Nerf Football

It was the football that you could accidentally hit your Dad's car or the house's aluminum siding without worrying too much about explaining how that dent got there because it didn't get dented. Nerf Football is a fabulous foam football that you can spin that perfect spiral no matter what size of hands you have and punt barefoot without the sting. Every kid in America played with one at some time, and their parents didn't care that they were too close to the house.

So just what is a Nerf Football? Well to answer this we will go to the products current parent company Hasbro Toys. Hasbro advertises their Nerf Sports products as gear made for indoor or outdoor play and designed for performance and durability. Best described in everyday terms, Nerf footballs are a spongelike foam shaped football with a pliable outer crust cover. It squishes when you squeeze it and yet it has the density to fly far through the air, absorbing nearly all of the impact its inertia may have when hitting a players hands, the ground or even Dad's car. It is soft enough to play inside with. But please note you can break a lamp with it, believe me I know this from experience. Sorry Grandma!

To know the history of the Nerf Football we need to start with the history of Nerf. The Nerf foam ball hit the consumer market in 1969. It was an about 5 inch diameter soft foam ball that us kids fromt he 1970's quickly identify as the small Nerf Hoops basketball. This original did not have the tough outer coating of the footballs though. In 1972 the Nerf Football joined the family of Nerf Sports according to Hasbro's website.

A Smithsonian Online Magazine article on the product indicates the the Nerf Football had its roots as the idea of an former NFL player. According to that post the foam football's creator was Fred Cox, the former Minnesota Vikings place kicker. Fred invented a smaller, softer football with the intent that it was safer to use than its leather or rubber counterparts since it didn’t place a great strain young arms and legs. The idea was brilliant and annual sales peaked at 8 million in 1979, but the toy continues to be a popular seller today.

Cox would know about how to make a safe football to kick and throw too as he led the NFL twice in scoring during his career that spanned for 1963 through 1977. Fred  nailed nine points throught the uprights in the final NFL Championship game in 1969 and also played in four Super Bowls. When Cox retired, he was the league’s second all-time leading scorer. 

The former player got the idea for the sponge-like ball when talking with a fan who wanted to create a toy with plastic field-goal posts for kids to practice kicking footballs. The guy even went to Fred's house to pitch the idea. Cox was said to have almost asked the guy to leave because he felt it was a product that no one would want to buy. That is until the former All-Pro player asked a question of the upright inventor, "What would you use for a ball?" 

“After hearing about the goalpost, I asked what kind of ball he was going to use,” he said in a 1989 interview with the Pittsburgh Press. “He said something heavy so the kids couldn’t kick it out of the yard. My response was that it should be something light so the kids wouldn’t hurt themselves.” The light bulb went off in Cox's head. Almost immediately he retained tohe services of a local injection molder and they created a somewhat smaller soft foam ball to meet the criteria that Fred had set to keep kids safe. Fred and his partner John Mattrox pitched the idea to Parker Brothers toys that introduced the Nerf ball earlier in 1969 and the Nerf Football was born. However Parker Brothers did not want the adjuestable plastic goal posts, just the football. The toy manufacturer apparently had tried to make a ball themselves earlier cut out of foam like the Nerf ball was, but whem they saw Mattox and Cox's thick skin on the foam portion with grips, they knew they had a winner.

Fred Cox enjoyed the extra income to suppliment his NFL pension until his dying day. At one point it was reported that Cox had received almost $200,000 in royalties for his football design some 50 years after he partnered with Parker Brothers.

The success of the brand led to other versions, including the far-flying Vortex ball, Gyro Vortex, the even-easier-to-hold Pro Grip  and other variations. Parker Brothers was eventually acquired by Hasbro in 1991 and the new parent company continues to make Nerf football to this very day.