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Harvard-Yale Football Cards: General Trading Cards (1888-current)
 

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Football First Sports Card-Yale's Henry W. Beecher
Before football was even a fully-evolved sport, there were football cards floating around. They were not cards in the traditional sense, but were more akin to paper souvenirs and advertising premiums.

In 1888, several years after American football began its rise as a staple college sport, a cigarette card of Yale's Henry Beecher  appeared, courtesy of the Goodwin & Co. The Beecher card was part of the 1888 Goodwin Champions collection, a series of 50 tobacco cards produced by Goodwin in 1888. The cards were nationally distributed in packages of Old Judge & Gypsy Queen cigarettes. The tobacco card premium shows the athlete posed above an illustration of the relevant sport.

Henry Beecher's card was the only football card among the other sports, including wrestling, boxing and baseball. The Beecher card is widely regarded as the first football card produced. 

With the flood gates opened, football trading card would flourish over the next 125 years, beginning with the first football tobacco card set released in 1894. This was the Mayo Cut Plug set, which consisted of 36 cards of Harvard, Yale and Princeton players wearing turtleneck sweaters and hooded sweat shirts sporting the names of their teams in large letters.

Another major series with respect to college players would be the 1955 Topps all-American series cards, featuring several Harvard and Yale players.

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