By the age of thirty-three, a scant twelve years after graduating from Yale University, Walter Camp was already known as the "Father of American Football." Sports columnist Caspar Whitney first used the nickname in a column in the popular magazine Harper's Weekly (5 March 1892). The title was appropriate, because by 1892 Camp had almost single-handedly fashioned the game of American football. The rising popularity of the game was almost solely his doing. He had taken the game of rugby and changed it, in his way of thinking, into an American game.

For almost fifty years Camp served on the football rules committees. His opinions, especially in his early years, dominated the sessions. Camp knew that developing the game was not enough, however. For it to catch on, the word had to be spread. So despite having a full-time job at the New Haven Clock Company and serving as an unpaid...