First Football Helmet and Career
In 1896, Barclay was credited with inventing the first-ever football helmet, with the intention that it would prevent cauliflower ears. The helmet was constructed by a saddle-maker from nearby Easton with strips of leather harness padding. It made its debut in a Lafayette game against Penn on Oct. 24, 1896. The NCAA and the National Football League made helmets mandatory in 1939 and in 1941, respectively.
Barclay also was a member of the 1897 Lafayette football team that won the national championship. That same year he was a player-coach for the Greensburg Athletic Association. He ended the season on the player on that team named to the “All- Western Pennsylvania” team by the Pittsburgh Press. A year later, he was chosen by Dave Berry, the manager of the rivial Latrobe Athletic Association, to play for the Western Pennsylvania All-Stars in the very first football all-star game, against the Duquesne Country and Athletic Club.
Read more about this topic: George Barclay (sportsperson)
Famous quotes containing the words football, helmet and/or career:
“Idon’t enjoy getting knocked about on a football field for other people’s amusement. I enjoy it if I’m being paid a lot for it.”
—David Storey (b. 1933)
“She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)