William Walter "Pudge" Heffelfinger became the first professional football player in 1892, when he was paid a $500 bonus (about $13,500 in today's money) after scoring the winning touchdown for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club (4-0). A touchdown counted for 4 points at the time.

William was born in 1867 in the then-small city of Minneapolis. William's father was Major Christopher B. Heffelfinger and his mother was Mary Ellen Totton. Both his parents were born in Pennsylvania. Maj. Heffelfinger came by riverboat to Minneapolis, eventually joining the Union Army at the outset of the Civil War, was wounded at Gettysburg, and after the war started the family shoe manufacturing business and dabbled in real estate. During William's lifetime, the Heffelfinger family rose to prominence in Minneapolis.

As a boy, William Heffelfinger was nicknamed "Pudge". He played baseball and football in high school. Occasionally, during his junior and senior years o...