Walter Camp Walter Chauncey Camp ( April 7 , 1859 – March 14 , 1925 ) was an American football player , coach , and sports writer known as the " Father of American Football " . With John Heisman , Amos Alonzo Stagg , Pop Warner , Fielding H . Yost , and George Halas , Camp was one of the most accomplished persons in the early history of American football . He played college football at Yale College from 1876 to 1882 . Camp served as the head football coach at Yale from 1888 to 1892 before moving to Stanford University , where he coached in December 1892 and in 1894 and 1895 . Camp ' s Yale teams of 1888 , 1891 , and 1892 have been recognized as national champions . Camp was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1951 . Life . Camp was born in the city of New Britain , Connecticut , the son of Leverett Lee and Ellen Sophia ( Cornwell ) Camp . He attended Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven , entered Yale College in 1876 , and graduated in 1880 . At Yale he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity . On June 30 , 1888 , Camp married Alice Graham Sumner , sister of William Graham Sumner . They had two children : Walter Camp , Jr . ( born 1891 ) who attended Yale as well and was elected as a member of Scroll and Key in 1912 , and Janet Camp Troxell ( born 1897 ) . Rules committee . Camp was the dominant voice on the various collegiate football rules committees that developed the American game from his time as a player at Yale until his death . He is credited with innovations such as the snap - back from center , the system of downs , and the points system , as well as the introduction of the now - standard offensive arrangement of players ( a seven - man offensive line and a four - man backfield consisting of a quarterback , two halfbacks , and a fullback ) . Camp was also responsible for introducing the " safety " , the awarding of two points to the defensive side for tackling a ball carrier in his own end zone followed by a free kick by the offense from its own 20 - yard line ( to change possession ) . This is significant , as rugby union has no point value award for this action , but instead awards a scrum to the attacking side five meters from the goal line . Writing . Despite having a full - time job at the New Haven Clock Company ( A Camp Family Business ) and being an unpaid yet very involved adviser to the Yale football team , Camp wrote articles and books on gridiron and also on sports in general . By the time of his death , he had written nearly 30 books and more than 250 magazine articles . His articles appeared in national periodicals such as " Harper ' s Weekly " , " Collier ' s " , " Outing , " " Outlook " , and " The Independent " , and in juvenile magazines such as " St . Nicholas " , " Youth ' s Companion " , and " Boys ' Magazine " . His stories also appeared in major daily newspapers throughout the United States . He also selected an annual " All - American " team . According to his biographer , Richard P . Borkowski , " Camp was instrumental through writing and lecturing in attaching an almost mythical atmosphere of manliness and heroism to the game not previously known in American team sports . " By the age of 33 , twelve years after graduating from Yale , Walter Camp had already become known as the " Father of American Football " . In a column in the popular magazine " Harper ' s Weekly " , sports columnist Caspar Whitney had applied the nickname ; the sobriquet was appropriate because , by 1892 , Camp had almost single - handedly fashioned the game of modern American football . The Daily Dozen . Camp was a proponent of exercise , and not just for the athletes he coached . While working as an adviser to the United States military during World War I , he devised a program to help servicemen become more physically fit . Walter Camp has just developed for the Naval Commission on Training Camp Activities a " short hand " system of setting up exercises that seems to fill the bill ; a system designed to give a man a running jump start for the serious work of the day . It is called the " daily dozen set - up , " meaning thereby twelve very simple exercises . Both the Army and the Navy used Camp ' s methods . The names of the exercises in the original Daily Dozen , as the whole set became known , were hands , grind , crawl , wave , hips , grate , curl , weave , head , grasp , crouch , and wing . As the name indicates , there were twelve exercises , and they could be completed in about eight minutes . A prolific writer , Camp wrote a book explaining the exercises and extolling their benefits . During the 1920s , a number of newspapers and magazines used the term " Daily Dozen " to refer to exercise in general . Starting in 1922 , the new medium of radio began offering morning setting - up exercises using Camp ' s system .