Who invented football?

(ringing)

- Hi, it's Doug.

This might be familiar to you.

It's a football.

One of the most popular sports in North America.

But you know footballs haven't always looked like this.

Back when football was first invented,

a football looked more like this.

Or like this.

You can see they were more round back then.

Someone named Janzen has a question about football.

Let's give him a call now.

(ringing)

- Hi Doug.

- Hi Janzen.

- I have a question for you.

Who invented football?

That's a great question.

It might seem weird to you to think

of a game as something that was invented.

When you think of an invention,

you might think of something more like a machine

or a device that does something useful.

But games are something involving rules

and equipment and all of those are things

that some person or group of people

had to think up.

So who thought up the idea of football?

Well to start with, we've got to be clear

with what we even mean when we say football.

In most of the world,

if you say football, that means this sport.

What in American English, people tend to call soccer.

So what we're talking about is American football.

In fact, the name football to describe the sport,

has led some people to wonder

why do we even call it football

when you hardly use your feet to touch the ball?

But that's actually a really interesting clue

about how it got started

because it turns out American football

has a lot in common with another sport

where you use your hands a lot.

A sport started in a different country.

It might be fun for you to try to guess

which sport and country.

Before I say anything more,

now would be a good time to pause the video and discuss.

Okay, you ready?

Even though American football is

hugely popular in the United States,

it owes a lot to a different sport

started in Great Britain.

You might know it.

It's a sport called rugby.

Rugby has a lot in common with American football.

Both sports involve trying to carry

a ball towards a goal.

Even the shape of the ball is similar.

And both sports involve trying

to tackle the person carrying the ball

in order to stop them from reaching the goal zone.

But American football has some important

differences with rugby.

For example, in American football,

only one person is allowed to throw the ball.

That's the quarterback

and they throw the ball forwards.

In rugby, any player can throw the ball

and they usually move the ball forward

by tossing it to each other side to side.

There are other differences, too.

A rugby coach named Walter Camp

is often given credit for inventing American football

because about 100 years ago,

he created many of the rules in

American football that we have today.

Rules that now make it a different sport from rugby.

But when we look at drawings and pictures

from even further back in time,

we can see that human beings have been

playing ball games for thousands of years.

Some of these ancient games are probably

the early versions of games you know today.

Both American football and rugby

might have come from the same sport,

something originally called mob football,

where two neighboring towns would

compete against each other.

You can see here, mob football is still

played today in certain towns in Great Britain.

There are very few rules.

As you can tell, there's an unlimited

number of players allowed

and they try to stop each other

from tossing the ball all the way

to a goal in the other teams town.

Back in ancient times,

sometimes their goal was to toss

a pig skin ball into the balcony

of the other towns church.

And it's not just sports like football

that has its beginnings in ancient times.

Some of these ancient games involved

hitting a ball with a stick.

Does that remind you of anything?

Other games involved only being able

to use your hands, never your feet.

Does that sound familiar?

So in summary, many of the rules of American football

were invented by someone named Walter Camp,

but earlier versions of football

have been played for centuries.

That's all for this weeks question.

Thanks Janzen for asking it.

Now for the next episode,

I reached into my question jar

and chose three questions submitted to me

that I'm thinking about answering.

When this video is done playing,

you'll get to vote on one.

You can choose from what is tape made out of,

why is the ocean salty,

or how does dust form.

So submit your vote when the video is over.

I want to hear from all of you watching.

There are mysteries all around us.

Stay curious and see you next week.