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{{Short description|American football player and coach (1859–1925)}}
{{About|the American football coach|the railroad expert and writer|Walter Mason Camp|other uses|Walter Camp (disambiguation)}}
{{Use American English|date=December 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{Infobox college coach
| name = Walter Camp
| image = Walter Chauncey Camp portrait.jpg
| alt = 
| caption = Camp in 1910
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1859|4|7}}
| birth_place = [[New Britain, Connecticut]], U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1925|3|14|1859|4|7}}
| death_place = [[New York City]], U.S.
| alma_mater = 
| player_years1 = 1876–1881
| player_team1 = [[Yale Bulldogs football|Yale]]
| player_positions = [[Halfback (American football)|Halfback]]
| coach_years1 = 1888–1892
| coach_team1 = [[Yale Bulldogs football|Yale]]
| coach_years2 = 1892, 1894–1895
| coach_team2 = [[Stanford Cardinal football|Stanford]]
| overall_record = 79–5–3
| bowl_record = 
| tournament_record = 
| championships = 3 [[College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS|national]] (1888, 1891, 1892)
| awards = 
| coaching_records = 
| CFBHOF_year = 1951
| CFBHOF_id = 2080
}}
'''Walter Chauncey Camp''' (April 7, 1859 – March 14, 1925) was an American [[college football]] player and coach, and [[sports journalism|sports writer]] known as the "'''Father of American Football'''". Among a long list of inventions, he created the sport's [[line of scrimmage]] and the system of [[Down (American and Canadian football)|down]]s.<ref name="yalenews">{{cite news|url=http://news.yale.edu/2013/11/18/11-historic-tidbits-about-game|title=11 Historic Tidbits About The Game|last=Bishop|first=LuAnn|date=18 November 2013|newspaper=Yale News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303233722/http://news.yale.edu/2013/11/18/11-historic-tidbits-about-game|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=live|access-date=2017-01-24}}</ref> With [[John Heisman]], [[Amos Alonzo Stagg]], [[Glenn Scobey Warner|Pop Warner]], [[Fielding H. Yost]], [[Curly Lambeau]], and [[George Halas]], Camp was one of the most accomplished persons in the [[early history of American football]]. He attended [[Yale University|Yale College]], where he played and coached [[college football]]. Camp's [[Yale Bulldogs football|Yale teams]] of 1888, 1891, and 1892 have been recognized as [[College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS|national champions]]. Camp was inducted into the [[College Football Hall of Fame]] as a coach during 1951.

Camp wrote articles and books on the gridiron and sports in general, annually publishing an "[[All-America college football team|All-America]]n" team. By the time of his death, he had written nearly 30 books and more than 250 magazine articles.

The annual [[Walter Camp Award]] is named in his honor, recognizing the best all-around collegiate football player.

==Life==
Camp was born in [[New Britain, Connecticut]], the son of Leverett Camp and Ellen Sophia (Cornwell) Camp. Walter Camp was of English descent. His first immigrant ancestor was the English colonist Nicholas Camp, who came from [[Nazeing]], [[Essex]], [[England]] and arrived in colonial [[New England]] in 1630, arriving first in [[Massachusetts Bay Colony|Massachusetts]] and then moving to Connecticut that same year.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Walter Camp: football and the modern man|last=Des Jardins|first=Julie|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2015|isbn=9780199925636|location=New York|pages=9|quote=Nicholas Camp, his earliest known ancestor, came to Massachusetts and settled in Connecticut in 1630.}}</ref> Walter attended [[Hopkins School|Hopkins Grammar School]] in [[New Haven, Connecticut|New Haven]], entered [[Yale University|Yale College]] in 1875, and graduated in 1880.<ref name="Yaleobit192425">{{cite web | url=http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_record/1859_1924/1924-25.pdf | title=Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1924–1925 | access-date=March 24, 2011 | year=1925 | publisher=Yale University | pages=1348–50 | archive-date=April 2, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402043826/http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_record/1859_1924/1924-25.pdf | url-status=dead }}</ref> At Yale he was a member of [[Delta Kappa Epsilon]] fraternity, the [[Linonian Society]], and [[Skull and Bones]].<ref name="Yaleobit192425"/> He attended [[Yale Medical School]] from 1880 to 1883,<ref name=yalenews /> where his studies were interrupted first by an outbreak of [[typhoid fever]] and then by work for the Manhattan Watch Company. Camp worked for the New Haven Clock Company beginning in 1883, working his way up to chairman of the board of directors.<ref name="Yaleobit192425" />

===Playing career===
In 1873, Camp attended a meeting where representatives from Columbia, Rutgers, Princeton, and Yale universities created the [[Intercollegiate Football Association]] (IFA). The representatives created the rule that each team is only allowed 15 plays per drive. Camp played as a [[Halfback (American football)|halfback]] at Yale from [[1876 Yale Bulldogs football team|1876]] to [[1882 Yale Bulldogs football team|1882]]. His primary sports were baseball and rugby football before it developed into American football.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Walter Chauncey Camp|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/sports-and-games/sports-biographies/walter-chauncey-camp|date=2022-01-24}}</ref> Harvard player Nathaniel Curtis took one look at Camp, then only 156 pounds, and told Yale captain [[Eugene V. Baker|Gene Baker]] "You don't mean to let that child play, do you? ... He will get hurt."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.theunbalancedline.com/2010/03/year-by-year-1875.html|date=September 8, 1962|title=Camp Curbed the Carnage|work=Spokane Daily Chronicle}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19751121&id=mLgsAAAAIBAJ&pg=1131,4642309&hl=en|title=Star-News - Google News Archive Search|work=google.com}}</ref>

===Family===
On June 30, 1888, Camp married Alice Graham Sumner, sister of sociologist [[William Graham Sumner]]. They had two children: Walter Camp Jr. (1891–1940), who attended Yale as well and was elected as a member of [[Scroll and Key]] in 1912, and Janet Camp Troxell (1897–1987).<ref>{{cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/05/17/100365643.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240601083141/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/05/17/100365643.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 1, 2024|title=Yale 'Taps' in rain amid great tension; Nervousness of the Marshaled Juniors Reflects Owen Johnson's Attack on the System|date=May 17, 1912|work=New York Times|access-date=2017-01-24}}</ref> Camp is buried with his wife and children in [[Grove Street Cemetery]] in New Haven. He was an Episcopalian.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N3U_CgAAQBAJ&q=episcopalian | isbn=978-0-19-992563-6 | title=Walter Camp: Football and the Modern Man | date=8 September 2015 | publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref>

===Coaching career===
Camp served as the head football coach at Yale from [[1888 Yale Bulldogs football team|1888]] to [[1892 Yale Bulldogs football team|1892]]. In his time with Yale, the team won 68 games and lost just 2 games.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Walter Camp {{!}} American sportsman|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Camp|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref> He then moved on to [[Stanford University]], where he coached in December 1892 and in [[1894 Stanford football team|1894]] and [[1895 Stanford football team|1895]]. On Christmas Day, 1894, [[Amos Alonzo Stagg]] and his University of [[Chicago Maroons]] defeated Camp's Stanford team 24–4 at San Francisco in an early intersectional contest.

==Father of American football==
[[File:Walter Camp - Project Gutenberg eText 18048.jpg|thumb|right|Camp as Yale's captain in 1878]]
Camp was on the various collegiate football rules committees that developed the American game from his time as a player at Yale until his death. English [[rugby football]] rules at the time required a tackled player, when the ball was "fairly held," to put the ball down immediately for scrummage. Camp proposed at the U.S. [[College Football]] 1880 rules convention that the contested [[Scrum (rugby)|scrum]] be replaced with a "[[line of scrimmage]]" where the team with the ball started with uncontested possession and with each team fielding eleven players. This change effectively created the evolution of the modern game of [[History of American football|American football]] from its rugby football origins, and was on display in the first game of football between two American colleges played with this format, [[Harvard]] and [[Tufts]] on June 4, 1875.

He is credited with innovations such as the [[Snap (gridiron football)|snap]]-back from [[Center (American football)|center]], the system of downs, and the points system as well as the introduction of what became a standard offensive arrangement of players—a seven-man [[Lineman (American football)|line]] and a four-man [[backfield]] consisting of a [[quarterback]], two halfbacks, and a [[Fullback (American football)|fullback]]. Camp was also responsible for introducing the "[[Safety (gridiron football score)|safety]]," the awarding of two points to the defensive side for tackling a ball carrier in his own end zone followed by a [[Free kick#American football|free kick]] by the offense from its own 20-yard line to restart play. This is significant as [[rugby union]] has no point value award for this action, but instead awards a scrum to the attacking side five meters from the goal line.

In 2011, reviewing Camp's role in the founding of the sport and of the [[National Collegiate Athletic Association]] (NCAA), [[Taylor Branch]] also credited Camp with cutting the number of players on a football team from 15 to 11 and adding measuring lines to the field. However, Branch noted that the revelation in a contemporaneous ''[[McClure's]]'' magazine story of "Camp's $100,000 slush fund," along with concern about the violence of the growing sport, helped lead to President [[Theodore Roosevelt]]'s [[History of American football#Violence and controversy (1905)|intervention in the sport]]. The NCAA emerged from the national talks, but worked to Yale's disadvantage relative to rival (and Roosevelt's alma mater) [[Harvard University]], according to Branch.<ref>Branch, Taylor, "[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/8643/?single_page=true The Shame of College Sports]," ''The Atlantic'', September 14, 2011 (October 2011 issue). In 1905 in ''McClure's'', Henry Beach Needham published two stories, "The College Athlete: His Amateur Code: Its Evasion and Administration." (July; 25:3 p. 260) and "The College Athlete: How Commercialism Is Making Him a Professional" (June; 25:2) with Yale content per [http://drupaldev.commons.yale.edu/anth282/node/140 "The early history of football at Yale: Contemporary sources"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120426040446/http://drupaldev.commons.yale.edu/anth282/node/140 |date=2012-04-26 }}, ''Critical Sport Studies''. Retrieved 2011-09-27.</ref>

==Writing==
Despite having a full-time job at the New Haven Clock Company, a Camp family business, and being an unpaid yet very involved adviser to the Yale football team, Camp wrote articles and books on the gridiron and sports in general. By the time of his death, he had written nearly 30 books and more than 250 magazine articles. His articles appeared in national periodicals such as ''Harper's Weekly'', ''Collier's'', ''Outing'', ''Outlook'', and ''The Independent'', and in juvenile magazines such as ''St.&nbsp;Nicholas'', ''Youth's Companion'', and ''Boys' Magazine''. His stories also appeared in major daily newspapers throughout the United States. He also selected an annual "[[All-America]]n" team.

By the age of 33, twelve years after graduating from Yale, Walter Camp had already become known as the "Father of Football." In a column in the popular magazine ''[[Harper's Weekly]]'', sports columnist [[Caspar Whitney]] had applied the nickname; the sobriquet was appropriate because, by 1892, Camp had almost single-handedly fashioned the game of modern American football.

Camp was editor for several sports books published by the [[Spalding Athletic Library]].

===Eastern bias===
{{see also|East Coast bias}}
The dominance of Ivy League players on Camp's All-America teams led to criticism over the years that his selections were biased against players from the leading Western universities, including Chicago, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Notre Dame.<ref name=Mans>{{cite news|title=All-American Teams of East Are Jokes: Critics Who Never Saw Western Teams Play to Name Best in Country -- Forget About Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois|newspaper=The Mansfield News|date=December 8, 1910}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Ross Tenney|title=Much Dissatisfaction Over Camp's All-American Team: Football Dean Is Accused of Favoring East; Walter Camp Soundly Scored For 'Poorest Teams Ever Foisted Upon Public'|newspaper=The Des Moines Capital|date=December 31, 1922}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Westerners Missed By Walter Camp: Football Wizard Puts Indian on 'All-American.'|newspaper=The Decatur Review|date=December 7, 1911|page=5}}</ref> Many selectors picked only Eastern players. For example, [[Wilton S. Farnsworth]]'s 1910 All-American eleven for the ''[[New York Evening Journal]]'' was made up of five players from Harvard, two from West Point, and one each from Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Brown.<ref>{{cite news|author=Farnsworth, W.S.|title=Picking All-Stars Is No Easy Task: Backfield Men Show Greater Individuality Then Men on the Line and Are More Easily Chosen|work=The Billings Daily Gazette|date=1910-12-04}}</ref>

The selectors were typically Eastern writers and former players who attended only games in the East. In December 1910, ''[[Mansfield News Journal|The Mansfield News]]'', an Ohio newspaper, ran an article headlined: "All-American Teams of East Are Jokes: Critics Who Never Saw Western Teams Play to Name Best in Country -- Forget About Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois."<ref name=Mans/> The article noted: {{blockquote|Eastern sporting editors must be devoid of all sense of humor, judging by the way in which they permit their football writers to pick 'All-American' elevens. What man in the lot that have picked 'All-American' elevens this fall, saw a single game outside the North Atlantic States? With a conceit all their own they fail to recognize that the United States reaches more than 200 miles in any direction from New York. ... Suppose an Ohio football writer picked 'All-American' teams. Ohio readers would not stand for it. But apparently the eastern readers will swallow anything.<ref name=Mans/>}}

==The Daily Dozen exercise regimen==
Camp was a proponent of exercise, and not just for the athletes he coached. While working as an adviser to the [[United States armed forces|United States military]] during [[World War&nbsp;I]], he devised a program to help servicemen become more physically fit.

<blockquote>
Walter Camp has just developed for the Naval of setting up exercises that seems to fill the bill; a system designed to give a man a running jump start for the serious work of the day. It is called the "daily dozen set-up", meaning thereby twelve very simple exercises.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=aogiAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA98 "A Daily Dozen Set-Up. Walter Camp's New Shorthand System of Morning Exercises", ''Outing'', November 1918, p. 98]</ref>
</blockquote>

Both the [[United States Army|Army]] and the [[United States Navy|Navy]] used Camp's methods.<ref>"Walter Camp, Father of Football," ''Atlanta Constitution'', September 19, 1920, p. 2D</ref>

The names of the exercises in the original Daily Dozen, as the whole set became known, were hands, grind, crawl, wave, hips, grate, curl, weave, head, grasp, crouch, and wing. As the name indicates, there were twelve exercises, and they could be completed in about eight minutes.<ref>"Camp's Daily Dozen Exercises", ''[[Boston Globe]]'', July 11, 1920, p. 64</ref> A prolific writer, Camp wrote a book explaining the exercises and extolling their benefits. During the 1920s, a number of newspapers and magazines used the term "Daily Dozen" to refer to exercise in general.<ref>[[Lulu Hunt Peters]], "Diet and Health: The Daily Dozens—Take 'Em." ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', June 8, 1927, p. A6</ref>

Starting in 1921 with the ''Musical Health Builder'' [[Gramophone record|record]] sets, Camp began offering morning setting-up exercises to a wider market.<ref>[https://archive.today/20120805183434/http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/happening/acquisitions/recentacquisitions07.html "Recent Acquisitions 2007"], National Library of Medicine, Walter Camp ''Musical Health Builder'' (New York, 1921). Retrieved 2011-09-14. </ref> In 1922, the initiative reached the new medium of [[radio]].<ref>{{Cite journal|year=1925|title=Getting the Radio News by Telephone|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wNoDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA636|journal=Popular Mechanics|pages=636–638}}</ref>

==Death and legacy==
Camp died of a heart attack on March 14, 1925, in [[New York City]].<ref name=ency>{{cite web |url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Walter_Chauncey_Camp.aspx|title=Walter Chauncey Camp |publisher=Encyclopedia.com |accessdate=2013-10-08}}</ref>

Football historian Timothy P. Brown wrote of Camp nearly a century after his death:
<br />
:"For his many contributions, he is rightfully known as the father of American football. But saying Walter Camp is the father of American football is to understate his influence during the first fifty years of the game. Camp was the voice of college football to the nation when print was the only medium. He was widely published and syndicated. He was the football authority as a pioneering player, coach, and rule maker. He was [[Knute Rockne]], [[Grantland Rice]], [[Bud Wilkinson]], [[Vince Lombardi]], [[Paul Zimmerman (sportswriter)|Paul Zimmerman]], and [[Bill Belichick]] all rolled into one. His thinking and influence on football, for good and for bad, cannot be underestimated."<ref>Timothy P. Brown, ''How Football Became Football: 150 Years of the Game's Evolution.'' West Bloomfield, MI: Brown House Publishing, 2020; pp. 5-6.</ref>

==Head coaching record==

{{History of American football}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Start | type = coach | team = | conf = | bowl = | poll = no}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Subhead
 | name      = [[Yale Bulldogs football|Yale Bulldogs]]
 | conf      = [[Intercollegiate Football Association]]
 | startyear = 1888
 | endyear   = 1892
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Entry
 | championship = national
 | year         = [[1888 college football season|1888]]
 | name         = [[1888 Yale Bulldogs football team|Yale]]
 | overall      = 13–0
 | conference   = 
 | confstanding = 1st
 | bowlname     = 
 | bowloutcome  = 
 | bcsbowl      = 
 | ranking      = no
 | ranking2     = no
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Entry
 | championship = 
 | year         = [[1889 college football season|1889]]
 | name         = [[1889 Yale Bulldogs football team|Yale]]
 | overall      = 16–1
 | conference   = 
 | confstanding = 
 | bowlname     = 
 | bowloutcome  = 
 | bcsbowl      = 
 | ranking      = no
 | ranking2     = no
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Entry
 | championship = 
 | year         = [[1890 college football season|1890]]
 | name         = [[1890 Yale Bulldogs football team|Yale]]
 | overall      = 13–1
 | conference   = 
 | confstanding = 1st
 | bowlname     = 
 | bowloutcome  = 
 | bcsbowl      = 
 | ranking      = no
 | ranking2     = no
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Entry
 | championship = national
 | year         = [[1891 college football season|1891]]
 | name         = [[1891 Yale Bulldogs football team|Yale]]
 | overall      = 13&ndash;0

 | conference   = 
 | confstanding = 1st
 | bowlname     = 
 | bowloutcome  = 
 | bcsbowl      = 
 | ranking      = no
 | ranking2     = no
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Entry
 | championship = national
 | year         = [[1892 college football season|1892]]
 | name         = [[1892 Yale Bulldogs football team|Yale]]
 | overall      = 13–0
 | conference   = 
 | confstanding = 1st
 | bowlname     = 
 | bowloutcome  = 
 | bcsbowl      = 
 | ranking      = no
 | ranking2     = no
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Subtotal
 | name       = Yale
 | overall    = 68–2
 | confrecord = 
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Subhead
 | name      = [[Stanford Cardinal football|Stanford]]
 | conf      = Independent
 | startyear = 1892
 | endyear   = single
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Entry
 | championship = 
 | year         = [[1892 college football season|1892]]
 | name         = [[1892 Stanford football team|Stanford]]
 | overall      = 1–0–2
 | conference   = 
 | confstanding = 
 | bowlname     = 
 | bowloutcome  = 
 | bcsbowl      = 
 | ranking      = no
 | ranking2     = no
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Subhead
 | name      = [[Stanford Cardinal football|Stanford]]
 | conf      = Independent
 | startyear = 1894
 | endyear   = 1895
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Entry
 | championship = 
 | year         = [[1894 college football season|1894]]
 | name         = [[1894 Stanford football team|Stanford]]
 | overall      = 6–3
 | conference   = 
 | confstanding = 
 | bowlname     = 
 | bowloutcome  = 
 | bcsbowl      = 
 | ranking      = no
 | ranking2     = no
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Entry
 | championship = 
 | year         = [[1895 college football season|1895]]
 | name         = [[1895 Stanford football team|Stanford]]
 | overall      = 4–0–1
 | conference   = 
 | confstanding = 
 | bowlname     = 
 | bowloutcome  = 
 | bcsbowl      = 
 | ranking      = no
 | ranking2     = no
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Subtotal
 | name       = Stanford
 | overall    = 12–3–3
 | confrecord = 
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record End
 | overall  = 79–5–3
 | bowls    = no
 | poll     = no
 | polltype = 
}}

==See also==
* [[List of college football head coaches with non-consecutive tenure]]
* [[Walter Camp Football Foundation]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Bibliography==
* Ronald A. Smith, ''Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics,'' (1990)
* [https://www.nytimes.com/1925/03/15/archives/walter-camp-found-dead-in-hotel-here-stricken-by-heart-attack-in.html "Walter Camp Found Dead in Hotel Here]— Stricken by Heart Attack in Sleep; Was in City for Football Meeting]", ''The New York Times'', March 15, 1925, p.&nbsp;1

==External links==
{{Commons category|Walter Camp}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}

* [[hdl:10079/fa/mssa.ms.0125|Walter Chauncey Camp papers (MS 125). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.]]
* {{College Football HoF|2080}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=5138}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Walter Chauncey Camp}}
* {{Find a Grave}}
* {{cite book|title=Condensed auction for the busy man|author=Walter Camp|year=1912|location=NY|publisher=Platt & Peck|url=https://archive.org/stream/condensedauctio00campgoog}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Camp, Walter}}
[[Category:1859 births]]
[[Category:1925 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century players of American football]]
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[[Category:American football halfbacks]]
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