On September 17, 1920, representatives from ten professional football teams met in Canton, Ohio and formed the American Professional Football Association, which two years later became the National Football League (NFL). Professional football evolved from club football in the 1890s and by the early 1900s had begun to spread across the country, concentrating in the Midwest.

Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, Jim Thorpe was the first native American to win two gold medals for the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Summer Olympics. Thorpe was the most recognizable face of pro football’s early years having started with the Canton Bulldogs, an early pro football power, in 1915. He also played professional baseball and basketball!

Thorpe went on to play for six NFL teams during his career and in 1920 the founding members of the NFL elected him its first president.

Thorpe, pictured above, lost his Olympic medals after it was discovered that he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the amateur status rules that were then in place. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee restored Thorpe’s Olympic medals!

In 1959, the citizens of Canton launched a well-organized effort to have their city monument to the sport’s historic stars. The Professional Football Hall of Fame opened on September 7, 1963 and that’s where we visited today. It was fun learning about the history of the game.