The 1904 Little Big Game: We Shall Not See Its Like Again

As Walter Camp and his buddies at Yale prepared for their 1876 game with Harvard, they had limited knowledge of rugby besides the information gleaned from the rule book. Only one Yale team member had ever seen a regulation rugby match, though several played in the 1875 Harvard-Yale match that used compromise or concessionary rules combining rugby, soccer, and local folk rules.

Their situation was typical of the time. Early players learned rugby by reading the rule book and interpreting it as best...