Pudge Heffelfinger becomes first pro football player
On November 12 1892 William Pudge Heffelfinger becomes the first professional football player when Pittsburghs Allegheny Athletic Association pays him 500 to play as a ringer in a game against its rival Pittsburgh Athletic Club.Before Heffelfinger players had traded their services on the field for expense money double expenses or trinkets that players could pawn back to the teambut no one had ever openly accepted a cash payment to play football.(Baseball on the other hand had been frankly professional for almost 25 years.) For his part Heffelfinger never acknowledged that hed taken the payment.
He went on to become a prominent insurance executive and congressman from Minnesota.The AAA and PAC football teams bitter rivals and sworn enemies had played one another the month before.In that game the star of the PAC team had been a mysterious young man who called himself Stayer.Team officials swore he was just a neighborhood kid whod never played football before but he turned out to be A.C.
Read the captain of the Penn State team.The AAA was livid and though it had managed to play to a 6-6 draw demanded a rematch.The PAC agreed since its team manager had his eye on an even more promising ringer Pudge Heffelfinger whod been a football star at Yale and was currently on leave from his job in an Omaha railroad office to play (in exchange for expenses no doubt) for the fabled Chicago Athletic Association team.
The PAC offered Heffelfinger and his teammate Knowlton Snake Ames 250 apiece to play for their team.At the end of October the Pittsburgh Press helpfully printed an account of these negotiations shortly afterward the AAA contacted Heffelfinger and offered to double his pay if hed play for their team instead.He agreed but didnt tell the PAC officials about itand consequently they didnt find out that theyd lost their ringer until he showed up at the field in an AAA uniform.
(Meanwhile Ames refused to play for any price he didnt want to jeopardize his amateur status.)The PAC team was furious as were its fans the AAA was smug and its fans were delighted.The PACers stormed off the field and refused to play until AAA agreed that the game wouldnt count.For good measure all bets were offwhich appeased the PACs partisans but infuriated the people whod were hoping to get rich on Heffelfingers team.
In the end Pudge turned out to be worth his paycheck He scored the only touchdown of the game and the AAA team won in a shutout.For the next weeks game the AAA paid Ben Sport Donnelly (one of Pudges Chicago teammates) 250 to play for its team.The next year team managers signed season-long 50-a-week contracts with the young ringers James Van Cleve Oliver Rafferty and Peter Wright.In 1896 the AAA went broke but the model theyd pioneered survived.
