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Professionals and amateurs alike wear protective head gear to reduce the chance of injury while playing American football. The football helmet has changed over time as different materials have become available and as the rules of the game have changed. ==Origins== In 1888 the college football rules convention voted to allow tackling below the waist. Players and coaches soon regarded pads as essential for the game. However, as in the National Hockey League during the 1970s, helmets were the last thing to be accepted.〔Gentile, D.J.; (Ideological Criticism Of The National Football League's Increase In Helmet To Helmet Discipline )〕 They were not a mandatory piece of equipment in college gridiron until 1939〔Nelson, David M.; ''The Anatomy of a Game: Football, the Rules, and the Men Who Made the Game''; p. 76. ISBN 0874134552〕 and were not made mandatory in the National Football League until 1943〔Beau Riffenburgh, ''The Official NFL Encyclopedia'': "The Helmet"〕 As a side note, "the last NFL player to play in a game without a helmet was Dick Plasman an end for the Chicago Bears in 1940."〔 There is a photograph of him without one taken during the 1940 NFL Championship Game in which Chicago defeated the Washington Redskins 73-0. The man largely credited with inventing the first helmet was George Barclay.〔 In 1896 he designed a headgear which soon became known as a "head harness". It had three thick leather straps forming a close fit around his head, made by a harness maker. Additionally, other sources credit the invention of the football helmet to U.S. Naval Academy Midshipman Joseph M. Reeves (later to become the "Father of Carrier Aviation"), who had a protective device for his head made out of mole skin to allow him to play in the 1893 Army-Navy Game after he was told by a Navy doctor that he must give up football or risk death from another kick in the head. Reeves went to a local shoemaker/blacksmith and had a crude leather helmet fabricated to protect his skull.〔(Californians and the Military: Admiral Joseph Mason "Bull" Reeves, USN (1872-1948) )〕 Before the first helmet, Edgar Allan Poe III (grandnephew of the famous writer) developed a small leather nose protector which, however, was found to severely interfere with vision and breathing and to come off easily〔"Equipment; in "Rielly, Edward J.; ''Football: An Encyclopedia of Popular Culture''; p. 106. ISBN 0803290128〕 Later helmets were made of padded leather, and resembled aviators' helmets. The helmet slowly began to take more of the appearance we recognize today when around 1915 more padding and flaps were added with ear holes for better on-field communication. Painted helmets have been around almost as long as helmets themselves: used to show team spirit and to help the quarterback distinguish a down field receiver from the defenders. The helmets of the University of Michigan Wolverines bear logos that follow the original seams of the leather helmets. Professional team logos started in 1948 when Fred Gehrke, a halfback for the Los Angeles Rams, began painting a horn design on all of the Rams' helmets. Gehrke studied art at the University of Utah. The next innovation came probably in 1917 in the form of suspension: to "cradle" the skull away from the leather shell. Straps of fabric formed a pattern inside the helmet. They absorbed and distributed the impact better, and they allowed for ventilation. It was a breakthrough. They were first known as "ZH" or Zuppke helmets named after the Illinois coach who came up with the design. Rawlings and Spalding were some of the first manufacturers. The first person to design a bar face mask on a football helmet was Vern McMillan, the owner of a sporting goods store in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was a rubber-covered wire mask on a leather helmet. This kind was used in the mid-1930s. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of the football helmet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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