(855) 4-ESSAYS

Type a new keyword(s) and press Enter to search

Pigskin


            Every Sunday in America millions of people gather around their TV's to watch the most popular sport in the country today, professional football. Professional football's stature has only recently, in the last 35 years, grown to be the culture-defining pastime that it is today. Pigskin by Robert W. Peterson, who has written other sports history books such as Only the Ball Was White and Cages to Jump Shots, is about the roots of professional football, how the game was played and how the business was done before the era of big money TV contracts. It tells the story of how through humble beginnings and times of doubt professional football grew, found its place, and has thrived through the perseverance and hard work of many people. Early proponents of pro football had to fight feelings of anti-professionalism amongst the biggest gurus of their own sport. Sports such as boxing, horse racing, college football, not to mention baseball, dwarfed pro football in popularity and revenues. Pigskin is an excellent book that vividly describes the ascension of professional football from the days of under the table payments from Ivy League programs and athletic clubs to the television era of the 1950's.
             The first recorded history of a football player being paid to play in a football game was in a game between Allegheny Athletic Association and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club in1892. According to the book there were as many as 5 professionals, or "ringers", playing in the game between the rival athletic clubs. Only one exists in writing today, Pudge Heffelinger, who was a 3-time All-American guard from Yale. The receipt of his $500 payment to play in the game for the Allegheny team now sits in the pro football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. .
             Through the first two decades after the turn of the century, professional football was played without any organized league or conference of any kind. Local athletic clubs or YMCA's would just throw together a team and they would travel around playing football games for a pre-determined share of the gate receipts.


Essays Related to Pigskin


Got a writing question? Ask our professional writer!
Submit My Question