Thanks to television's impact on the viewing public, football threatened to supplant baseball as America's favorite professional sport as the 1950s wound to a close. The December 28, 1958 National Football League championship game, which witnessed the Johnny Unitas-led Baltimore Colts' defeat of the New York Giants 23-17 in overtime, set the stage for professional football's enormous popularity during the years ahead. Some 30 million television viewers watched the stirring contest, which helped the pro game to finally join the same league as both the national pastime and college ball.

First organized at the close of the nineteenth century, professional football remained less highly regarded and considerably less popular than the college game. By 1889, charges were leveled that Ivy League players had been given financial inducements. Then, on November 13, 1892, Yale All-American guard Walter "Pudge" Heffelfinger and Princeton end Ben "Sport" Donnelly received $500 and $250 respectively, plus expenses, to join the...