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:
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)
“Saul clothed David with his armor; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. David strapped Saul’s sword over the armor, and he tried in vain to walk, for he was not used to them.”
—Bible: Hebrew, 1 Samuel 17:38-39.
Saul was very tall.
“I restore myself when I’m alone. A career is born in public—talent in privacy.”
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)