This Date with 8: November 12, 1892 — The First Pro Football Player was Paid Secretly

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI)—On this day in 1892, the Allegheny Athletic Association was desperate to beat its rival, the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, so they secretly paid $500 to a former Yale star, William "Pudge" Heffelfinger to play just one game.

Adjusted for inflation, that is over $17,000 dollars in today's money.

Heffelfinger earned his keep, scooping up a fumble and running it 35 yards for the only touchdown of the game.

The payment was hidden in the team's ledger as a "Game Performance Bonus", something historians only found decades later.

Sources for this Story:

ProFootballResearchers.com — Football Chronology II

ProFootballResearchers.com — Five Hundred Reasons, Football's First Pro: 1892

ProFootballOF.com — 1892 - Pudge Heffelfinger Becomes the First Person to be Paid to Play Football