McGill University Sports Connections

Located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, McGill University was established as a public university in 1821. It is named after James McGill, who was a Scotland merchant. The university is well known around the world and is recognized as one of top 20 universities that specializes in award-winning research. With their academic success and accomplishments, the university is also connected for the origins of three of the four major team sports in the United States.

As rugby and soccer had continued to increase in popularity in the mid-1800s, it was McGill University that had a huge hand in what we now know as American football. Though historians recognize the first ever American football game in 1869, it didn't resemble what it is like today.

Harvard University had attempted to schedule American teams to play their version of a game that allowed players to carry a ball. Soccer-style rules were dominant in those days, and Harvard boycotted attending a meeting to establish intercollegiate rules for this game in 1873. One year later, McGill University issued a challenge to play Harvard under their rules at Cambridge in exchange for a rugby match the following day. This was the turning point that began what we now know as the modern version of American football.

After winning 3-0 in their own version under "Boston rules", Harvard played well enough to a scoreless tie against McGill University under rugby rules. This marked the first time rugby had been played on U.S. soil. One of the most important changes in this game that helped the development of American football was the use of the try which would later evolve to what is now known as a touchdown. Harvard would later play Tufts University under rugby rules and arch-rival Yale University as well. Schools such as Columbia and Princeton would join the mix to establish new rules for this game with the touchdown being the primary way to score. American football was on its on way to become the most watched sport in America.

As football/soccer began its rise in popularity across the planet, one such sport came along that would forever impact Canada. In 1875, the first ever hockey game was played at Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal. A total of 18 players(nine on each team) played in this game in which a lacrosse-style ball was used. The majority of those 18 players were students from McGill University.

The invention of the hockey is often credited to James Creighton, and it had gotten over so well that he later founded the first ever organized hockey club at McGill University. They would play their first game in 1877. Hockey and Canada are now synonymous with one another as the game is their way of life as football/soccer is to many across the world. Also, McGill University won the first ever hockey championship at 1883 at a carnival in Montreal.

It wouldn't be long after this that another well-known sports innovator attended McGill University.

In 1883, James Naismith became a student at McGill University. In his early youth, he had played a game called duck on a rock which players guarded a drake stone from being knocked down by smaller stones that were thrown at it. Naismith later found that lobbing shots from far distances were very effective versus the shorter, hard throws which gave him one thought for the game he would later invent.

At McGill University, Naismith was an outstanding student-athlete that excelled in Canadian football as well as gymnastics and soccer. He would later earn a BA in Physical Education in 1888 from the university, and he would become the school's first athletic director, too. But Naismith would later leave Montreal to become a PE teacher at the Armory Hill YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Under pressure by the administration to create a game during the brutal winter months in New England, Naismith delivered the game of basketball to us. With a softer ball, reduced physical contact, and providing a goal on each side that couldn't be guarded, he founded the most popular winter team sport. The first public basketball game would later be played at the Armory Hill YMCA in 1892 which oddly enough had seen another future sports coaching legend in Amos Alonzo Stagg playing in that game. Naismith would later coach at Kansas as basketball continued to evolve on the court as well as in popularity.

McGill University is directly connected in some way to three of the four major team sports that are played in the United States with baseball being the lone exception.

Without McGill University issuing a challenge to Harvard to play under "Boston rules" of football as well as rugby, history of American football would have been very different.

McGill students played a big role in the development of hockey as they participated in the first ever game, and were part of the first organized club. One can't mention hockey without thinking of Canada thanks in part to McGill University.

Though McGill University didn't participate in the first basketball game, Naismith did put that degree to use to work at Springfield, MA where he invented the game.

McGill University is directly connected to the inventions of three of the four major team sports that are played in the United States and to rugby as well. They've had at least one member of the alumni at all the Olympic events held since 1908, too. McGill University has definitely impacted sports in their own way.

Sources:
McGill University
History of American Football
First Indoor Hockey game
Hockey Heritage
Naismith Museum