On September 26, 1934, twelve high school boys, bearing the improbable team names of the Hard Chests and the Belalexes, ran on a field in Hebron, NE, to play the world’s first six-man football game. The number of boys playing was small. No newspaper mentioned the contest, but that small-time beginning has mushroomed into a big time sport.
Stephen Epler, then a young physical education instructor at the Chester,NE High School, was responsible for that first game back in 1934. Mr. Epler saw the need for football at Chester High, as well as, in other small schools, but feared the injury hazard in eleven man football, and the school just didn’t have enough money or players to support a team. So Mr. Epler invented the new game.
