Why is American football called football since the foot is not uset that often?

Question

Wouldn't it make more sense to call Soccer Football? and American Football something else?

Answer 1

i could give you a very good answer and explanation for this but im just sick and tired of people asking the same damn question over and over again.....email me and i will give you a good answer.......but if your just looking for a biased opinion on american football bashing then screw you........im just tired of always giving good answers and ppl picking answers that are to their biased beliefs or stupid one phrase answers....i know its just points but i put a lot of thought into answers and dont get the recognition for it


ok you challenged me and emailed me so i will give you the answer based on what i have read and what people have told me...and also theres several different reasons why it is called football not just one
first i will use the help of wikipedia as most people do but i dont copy and paste because you could do that yourself and i wont insult your intelligence

First you have to realize that when football first came to america the rules have changed over the years...american football comes from rugby...also called rugby football....they dont use there feet as much as association football but they still call it football.......but im going off on a tangent here...when football first came to north america it was played more like soccer than rugby....there was a great deal of kicking even more than rugby....they wanted to create a sport like rugby but had more kicking in it....the foreward pass only came out later and that grew more dominant than the latteral which was at first the only way(other than kicking of course) to score points.....another thing to remember is that football doesnt necessarily mean using the foot for the sports as said on wikipedia.....theres a strong possibility that it refers more to the fact that they play on foot....it explains that "football" was coined to express all sports played on feet by pesants during medival time so they can differentiate that from sports played on horses by aristocrates

listen the basic thing to remember is that there are a ton of theories and explanations for why football is called football when they use their hands but do you really think the americans are gonna change the name after so many years of history.......thats like saying why dont baseball players change their name to american cricket....i know football doesnt make 100% sence but the explanation is all in the history....either you live with it or not....sorry if i sound pissed but i've seen this question along with rugby players bashing football players calling it a pu$$y sport and that just gets me mad

Answer 2

American football was established before association football. In those days, there was a greater emphasis on kicking the ball in order to advance it toward the end zones. It has evolved into a pass first, run second, kick third strategy. An Englishman by the last name of Brown decided that association football needed to be different and coined the term "soccer" that continues to be marketed under that name by the powers that be in Europe. Basically, we didn’t need to name it soccer because we already had football.

Answer 3

Actually, Soccer is called football in almost every other country in the world. What we know as football in the US is usually referred to as "American Football" in other countries. Our version of football can be traced in its origins to soccer and another sport called Rugby which also has its origins in soccer.

Football, Soccer and Rugby all started out as the same thing in England in the 1800's. The game of rugby began when players began picking the ball up with their hands. The English brought over both Soccer and Rugby when they settled America.

Early colleges in the US favored the rugby-style football and over the course of the next century our modern rules for the game were set.

We Americans just never bothered to change the name!

for more info check out this article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_football

Answer 4

It is one of the few US sports where we allow feet to be used for anything other than running.

Baseball.... no... Basket ball no... kicking foul...

You see I have thought about this.
I think the US has the same issues with feet as they do with nudity.
Best to keep it under wraps. Puritan thing I guess.
It is surprising football ever actually got a start in the colonies considering the shamefull nature of using the foot.
There are fetishes. Perhaps the temptation was too much for the early colonies.
Footbal is a rather new commer. Perhaps brought in by a Canadian Rugby player in the late 1800's. It was the era of the Gay nineties. OF course he couldn't be too shamefull and reduced the usage to a minimum ,but enough to shock. Much as the genesis of the flappers a few decades later during prohibition. (Movement started in the 90's as a backlash to usage of the foot)

I hope you didn't beleive any of this.
I am now removing my tounge from deep within my cheek.
I hope you enjoyed my silly journey.
Cheers all 8^)

Answer 5

Another genius thinking he is asking an original question. Get a clue man... We Don't Care what you call soccer.

This is OUR football.

Answer 6

I ask the same question about Rugby Union and Rugby League.

Answer 7

soccer is soccer and football is a mans sport

Answer 8

its just another thing that America likes to have on their own. similar to not having the metric system. another way we can always distinguish ourselves from every other country.

Answer 9

We just like to piss off Europeans.

We are the worlds only superpower. We can call it whatever the hell we want!