thunderstruck88
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Something had to be done.
The system that had governed pro football prior to 1920 was no system at all. The structure, if you could even call it that, was as unorganized and unruly as the game itself.
Leagues went boom and bust, players jumped from team to team, and clubs often sprang to life on the whim of some businessman who scraped up enough funds to pay decent players for a season, maybe two.
Yet there was a nucleus of men whose passion for football exceeded all of the chaos. Local businessman Jack Cusack had been fielding pro teams since the turn of the century. There was a car dealer, Ralph Hay, and Jim Thorpe, arguably the world’s greatest athlete.
However, in September 1920, football hardly was at the center of public attention. The nation was reeling from a deadly terrorist bombing on Wall Street, which killed more than two dozen people and injured hundreds more. For much of the month, looming indictments from the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” World Series scandal dominated the sports pages.
But it would be a meeting held on the evening of Sept. 17, 1920, at Hay’s Hupmobile dealership at 204 Cleveland Ave. SW that would leave the most lasting impact on American sports and culture.
That night, Thorpe, the granite-tough captain of the Canton Bulldogs, who also was playing professional baseball in Akron, unanimously was elected president of the new American Football Association.
The Sept. 18, 1920, edition of The Evening Repository reported that representatives of 11 cities took part in the meeting. They included: Thorpe, W.H. Flannigan of Rock Island, Ill.; L.V. Lyons of Rochester, N.Y.; E. Ball of Muncie, Ind.; George Halas of Decatur, Ill.; Charles O’Brien of Chicago; Stanley Cofal and Jimmy O’Donnell of Cleveland; Carl Strock of Dayton; A.A. Young of Hammond, Ind.; Frank Neind and Art Ranney of Akron, and Akronite Mac Maginnis, representing the Massillon Tigers.
League membership was set at $100. To tamp down fan resentment, owners agreed not to recruit college players.
Nearly 90 years later, the NFL — later renamed from the American Football Association — is the top sports league in the country. This year’s Super Bowl, in which the feel-good New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts, was the most-watched event in television history, with 106.5 million viewers.
REAL DEAL
“I think there’s something about football that’s quintessentially American, and particularly urban American,” said Keith McClellan, a scholar with the Professional Football Researchers Association and author of “The Sunday Game: At the Dawn of Professional Football.”
Craig Holbert, assistant archivist at the University of Akron and coauthor of the book, “Akron-Canton Football Heritage,” said the quality of the NFL game enabled the league to outlast competitors.
“Early on, it established itself as real deal, so to speak, so as others came along, they seemed almost minor league-ish,” Holbert said. “So leagues like the WFL and USFL came across as poor imitations.”
McClellan said another secret of the NFL’s longevity is that owners tend to be more cooperative than competitive.
“In the NFL, the entire league is put above any one franchise, but it wasn’t always that way,” McClellan said, noting that George Halas was the undoing of small teams such as Dayton and Portsmouth because owners were reluctant to embrace the philosophy.
“The NFL also broke the color line very early in football, which was another important factor,” McClellan said.
When asked why he thought Canton was chosen as the NFL’s birthplace, Holbert points to the city’s deep roots in the game.
“Akron also has a rich heritage, but Canton, from high school right on through the pros, from the Massillon-McKinley games and Paul Brown, the legacy is rich with tradition,” he said.
McClellan added that, unlike baseball, which emerged out of rural communities, football had its greatest following in small industrial towns such as Canton, “particularly among the immigrant population, even though football began in the Ivy League.”
THE GREATEST
Holbert said Jim Thorpe’s involvement also played a crucial role in the NFL’s success.
“He was such a larger-than-life figure, being a Major League Baseball player and an Olympian,” he said. “He was one of the first superstars in all sports. I certainly think people were drawn to him. They wanted to see him do anything athletic.”
“Initially, he was all-important,” McClellan said. “He was considered the greatest athlete in the country, maybe in the world. Wherever he went — just as later Red Grange pulled in fans — Jim Thorpe was that way. That’s why they put him front and center when creating the league.
“As far as newspapers were concerned, they didn’t think much of football at first, at least in the big cities. Jim Thorpe transcended all of that.”
Holbert said key figures such as Hay and Cusack should be considered for enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Cusack commissioned the 7-foot-tall bronze statue of Thorpe that adorns the hall’s entrance.
“Certainly they should be given due credit for what they set out to do,” he said.
McClellan agrees, particularly when it comes to Hay.
“Without his leadership in the early days, pro football wouldn’t have succeeded,” he said. “Just as for a long time the hall overlooked early African-American stars, it’s too bad some of the early owners and promoters aren’t given more consideration.”
Holbert said the current NFL, a multi-million-dollar business, rests on the shoulders of those early gridders who played purely for the love of the game.
“I don’t think people appreciate how tough a game it was and how little pay it was,” he said. “They set everything in motion.”
The system that had governed pro football prior to 1920 was no system at all. The structure, if you could even call it that, was as unorganized and unruly as the game itself.
Leagues went boom and bust, players jumped from team to team, and clubs often sprang to life on the whim of some businessman who scraped up enough funds to pay decent players for a season, maybe two.
Yet there was a nucleus of men whose passion for football exceeded all of the chaos. Local businessman Jack Cusack had been fielding pro teams since the turn of the century. There was a car dealer, Ralph Hay, and Jim Thorpe, arguably the world’s greatest athlete.
However, in September 1920, football hardly was at the center of public attention. The nation was reeling from a deadly terrorist bombing on Wall Street, which killed more than two dozen people and injured hundreds more. For much of the month, looming indictments from the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” World Series scandal dominated the sports pages.
But it would be a meeting held on the evening of Sept. 17, 1920, at Hay’s Hupmobile dealership at 204 Cleveland Ave. SW that would leave the most lasting impact on American sports and culture.
That night, Thorpe, the granite-tough captain of the Canton Bulldogs, who also was playing professional baseball in Akron, unanimously was elected president of the new American Football Association.
The Sept. 18, 1920, edition of The Evening Repository reported that representatives of 11 cities took part in the meeting. They included: Thorpe, W.H. Flannigan of Rock Island, Ill.; L.V. Lyons of Rochester, N.Y.; E. Ball of Muncie, Ind.; George Halas of Decatur, Ill.; Charles O’Brien of Chicago; Stanley Cofal and Jimmy O’Donnell of Cleveland; Carl Strock of Dayton; A.A. Young of Hammond, Ind.; Frank Neind and Art Ranney of Akron, and Akronite Mac Maginnis, representing the Massillon Tigers.
League membership was set at $100. To tamp down fan resentment, owners agreed not to recruit college players.
Nearly 90 years later, the NFL — later renamed from the American Football Association — is the top sports league in the country. This year’s Super Bowl, in which the feel-good New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts, was the most-watched event in television history, with 106.5 million viewers.
REAL DEAL
“I think there’s something about football that’s quintessentially American, and particularly urban American,” said Keith McClellan, a scholar with the Professional Football Researchers Association and author of “The Sunday Game: At the Dawn of Professional Football.”
Craig Holbert, assistant archivist at the University of Akron and coauthor of the book, “Akron-Canton Football Heritage,” said the quality of the NFL game enabled the league to outlast competitors.
“Early on, it established itself as real deal, so to speak, so as others came along, they seemed almost minor league-ish,” Holbert said. “So leagues like the WFL and USFL came across as poor imitations.”
McClellan said another secret of the NFL’s longevity is that owners tend to be more cooperative than competitive.
“In the NFL, the entire league is put above any one franchise, but it wasn’t always that way,” McClellan said, noting that George Halas was the undoing of small teams such as Dayton and Portsmouth because owners were reluctant to embrace the philosophy.
“The NFL also broke the color line very early in football, which was another important factor,” McClellan said.
When asked why he thought Canton was chosen as the NFL’s birthplace, Holbert points to the city’s deep roots in the game.
“Akron also has a rich heritage, but Canton, from high school right on through the pros, from the Massillon-McKinley games and Paul Brown, the legacy is rich with tradition,” he said.
McClellan added that, unlike baseball, which emerged out of rural communities, football had its greatest following in small industrial towns such as Canton, “particularly among the immigrant population, even though football began in the Ivy League.”
THE GREATEST
Holbert said Jim Thorpe’s involvement also played a crucial role in the NFL’s success.
“He was such a larger-than-life figure, being a Major League Baseball player and an Olympian,” he said. “He was one of the first superstars in all sports. I certainly think people were drawn to him. They wanted to see him do anything athletic.”
“Initially, he was all-important,” McClellan said. “He was considered the greatest athlete in the country, maybe in the world. Wherever he went — just as later Red Grange pulled in fans — Jim Thorpe was that way. That’s why they put him front and center when creating the league.
“As far as newspapers were concerned, they didn’t think much of football at first, at least in the big cities. Jim Thorpe transcended all of that.”
Holbert said key figures such as Hay and Cusack should be considered for enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Cusack commissioned the 7-foot-tall bronze statue of Thorpe that adorns the hall’s entrance.
“Certainly they should be given due credit for what they set out to do,” he said.
McClellan agrees, particularly when it comes to Hay.
“Without his leadership in the early days, pro football wouldn’t have succeeded,” he said. “Just as for a long time the hall overlooked early African-American stars, it’s too bad some of the early owners and promoters aren’t given more consideration.”
Holbert said the current NFL, a multi-million-dollar business, rests on the shoulders of those early gridders who played purely for the love of the game.
“I don’t think people appreciate how tough a game it was and how little pay it was,” he said. “They set everything in motion.”