The Pigskin origin

Have you ever wondered why the term pigskin is used in reference to football? We have a great article on how the American fooball evolved into the shape it is now. If you have ever pondered this, well do so no more as we tackle this question and more in our latest video.

Ok everyone watching this video right now has a big interest in the game that's ball is nicknamed the 'Pigskin". Heck we have even branded our website and YouTube channel around the moniker. Is a football really made from a pig's flesh?

The short answer is no, not now and not ever.

Clete 'Whew"

Clete it may be worse than the skin, football's were once made from animal bladder and yes more than likely mostly from those of the swine family.

"Clete eyes enlarged, then gulp"

The animal bladders were inflated by someone blowing them up with their own wind power. Probably not the job everyone was raising their hands for before the game.

This all started in a predecessor of football, rugby and soccer called ballown, in England played possibly as early as the 1500's. Ballown was played by two teams batting an inflated pig's bladder to each other trying to get past their opponent's goal line while the opponents were trying to do the same. In the 1820's in the US, guys at Princeton U. resurrected this most ancient game on the grounds of the college for recreation. It was still being played in some parts of Europe too and it soon morphed into then playing the same game only using every part of their bodies but the hands, in a soccer style of play. 

The bladders would often rupture so some creative person involved came up with the concept of encasing the inflated bladder inside a leather skin to make it more durable.

The laces on the cowhide skin gave access to the poor sap that had to inflate the bladder and then tie it off and re-lace the ball. What a long pain in the butt during a a game, eh?

These guys even tried stuffing the bladders with things like straw and rags bug this caused un-even lumps in the ball. Air was a more uniform choice.

This all changed in the 1860's when Charles Goodyear, yeah the tire and blimp guy, patented a process to vulcanize rubber. The balls after that were almost always made from a rubber bladder encased in leather after that.

NFL and NCAA balls are all made from genuine cowhide leather with a rubber bladder to this day. while some of the younger players use composite and all rubber balls.

So why is the football called the pigskin? According to 19th century Football historian Parke H. Davis it is called that because of the when rugby players wanted the shape of the ball to be oval shaped like the original inflated pig's bladder  encased in leather  rather than the spherical ball that soccer players created with their sewn leather case. The ball was fondly referred to as pigskin and the name held up here in America especially when rugby and soccer morphed into the football we love in the US.