page_title: Navy Midshipmen football
section_title: Early history (1879–1949)
hierarchical_section_title: Navy Midshipmen football / History / Early history (1879–1949)
caption_attribution_description: English: A portrait of the 1879 United States Naval Academy football team.
context_page_description: The Navy Midshipmen football team represents the United States Naval Academy in NCAA Division I FBS college football. The Naval Academy completed its final season as an FBS independent school in 2014, and became a single-sport member of the American Athletic Conference beginning in the 2015 season. The team has been coached by Ken Niumatalolo since December 2007. Navy has 19 players and three coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame and won the college football national championship in 1926 according to the Boand and Houlgate poll systems. The 1910 team also was undefeated and unscored upon. The mascot is Bill the Goat.
  The three major service academies—Air Force, Army, and Navy—compete for the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, which is awarded to the academy that defeats the others in football that year.
context_section_description: The Naval Academy's football program is one of the nation's oldest, with its history dating back to 1879. There were two separate efforts to establish a Naval Academy football team in 1879. The first was guided by first-classman J.H. Robinson, who developed it as a training regiment to help keep the school's baseball team in shape. The team played the sport under rules that made it much closer to soccer, where the players were permitted only to kick the ball in order to advance it. The second effort, headed by first-classman William John Maxwell was more successful in its efforts. Maxwell met with two of his friends, Tunstall Smith and Henry Woods, who played for the Baltimore Athletic Club and officially challenged their team to a game with the Naval Academy. A team was formed from academy first-classmen, which Maxwell led as a manager, trainer, and captain. The team would wake up and practice before reveille and following drill and meals. The squad received encouragement from some of the faculty, who allowed them to eat a late dinner and skip final drill for additional practicing. This was against the direct orders of the school superintendent, who had banned football and similar activities.
  The year's sole contest was played on December 11 against the Baltimore Athletic Club. The opposition's team was reportedly composed of players from Princeton, Yale, Pennsylvania, and Johns Hopkins. The Naval Academy hosted the Baltimore team on a temporary field drawn on part of the superintendent's cow pasture. Rules decided upon between the teams established that the game was to be played under rugby rules. The Baltimore American and Chronicle, which covered the contest, described it as such:
  The game, played under rugby rules, was a battle from beginning to end—a regular knock down and drag out fight. Both sides became immediately excited and the audience was aroused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm by the spirited contest. The ball oscillated backward and forward over the ground without any material result.
  The scrimmages were something awful to witness—living, kicking, scrambling masses of humanity surging to and fro, each individual after the leather oval. If a Baltimorean got the ball and started for a run, he was unfailingly caught by one of the brawny Cadets and dashed to earth with five or six men falling on him.
  The game was closely fought and was finally declared a scoreless tie by the referee about an hour after it began. Navy reportedly never gained possession of the ball. However, the Naval Academy managed to keep the Baltimore Athletic Club from ever being in a scoring position. On three separate occasions, Navy forced Baltimore back into its own end zone for a safety; these were not worth any points until 1882, however, so they offered Navy no benefit. The American and Chronicle reported that Maxwell, Craven, and Sample of Navy gave the strongest performances, but were also reckless in their play and were repeatedly penalized for jumping offside or kicking the ball out of play, a form of delay of game.
  Some time after the game, Walter Camp, known as the "Father of American Football", credited Maxwell as the inventor of the first football uniform. After he was informed that the Baltimore team he was playing outweighed his by an average of ten pounds, Maxwell looked for a way to make the teams more evenly matched. Using his knowledge of sailing, he decided to design a sleeveless canvas jacket which would make his players "difficult to grasp when they began to sweat". He presented the design to the academy's tailor, who created the double-lined jackets which "were laced down the front and drawn tightly to fit snugly around a player's body". The weighted suits were worn by the team, which was confused by the "strangle, heavy, newfangled getups".
  The Naval Academy would not produce another football team until the 1882 season. The 1882 team would be the first with a coach, being supported by Academy officials. The 1879 season was the last time that a Navy squad would play the Baltimore Athletic Club. Navy would finish
caption: Navy's first football team gathered for a team portrait in 1879
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