04/24/2026
As football fever takes over the Burgh with the NFL Draft in town, DID YOU KNOW that the Sewickley Valley has a direct connection to the professionalization of the sport currently taking over downtown?
In 1892 O. D. Thompson arranged to secretly pay Yale All-American “Pudge” Heffelfinger to play a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against their rivals the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. Thompson was a founder of the Allegheny Athletic Association and former teammate of the legendary Walter Camp. It was the first time anyone was paid to play the game of football.
Thompson was graduate of Yale, where he met the future President William Howard Taft. Thompson served as one of Taft's companions on a visit to Western Pennsylvania in 1909. Together they visited the Allegheny Country Club (where this picture was taken) before taking in a Pirates game at Exposition Park -- the home of the Buccos for just another month before Forbes Field opened at the end of June, 1909, and located, interestingly enough, right about where the NFL Draft stage is located this weekend on Pittsburgh's North Shore.
O.D. Thompson lived in Sewickley from 1903 until his death in 1925. 🏈
