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This article is about the American football coach. For the railroad expert and writer, see Walter Mason Camp. For other uses, see Walter Camp (disambiguation).
Walter Chauncey Camp (April 7, 1859 – March 14, 1925) was a sports writer and American football coach known as the "Father of American Football". With John Heisman, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Glenn Scobey Warner, Fielding H. Yost, and George Halas, Camp was one of the most accomplished persons in the history of American football. Camp was born in the city of New Britain, Connecticut, the son of Leverett L. and Ellen Cornwell Camp. He attended Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, entered Yale College in 1876 and was graduated in 1880. At Yale he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. By the age of thirty-three, a scant twelve years after graduating from Yale, Walter Camp had already become known as the "Father of American Football". In a column in the popular magazine Harper's Weekly, sports columnist Caspar Whitney had applied the nickname; the sobriquet was appropriate because, by 1892, Camp had almost single-handedly fashioned the game of modern American football.
[edit] The Daily DozenCamp was a proponent of exercise, and not just for the athletes he coached. While working as an advisor to the U.S. Military during the first world war, he devised a program to help servicemen become more physically fit. This program came to be called the "Daily Dozen," a series of setting-up exercises that could be done every day. Both the Army and the Navy used Camp's methods. ("Walter Camp, Father of Football," Atlanta Constitution, 19 September 1920, p. 2D) As their name indicated, there were twelve exercises, and they could be completed in about eight minutes. ("Camp's Daily Dozen Exercises," Boston Globe, 11 July 1920, p. 64) A prolific writer, Camp wrote a book explaining the exercises and extolling their benefits. During the 1920s, a number of newspapers and magazines used the term "Daily Dozen" to refer to exercise in general. (Lulu Hunt Peters, "Diet and Health: The Daily Dozens-- Take 'Em." Los Angeles Times, 8 June 1927, p. A6) Starting in 1922, the new medium of radio began offering morning setting-up exercises, using Camp's system. [edit] See also[edit] References
"Walter Camp Found Dead in Hotel Here; Started All-American Eleven Selections and Originated the Daily Dozen." New York Times, March 15, 1925. p. 1. [edit] External links
Categories: Yale Bulldogs football coaches | Stanford Cardinal football head coaches | 1859 births | 1925 deaths | 19th-century players of American football | People from Connecticut | Yale Bulldogs football players | Stanford Cardinal football coaches | College Football Hall of Fame inductees | Hopkins School alumni | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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