Shoulder pads are a piece of protective equipment used in many

contact sport Contact sports are sports that emphasize or require physical contact between players. Some sports, such as mixed martial arts, are scored on impacting an opponent, while others, including rugby football, gridiron football and Australian rules fo ...

s such as

gridiron football Gridiron football,"Gridiron football"
''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Ret ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...

, and

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

and some non-contact sports such as

ringette Ringette is a contact sport, non-contact winter team sport played on ice hockey rinks using Ice skates#Ice hockey skates, ice hockey skates, straight sticks with drag-tips, and a #Equipment, blue, rubber, pneumatic ring designed for use on ice ...

. Most modern shoulder pads consist of a shock absorbing foam material with a hard

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...

outer covering. The pieces are usually secured by

rivet A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite to the head is called the ''tail''. On installation, the rivet is placed in a punched ...

s or strings that the user can tie to adjust the size.

History

The first football shoulder pads were created by

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

student L.P. Smock in 1877. These were made of leather and wool and were thin, light, and did not provide much protection. In the early years of the 1900s decade, many young football players were killed while playing the sport due to the ferocity of the sport combined with the lack of sufficient protection. In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt took the initiative to clean up the sport. He decried football as a dangerous sport and certain actions needed to be taken so that the sport could remain legal. These shoulder pads were sewn into the players' jerseys rather than being worn as a separate piece of equipment. Allegedly

Pop Warner Glenn Scobey Warner (April 5, 1871 – September 7, 1954), most commonly known as Pop Warner, was an American college football coach at various institutions who is responsible for several key aspects of the modern game. Included among his inn ...

was the first to have his players wear shoulder pads. When he was coaching at the

Carlisle Indian Industrial School The United States Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, generally known as Carlisle Indian Industrial School, was the flagship Indian boarding school in the United States from 1879 through 1918. It took over the historic Carlisle ...

, he was the first one to use pads made of fiber rather than cotton. The traditional, separate, over the head shoulder pads first made an appearance around 1910 to help make football a safer sport--these are the same style shoulder pads still used today. However, many players still did not use shoulder pads until the 1950s. In the 1960s, newer technology allowed companies to produce shoulder pads that were made of foam with an outer shell of hard plastic, offering improved protection when being hit. The drawback to these pads were that they did not have very much ventilation. Limited ventilation caused players to dehydrate quicker. This issue was fixed in the 1990s when synthetic fibers were added, making the shoulder pads more breathable.

References

American football equipment Armwear Protective gear Shoulder {{Sport-equipment-stub

History

See also

References