While the 16th President of the U.S. may not have been alive to witness American football as we know it, Abraham Lincoln and football share a lot in common.
Like the road to the White House, the path football traveled to become our No. 1 game was no shortcut. Each journey demands hard work and dedication. Such a trek also calls for guidance.
For football players, guidance comes in the way of coaches, people who not only teach the game, but offer life lessons as well.
Football has the power of cultivating youngsters into adults. A team sport in the truest sense, football is a game where a group must work as one.
As Lincoln once stated, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." The same holds true for any football team. With 11 players on each side, trust and teamwork are essential attributes of every football player.
Lincoln, more than 100 years ago, united us after the Civil War. Football unites people as well. Whether it's a family watching a game on Sunday or a parent playing catch with a child, football has a way of bringing us together.
"Honest Abe" came from humble beginnings. Lincoln grew up in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky. The son of non-schooled parents, he only had about 18 months of formal education. Not to be kept from his dreams, he taught himself law with constant reading and self-motivated study.
Football, too, came from humble origins. The game evolved from rugby and soccer. The first intercollegiate football game was played on November 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton, just a few years after Lincoln brought our country through its greatest crisis. The game would evolve over the years into football as we know it today, with the help of Walter Camp, known as the "Father of American Football."