to both teams as amateurs while printing most of the charges of professionalism. First professional player In the 1960s a man named Nelson Ross, walked into the office of Dan Rooney, the president of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League. After a brief discussion, the man gave Rooney a typed, 49-page manuscript about the early history of pro football. Ross' examination of Pittsburgh newspapers indicated that the first pro football player actually was Pudge Heffelfinger, an all-American guard from Yale, who was hired play for Allegheny on November 12, 1892, for $500. Up until then John Brallier, of the Latrobe Athletic Association, was considered the first professional football player. The Pro Football Hall of Fame soon discovered a page torn from an 1892 account ledger prepared by Allegheny manager, O.D. Thompson, that included the line item: "Game performance bonus to W. Heffelfinger for playing (cash) $500." Heffelfinger, who was working as a railroad clerk in Chicago, and had earlier turned down an offer to play for the Pittsburgh Athletic Club for $250. This set off quite a controversy as Pittsburgh A.C. protested the presence of Heffelfinger and other Chicago Athletic Association players. Allegheny retaliated with the fact that Pittsburgh had imported players as well. The game was played at Recreation Park, which was located on Pittsburgh's North Side. The spot is marked by a historic marker. It later turned out that Heffelfinger received $500 plus $25 in expenses for the game, too much for a low-paid railroad clerk to pass up. Two of his Chicago teammates received “liberal” expense money. Thus, Pudge Heffelfinger now is acknowledged as the first professional football player anywhere. The next week, Allegheny paid former Princeton tight end Ben "Sport" Donnelly $250 to play against Washington & Jefferson, and despite having two pros in their line-up, the Allegheny would go on to lose the game, 8–0. A professional football club In 1893, Allegheny and Pittsburgh split two games, with Pittsburgh winning 6–0 at Exposition Park and Allegheny evening the score, 8–4, at Pittsburgh's field. That season Allegheny put Peter Wright, James Van Cleve, and Ollie Rafferty under contract for $50 per game for the season. Other Pittsburgh teams began hiring players, but Allegheny remained the top local football club for the next two years. When the team started slowly, Sport Donnelly was brought in as player-coach, becoming the first man to coach a known