stanford |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 79–5–3 |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 3 National (1888, 1891, 1892) | |
| Awards | |
| football | |
| College Football Hall of Fame Inducted in 1951 (profile) |
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Walter Chauncey Camp (born April 7, 1859 – died March 14, 1925) was a very important person in the history of American football. He was a player, a coach, and a sports writer. People called him the "Father of American Football" because he invented many key parts of the game.
Some of his most famous inventions include the line of scrimmage and the system of downs. He worked alongside other football legends like John Heisman and Amos Alonzo Stagg. Camp went to Yale College, where he played and coached football. His Yale teams won national championships in 1888, 1891, and 1892. In 1951, he was added to the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach.
Walter Camp also wrote a lot about sports. He published an "All-American" team every year, picking the best players. By the time he passed away, he had written almost 30 books and over 250 magazine articles.
Contents
Walter Camp's Life Story
Walter Camp was born in New Britain, Connecticut. He went to Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven. In 1875, he started at Yale College and finished in 1880. He also studied at Yale Medical School for a few years. Later, he worked for the New Haven Clock Company and became the chairman of its board.
Playing Football at Yale
In 1873, Camp attended a meeting where different universities created the Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA). They made a rule that teams could only have 15 plays per drive. Camp played as a halfback for Yale from 1876 to 1882. Even though he was only 156 pounds, he was a strong player.
His Family Life
On June 30, 1888, Walter Camp married Alice Graham Sumner. They had two children, Walter Camp, Jr. and Janet Camp Troxell. Walter Camp is buried with his family in Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven.
Coaching Football Teams
Camp was the head football coach at Yale from 1888 to 1892. During this time, his team won 67 games and lost only 2! After Yale, he coached at Stanford University in 1892, 1894, and 1895. In one famous game on Christmas Day, 1894, his Stanford team played against Amos Alonzo Stagg's University of Chicago team. Chicago won that game 24–4.
The "Father of American Football"
Walter Camp was part of the committees that made the rules for college football. He helped change the game from its rugby football roots into what we know as American football today.
One of his biggest ideas was to replace the messy "scrum" from rugby with the "line of scrimmage". This meant the team with the ball started with it, instead of fighting for it. This change was a huge step in creating modern American football.
He also came up with other important ideas:
- The snap-back, where the center passes the ball to start the play.
- The system of downs, which gives a team a certain number of tries to move the ball.
- The points system for scoring.
- The standard way players line up: seven linemen and four players in the backfield (a quarterback, two halfbacks, and a fullback).
- The "safety", where the defense gets two points for tackling an opponent in their own end zone.
In 2011, a historian named Taylor Branch also said that Camp helped reduce the number of players on a team from 15 to 11. He also helped add measuring lines to the field. Camp's influence was so big that he played a role in the creation of the NCAA.
Writing About Sports
Even with a full-time job and advising the Yale football team, Walter Camp wrote a lot. He wrote articles and books about football and other sports. He published nearly 30 books and over 250 magazine articles. His writings appeared in popular magazines like Harper's Weekly and Collier's. He also wrote for magazines for young people, like St. Nicholas and Boys' Magazine.
By the time he was 33, Walter Camp was already known as the "Father of Football." A sports writer named Caspar Whitney gave him this nickname in a column. It was a perfect name because Camp had almost single-handedly shaped the game of modern American football.
All-America Team Bias
Camp's "All-America" teams often had many players from Ivy League schools in the East. This led to some people saying his choices were unfair to players from colleges in the Western United States. Many sports writers at the time only watched games in the East. For example, a newspaper in Ohio wrote in 1910 that "All-American Teams of East Are Jokes" because the critics never saw Western teams play.
The Daily Dozen Exercise Program
Walter Camp believed that everyone should exercise, not just athletes. During World War I, he helped the U.S. military create a program to help soldiers and sailors get in shape. Both the Army and the Navy used his exercise methods.
This program was called the "Daily Dozen." It had twelve exercises that could be done in about eight minutes. The exercises had names like hands, grind, crawl, wave, and curl. Camp wrote a book explaining these exercises and why they were good for you. In the 1920s, many newspapers and magazines used "Daily Dozen" to mean exercise in general.
Later, Camp started offering his morning exercises to a wider audience. In 1921, he released them on records. In 1922, his exercises even reached the new medium of radio.
Images for kids
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Camp as Yale's captain in 1878
