Historic Replicas

Millions of people gathered around their TV’s this past Sunday to enjoy the Super Bowl, the ultimate American athletic competition and the most watched television event of the year. It’s a distinctly American sport, as central to our culture as Coca-cola and the fourth of July.  Like our country itself, modern football is a recent development.  The rules we play by today didn’t take shape until 1879.  The origins of the game go back much further, though. 

Football evolved from rugby, a similar game that is extremely popular in England and many other countries.  Rugby is an off-shoot of soccer, first created when a rebellious little player named William picked up the ball and started running with it, or so the legend goes.  Football, then, came from soccer, and that’s where the river of history begins to run deep.  In fact, there’s archeological evidence of people playing soccer or games like it as long as 3000 years ago!  No one is certain how the game spread, but it appears in cultures across the globe.  The Japanese wrote of a similar game in 1004 B.C, The ancient Greeks in 2,000 B.C.  The Roman warriors played a rugby-like game called Harpastum for over 700 years. Sports were a noble pastime for the Romans; they were encouraged to participate during breaks from the battlefield and their historical weapons.  Sports have always been important; they allow people to indulge their aggressive impulses during peace, and experience the thrill of competition and physical conflict without the horror of war.  The Super Bowl may be a modern phenomenon, but it’s part of a tradition that’s as old as civilization itself.