Meet the American who was the first paid professional football player: Pudge Heffelfinger
Fox News
Gridiron goliath and Yale star Pudge Heffelfinger was later paid $500 to play for the Allegheny Athletic Association in 1892, becoming the first professional football player.
"Pudge Heffelfinger was unquestionably the most amazing football player I had ever known." — Grantland Rice "Playing left guard, Heffelfinger was extremely quick, powerful, intelligent and fearless." "Pudge gave forth an aura of shining light, a special, ageless glory … the living symbol of the game, indestructible and forever young." Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.
Heffelfinger's fable is actually nonfiction fare. He was as real as the broken ribs he brutally delivered to a poor college kid while scrimmaging for kicks and giggles with the Yale varsity football team — at 49 years old.
This groundbreaking goliath of American sports was "unquestionably the most amazing football player I had ever known," legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice gushed in the introduction to Heffelfinger's own book.
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