In 1893, Annapolis football player Joseph Mason Reeves was told by the 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.

The earliest leather football helmets were invented by a Navy player in 1893 after his doctor warned him that one more kick to the head could kill or paralyze him for life. The player asked a local blacksmith to improvise a leather harness hat to protect his head. Thus the first football helmet was born.

I invented football helmet!!