a football game played between two teams with an oval football, which features kicking, lateral hand-to-hand passing, and tackling
named after Rugby School, in Warwickshire, England, where it was first played. According to tradition, this game originated when a Rugby schoolboy named William Webb Ellis picked up a football and ran with it, despite the rules forbidding this, in 1823. The evidence for this exploit is dubious. It is clear, however, that handling and running with the ball had become a feature of football at Rugby School by the late 1830s, and it was formalized in the set of rules published in 1846