David Finoli

Birthplace of Professional Football David Finoli

Southwestern Pennsylvania is heralded by many as the birthplace of professional football. Here lived the athletes who were first paid to play. In Pittsburgh, the Allegheny Athletic Association paid Pudge Heffelfinger $500 in 1892 to help them beat their rivals, the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. In Latrobe, the first all-professional club was fielded in 1897. The Birthplace of Professional Football celebrates the contributions that the towns in southwestern Pennsylvania made to the sport, a national obsession in this country. These stories also come from towns such as Jeannette and Greensburg and include Latrobe's failed attempt to secure the Professional Football Hall of Fame in the late 1940s and 1950s.