WALTER CAMP PAPERS

Location: HESB Microtext. Microfilm 3819

Walter Chauncey Camp (1859-1925) was without question the single most influential figure in the early history of American football. As player and coach at Yale University, as athletic administrator, rulemaker, commentator, and publicist, he oversaw the game's growth from campus recreation to national spectacle. As a student at Yale University Camp played the fledgling sport for seven years (1876-82), three times serving as team captain. On leaving school he began his long tenure as Yale's unpaid "advisory coach," often meeting with players in the evening following his job at the New Haven Clock Company (where he eventually rose to president and board chairman). Camp remained as advisory coach until 1906, during which time Yale dominated college football, compiling a record of 218 wins, 11 losses, and 8 ties. As a student Camp had proposed the two fundamental changes that set the American game apart from rugby: the scrimmage rule (1880) and the downs system (1882). Beginning in 1878 he served continuously on football's rules committees, for twenty-eight years as secretary: his ideas dominated the early committees in particular. Camp's views on football, and on athletics and physical education in general, were disseminated through his voluminous writings, which include countless newspaper pieces, 200 magazine articles, and close to thirty books. The All-America teams he conceived, and selected annually from 1889 to 1925, quickly became the barometer of excellence in college football, and were widely imitated.

The Camp Papers are arranged in five series: Correspondence (Reels 1-20, arranged alphabetically by correspondent); Writings (Reels 21-40, arranged by topic or type in six categories: athletics, physical fitness, general writings, aphorisms, poetry, and miscellaneous writings); Newspaper and Magazine Clippings (Reels 41-45, arranged chronologically); Photographs (Reel 46); and Family Papers (Reels 47-48). By far the greater part of Camp's correspondence and writings deal with athletics and physical education. The chart below shows the range of materials on each reel; a full, folder by folder finding aid by Robert O. Anthony of Yale University Library may be found on Reel 1 of the papers.