Long before tailgates, halftime shows and turkey-day kickoffs, football was a game played by college men and neighborhood athletic clubs for pride, not paychecks. That changed on a fall afternoon in Pittsburgh exactly 134 years ago today. On November 12, 1892, a former Yale star named William “Pudge” Heffelfinger was paid $500 to play a single game, and in doing so he became the first known professional football player.
A big rivalry and a bigger offer
Heffelfinger was born in Minneapolis in 1867 and played at Yale from 1888 to 1891, where he became a campus legend. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he played on both the offensive and defensive lines and was named to Walter Camp’s All-American team three times. His Yale teams lost only two games across those four seasons, and the 1888 squad outscored its opponents 698 to 0.
In 1892, two Pittsburgh-area clubs were locked in a fierce rivalry: the Allegheny Athletic Association and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. Both badly wanted to win their showdown that November. The Allegheny club brought Heffelfinger in from Chicago, according to the Heinz History Center, and agreed to pay him $500 for his trouble. That was a remarkable sum for one afternoon of football, and it broke the unwritten rule that athletes in these clubs played only for the love of the game.
The game that started it all
The money turned out to be well spent. The game was shortened to two 30-minute halves, and midway through the first half Heffelfinger forced a fumble, scooped up the ball and ran 25 yards for a touchdown. Touchdowns counted for only four points in those days, and his was the only score of the game. Allegheny won, 4 to 0.
The Hall of Fame notes that the contest ended up being treated as an exhibition, and the bets riding on it were called off. But the outcome was hardly the most important thing that happened that day. Without much fanfare, football had crossed a line it would never cross back over.
The paper trail that proved it
For decades, nobody outside a small circle knew about the payment. Early historians believed the first professional was John Brallier, a 16-year-old quarterback who was paid $10 plus expenses to play for a town team in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on September 3, 1895.
The record changed after the Pro Football Hall of Fame opened in Canton, Ohio, in 1963. Research turned up an Allegheny Athletic Association expense sheet, signed by the club’s manager, O.D. Thompson. It listed a $500 payment to Heffelfinger as a bonus for his game performance and showed the club cleared a $621 profit. The Hall says the document’s existence had stayed out of public view for almost 80 years, and it now calls the sheet pro football’s birth certificate. Brallier, once considered the first pro, now ranks no higher than seventh.
From one paycheck to a national league
Once the door opened, others walked through it. Just a week after Heffelfinger’s game, on November 19, 1892, Allegheny paid Ben “Sport” Donnelly $250 for a single game. By the 1893 season, the club had three players under contract at $50 a game. In the years that followed, paid players spread to other Pennsylvania town teams, including Greensburg in 1894 and Latrobe in 1895.
The next big step came on September 17, 1920. Team owners gathered in Ralph Hay’s Hupmobile auto showroom in Canton, home of the Canton Bulldogs, and formed the American Professional Football Association. Eleven franchises were represented at that first meeting, and the famous athlete Jim Thorpe was named president. In 1922, the league took the name it still carries today: the National Football League.
A Thanksgiving tradition for families
Football and Thanksgiving have gone together for nearly as long as the NFL has existed. The Hall of Fame notes that the league has played games on Thanksgiving Day since its very first season in 1920. The Detroit Lions began their holiday tradition in 1934, their first year in Detroit, with a game against the Chicago Bears that sold out its 26,000 tickets two weeks early and was carried on 94 NBC radio stations, making it the first NFL game broadcast nationally. Apart from a break from 1939 to 1944, Detroit has played on Thanksgiving every year since. The Dallas Cowboys joined the holiday lineup in 1966 and have played on Thanksgiving every year since, except for 1975 and 1977.
This Thanksgiving, when the plates are cleared and the family settles in front of the game, it’s worth remembering where it all began: with one player, one rivalry and one $500 payment on a November day in 1892. Share the story with the kids at halftime. Ask Grandpa or Grandma about the first game they remember watching. Toss a football in the backyard before the pie comes out. The players on the screen may be paid millions now, but the best part of the day is still free: the people gathered around you.
Does your family have a Thanksgiving football tradition, on the couch or in the backyard? Share in the comments below.
Sources: Pro Football Hall of Fame, “Birth of Pro Football” (Mar. 20, 2026); Pro Football Hall of Fame, “Who Was William ‘Pudge’ Heffelfinger” (Jan. 29, 2019); Pro Football Hall of Fame, “NFL founded in Canton on Sept. 17, 1920”; Pro Football Hall of Fame, “Thanksgiving Game Tradition Dates to 1934” (Dec. 1, 2020); Heinz History Center, “Where Pro Football Began: The $500 Game on Pittsburgh’s North Side” (Apr. 10, 2026).
Leave a Reply