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Date

2025

Abstract

Following the US Civil War, baseball quickly spread among communities across Kansas. Football was less widespread, and the first reports of “foot ball” during this period referred to early versions of association football (soccer) or rugby. American football developed from modifications to rugby rules beginning in the late 1870s and continuing into the early twentieth century. A few Kansas communities experimented briefly with soccer, rugby, and American football teams based on the model of town team baseball. However, interest in American football soon dominated, with attention focused on collegiate teams. The first intercollegiate games in Kansas were played in the autumn of 1890 by teams representing Baker University, the University of Kansas, and Washburn University. The following year, these three schools organized the state’s first intercollegiate sports league—the Triangular League. This monograph examines the early histories of soccer, rugby, and American football in Kansas through 1891 and the partition of the seasons for football and baseball. This essay was originally published in 2020 and has undergone revisions and corrections for its release in 2025 as part of the five-volume anthology Peeking through the Knothole. The open-access, digital version of this essay is available through the “Download” button on this webpage. The print-on-demand version is available through the “Buy this Book” button for volume five of the anthology (Essays on Baseball from Various Viewpoints, 1856–1940).

Keywords

foot ball, football history, American football, intercollegiate football, rugby, soccer, association football

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© The Author (s)

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Originally Published 2020

Revised Edition 2025

“Foot Ball Seems To Be Usurping the Place of Base Ball.” Football in Kansas, 1856–1891, Revised

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