Walter Camp

Walter Camp (1859-1925) was an American college athlete, coach and sports writer whose rule proposals as a Yale player and later rules-committee member transformed rugby football into American football, earning him the frequently used title "Father of American Football." Beginning in the 1880s he championed the reduction from fifteen to eleven players per side, the line of scrimmage and the down-and-distance system that replaced rugby's contested scrums, and a standardized scoring system, changes adopted by the intercollegiate rules committees he sat on for decades. He also selected an annual All-America team from 1889 onward, a tradition that helped popularize the sport nationally and outlived him. Camp remained an influential figure in the game's rules and coaching culture until his death in 1925.