I’ve been dying to find something that truly covered the early history of American Football. Heffelfinger was when I knew this doc was damn good. I need a Ken Burns-esque detailed multi-part doc, especially covering the Ohio League and Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit, the pre-NFL leagues and who were the original best pro players (prior to the APFA formation)
americans played a game called boston ball until May 13 or 14,1874 when McGill came south to play a very different game at Harvard .On that day, football, as Americans came to know it, was played for the first time in America.. The Harvard team liked the Canadian innovations to the game such as running with the ball, downs, forward passing, goal posts for a try, or touchdown, and tackling. The Harvard team was smitten with this new sport. They had such a hoot playing McGill’s game that the Harvard team taught the rules to its rivals at Yale the next year. Princeton was the third American school to fall for football. After that.. .... well it sure caught on . Americans even played 3 down ball until 1912 or so , the game was to fast for Americans , so they added a 4th down to slow the game down
Joe Carr owner of the Canton Bulldogs found out that some interloper was trying to schedule football matches as the Massolin Tigers (The ownership of the Massolin Tigers had went out of business after 1919 season). Canton had the biggest draw Olympian Joe Thorpe. The meeting came with an ultimatum, if you want Thorpe on your 1920 schedule then you can't schedule this "new" Massolin Tigers squad.
Carr cracked down on the use of players using assumed names going from team to team. Sometimes this involved college players. Green Bay got caught, but Curly Lambeau was able to get the team reinstated after the got kicked out of the NFL.
