William Heffelfinger was the first athlete to play football professionally, having been paid to play in 1892. He was an American football player and coach. In 1895, teenage football star and college-bound player John Brallier was paid $10 to play a game for the Latrobe Athletic Association, making him the first publicly acknowledged professional American football player. It would be more than half a century before college graduate Heffelfinger would be recognized for being secretly paid $500 to play a football game in 1892.
