Walter Chauncey Camp

Born: New Britain; April 7, 1859
Died: New York City; March 14, 1925

Walter Camp had a profound impact upon the evolution of American football and was one the nation's most energetic advocates of adult physical fitness.

Born of old English stock, Camp was educated at the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, was graduated from Yale in 1880, and then spent two years in attendance at the Yale Medical School. During his six Yale years, Camp was a participant in a number of outdoor sports but specialized in football, playing every year. At the Medical School he was particularly interested in acquiring knowledge of anatomy and physiology.

Following his Yale years, Camp worked briefly in New York City for the Manhattan Watch Company. By 1888 he was back in New Haven via employment with the New Haven Clock Company, a firm with which he was associated for the rest of his life.

In New Haven Camp almost immediately became involved with Yale athletics—becoming general athletic director and the head "advisory" football coach. Drawing upon ideas which in some cases he had conceived during his Yale playing days, Camp in the next decades was responsible for fundamental modifications or innovations in American football: the substitution of the "scrimmage" for the "scram" to put the ball into play; a reduction in the number of players from fifteen to eleven; the creation of the position of quarterback; the utilization of four "downs" per team possession; the "gridiron" pattern of the field; and tackling below the waist. Camp, however, was interested in young men and sportsmanship as much as he was in technical innovation in the sport and devoted himself at Yale and through his writings to instilling a respect for hard but clean athletic competition.

Through his writings, Walter Camp in effect created a literature of football: Football: How to Coach a Team (1886); American Football (1891); Walter Camp's Book of College Sports (1893); The Substitute (1908); and Jack Hall at Yale (1909). A remarkable indication of the respect he possessed was the speed by which Walter Camp's annual selection of an "All-American Team," begun in 1889, was uniformly accepted as definitive by all associated with American football.

During World War I Camp translated his convictions about the importance of daily exercise for adult fitness into an exercise program, worked out with the director of the Yale Gymnasium, for New Haven citizens. Before long Camp was brought to Washington to run members of the Wilson administration and congressmen through his now increasingly-known "Daily Dozen" exercises. In the 1920s the Camp exercises won nationwide popularity.

A monument to Camp at the Yale Bowl in New Haven makes clear Yale's admiration for a remarkable man.

For Further Reading

Power, Harford, J. Walter Camp, The Father of American Football. Salem, New York, 1926.

Entry by David M. Roth.

* Entry under revision.