When the Father of Football Taught Seattle to Dive
Walter Camp, the architect of American football, made a surprise stop in Seattle in 1892 to whip the local Athletic Club into shape.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Walter Camp, the 'father of American football,' was in the city yesterday and coached the Athletic Club team in the afternoon. Since soon after Thanksgiving, Mr. Camp had been at Palo Alto, coaching the Leland Stanford University eleven. Mr. Camp surprised his friends by arriving earlier than expected, and immediately went to the university grounds to coach the team. He watched the practice and critiqued the players, noting that the backs did not go into the line low enough, failing to 'duck their heads and dive through as they should have done.' Camp praised the team's strength and pluck, noting that while they lacked the uniformity of action seen in more experienced teams, they were remarkably quick to learn.
“The men when making holes or attempting to break through the opposing line stand up too high and are forced up in the air.”
Long before Seattle became a professional football town, its collegiate and club teams were eager to import the latest tactical innovations from the Ivy League. Walter Camp’s critique—that players needed to play lower to the ground to gain leverage—remains the fundamental physical logic of the sport today.
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