David Rosenthal

There's no way a casual fan can understand all of it.

And yet the ballet, as you say, is mesmerizing to watch.

Collegiate American football just becomes wildly, wildly popular.

It still is to this day.

Like it is a huge part of the American sports landscape.

And it was even more so then.

No.

Again, very specifically, we're spending a lot of time on the origins of football in college here, but it's so important for understanding the NFL.

This is a college thing.

This is a American collegiate experience that these elite young men go through this dangerous kind of warlike activity.

There's the sacred element to it.

So much so that while in the early 1900s, some professional teams do start to pop up around the country.

These are teams, not leagues.

So these are barnstorming teams that would go around like there's no organized schedule of play.

But they're viewed not only just as second rate to the college game, they're like dirty.

Yeah, it's even more than that.

Many people, especially the elite, viewed professional football as actually immoral because it was profaning this thing with money.

The gripe that they had against it was the money.

It wasn't the game.

It wasn't how the game was played.