On November 12, 1892, Pudge Heffelfinger received $500 to play in a football game and went down in history as the first pro football player. I bet he never imagined how that $500 would multiply through the years as professional football became big, big business. At the time Pudge was playing, football was very different. He played for Yale. For some teams, uniforms would consist of pullovers with rags stuffed around the shoulders for padding. Some players wore leather helmets; many were bare headed. Whatever he wore on field, William Walter “Pudge” Heffelfinger was an outstanding football player, and that’s why one day he was paid to play in a game and kicked off the start of the NFL. He went on to be a head football coach for University of California, Berkeley; Lehigh in Pennsylvania; and University of Minnesota. A story in the Atlantic in 2012 says this about Pudge. He was “a man who gave his life to the game passionately believed that college football players didn’t need and shouldn’t get special favors—they should be treated the same as all other students. He was absolutely against lowering scholastic standards for athletes.”
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 1 Corinthians 9:24
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