NFL century The one-hundred-year rise of America's greatest sports league

Joe Horrigan

Book - 2019

From the executive director of the NFL Hall of Fame comes a sweeping and lively history of the NFL, timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary season. Compelling, eye-opening, and authoritative, it is a must-read for NFL fans and anyone who loves the game of football.

Saved in:

2nd Floor Show me where

796.33264/Horrigan
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 796.33264/Horrigan Checked In
Subjects
Published
New York : Crown Archetype [2019]
Language
English
Main Author
Joe Horrigan (author)
Edition
First Edition
Item Description
Includes index.
Physical Description
xii, 370 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781635653595
9781984825278
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1. League Talk
  • Chapter 2. A Real Sure-Enough League
  • Chapter 3. Growing Pains and a Name Change
  • Chapter 4. Red Grange Turns Pro
  • Chapter 5. February Fallout
  • Chapter 6. Reduced, Under Lights, and Indoors
  • Chapter 7. Television Debuts
  • Chapter 8. The T-Formation and the Man-in-Motion
  • Chapter 9. The NFL's First Commissioner
  • Chapter 10. A World at War
  • Chapter 11. The NFL's Four-Year War
  • Chapter 12. The Cleveland Browns' NFL Debut
  • Chapter 13. The NFL's Final Failed Franchises
  • Chapter 14. The Greatest Game Ever Played and the Legend of Johnny Unitas
  • Chapter 15. The "Hunt" for a New League
  • Chapter 16. A Compromise Candidate, Congress, and TV
  • Chapter 17. Tough Decisions
  • Chapter 18. A Cease-fire and a Merger
  • Chapter 19. Super Bowls I-IV
  • Chapter 20. Monday Night Football
  • Chapter 21. The Immaculate Reception
  • Chapter 22. A Starting Quarterback
  • Chapter 23. The Perfect Coach for a Perfect Season
  • Chapter 24. A Rules Change, and the Decade of the Running Back
  • Chapter 25. "Super" Defenses
  • Chapter 26. Rozelle Fights Through the NFL's Lost Decade
  • Chapter 27. The 49ers Strike Gold
  • Chapter 28. Tags! You're It
  • Chapter 29. Jerry Jones Buys a Team, Fires a Coach, and Gives Birth to "the Triplets"
  • Chapter 30. The Rooney Rule
  • Chapter 31. The NFL Responds to National Crises
  • Chapter 32. Krafting a Winner-the New England Patriots
  • Chapter 33. The Last Commissioner of the NFL's First Century
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

The NFL celebrates its 100th anniversary this season. The brainchild of George Halas, whose family still owns the Chicago Bears, the league has come a long way from modest beginnings in Canton, Ohio. It was a struggle early on competing for fans against college football, which had a firm grip on the gridiron fan base of students and alums. Pro football had no such luxury and struggled to attract fans. There was also the Depression to overcome and then WWII, which siphoned off many of the best players. Horrigan, who began his career at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977 as a researcher and recently retired as now the HOF's executive director, guides readers through the NFL's good times and bad, always with an eye on the steady growth and increasing stability of the enterprise. Of course, there are anecdotes aplenty about the great players, historic games, and landmark moments, on the field and off (television contracts, labor disputes, scandals). Horrigan provides context for every moment, and the result is the definitive history of the league to date.--Wes Lukowsky Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Horrigan, curator of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, delivers an expansive and celebratory history of the NFL. He takes readers from the rough and tumble origins of professional sports beginning in the 1890s, through the founding of the first football league in 1920, and on to current issues, including players' increasing salary demands and college eligibility, which determines when players can be considered for the NFL draft. Horrigan's work is expansive without being dry as he considers such sports notables as Red Grange, the "Galloping Ghost" who played halfback for the Chicago Bears in the 1930s, and Johnny Unitas and his historic Colts teams of the 1960s. He also delves with exacting detail into the controversies the league has faced, including how commissioner Pete Rozelle forced the Redskins to integrate in 1962 and how current commissioner Roger Goodell handled the New England Patriots "Spygate" saga of 2007, but Horrigan notably avoids current controversies involving concussions or players kneeling during the national anthem. Even so, sports fans will find plenty to sink their teeth into, as Horrigan provides detailed and lively depictions of stars and coaches from various teams, including Joe Namath and the Jets' legendary Super Bowl III triumph, the successes of the 1972 undefeated Dolphins, and the recent Patriots dynasty. This fast-paced history will thrill football fans of all allegiances. (Aug.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Author Horrigan worked for the Pro Football Hall of Fame for 42 years, serving as the executive director before his recent retirement. As such, he is intimately acquainted with the history of the NFL and here offers something of a swan song of his accumulated knowledge, recounting the league's first 100 years by primarily concentrating on ownership and league management, with less focus on games, seasons, teams, and players. Many of the stories and figures have been oft-told, but Horrigan includes unique connections and little-known facts to make the familiar seem new. With some tales, however, he casts new light on details forgotten with the passage of time. Horrigan does not deal with player health and aging concerns but identifies three recurring themes evident in the first century of the league: player salary demands, player movement restrictions, and college football player eligibility issues. These themes reverberate throughout. VERDICT This engagingly written chronicle of the most powerful and influential sports league in American history should be of wide interest.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

How the NFL gridiron mayhem came to be, courtesy of far-thinking entrepreneurs a century ago.The Pro Football Hall of Fame is located in Canton, Ohio, for good reason: The city, whose team had had the good luck to hire sports legend Jim Thorpe in 1915, was one of a handful of Ohio organizations that banded together to codify not just the game of football, but also principles for governing player salaries, free agency, and other matters. Even so, writes Hall of Fame executive director Horrigan (co-editor: The Pro Football Hall of Fame 50th Anniversary Book, 2012, etc.) in this lively account, Cleveland has claim to primacy, for it was the Cleveland organization that took Ohio League rules into the world and began to recruit teams outside the state. By 1920, writes the author, Buffalo and Rochester in New York and Hammond in Indiana had signed on even as rules were evolving on college eligibility. Horrigan's opening episodes have a quaintness to them, populated by teams such as the Columbus Panhandles and the Chicago Tigers, most of which had the modern penchant for skirting the rules in order to pay and receive big money, with managers and player representatives like "Cash and Carry" Pyle doing end runs around those eligibility requirements in order to lock down players like Red Grange. Some early innovations, such as indoor football, with rules stipulating that "a forward pass could be thrown only from five or more yards behind the line of scrimmage" and the like, didn't quite catch on, but others stuck. Horrigan turns in a pleasingly anecdotal account with many highlights, such as the turmoil surrounding the decadelong uprising by the upstart American Football League, a period echoed by the arrival of big money in the modern era, as exemplified by the New England Patriots: "When [Robert] Kraft bought the team, just about everything, including its troublesome stadium, was considered second-rate."Fans of the pigskin will savor this vigorous account of pro football's evolution. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Chapter 1 League Talk Professional football as we know it began in the fall of 1892 when one William "Pudge" Heffelfinger, an All-American tackle from Yale, accepted a $500 cash payment to play for the Allegheny Athletic Association. The AAA played out of what today is the North Shore of Pittsburgh. If $500 sounds like a cheap deal, consider this: $500 back then had the buying power of roughly $13,000 today. And this: Heffelfinger's payment from the AAA was for a single game, against their crosstown rival, the hated Pittsburgh Athletic Club (PAC). The AAA won the game 4-0 (touchdowns were worth four points from 1892 to 1898, five points from 1898 to 1911, and six points starting in 1912) and Heffelfinger earned his pay scoring the game's only touchdown on a 35-yard fumble recovery. Evidence of Heffelfinger's role in the creation of professional football can be found today in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, preserved on a slightly yellowed page of the AAA's expense accounting ledger for November 12, 1892. Ironically, what would have been considered damning evidence of unethical professionalism back then is now proudly displayed at the Hall of Fame as pro football's "birth certificate." While the indelible-ink entry is proof positive of Heffelfinger's pay, it's unlikely that the recompense was truly the first time the purity of the sport's amateur code had been violated. In fact, under-the-table payments to "ringers" were becoming more and more commonplace. It's just that in Heffelfinger's case, the AAA put it in writing. Eventually the practice of paying players became so routine that some amateur clubs, including the AAA, simply decided to be open about it. While the result was better football, the high cost of bidding for the services of the best players created an unanticipated financial strain on some of the athletic clubs, so much so that one by one they began to drop football altogether. Also, "ringers" were never fully embraced by team loyalists. One week player X was a welcomed member of the "home team" and the next he was an unwelcomed opponent. As a result, fan acceptance of the pro version of football, particularly in the "amateur athletic clubs" of Pennsylvania and New York, began to wilt. However, in nearby Ohio, the opposite seemed to be happening. Amateur competition in cities like Akron, Canton, Dayton, Massillon, Shelby, and Youngstown became so competitive that teams began to openly recruit play-for-pay athletes. In 1903, the Massillon Tigers became the first Ohio team to blatantly lure players with cash. Others followed, including Massillon's fiercest rival and Stark County neighbor, Canton. Prior to the start of the 1905 season, the Canton Athletic Club (CAC) announced that their football team would be a "professional organization," complete with a "professional coach." The mission of the rechristened Canton Bulldogs was simple: beat Massillon. Suddenly, Ohio was the hotbed of professional football. A small group of pro teams, mostly from the northeastern part of the state, became known as the "Ohio League." The Ohio League was an unstable entity whose makeup changed from year to year as teams folded and new ones emerged. The informal "league" usually included three to five teams and, depending on their fortunes, one or two from other Ohio cities like Columbus, Cincinnati, or Dayton. An imaginary title was claimed by the team faring the best against the other entries. Although semipro or pro teams could be found in many small midwestern cities and towns by the early 1900s, the Ohio League teams were clearly the best. They recruited the best, paid the most, and drew the largest crowds. But make no mistake--the game was far from being a serious challenge to college football, major-league baseball, boxing, or even horse racing. Critics claimed it lacked organization, stability, credibility, and integrity, and to a large extent, they were right. Adding fuel to that fire was a controversy in which a Bulldogs player, Charles "Blondy" Wallace, allegedly attempted to fix an important late-season game in 1906, between Canton and Massillon. Although no real evidence to support the charges was presented, the well-publicized allegations helped to validate critics' claims that pro teams were nothing more than disorganized bunches of vagabond tramp athletes willing to play for the highest bidder. The resulting lack of public confidence, compounded by the ever-increasing cost of securing well-known players, caused Canton to fold following the 1906 season. Though Massillon continued to operate, they did so as a second-tier team with a substantially smaller payroll. Gone after two seasons was Ohio's first pro football rivalry. And without its two best-known teams, the other Ohio League teams suffered as well. Then, in 1912, a twenty-one-year-old "sports enthusiast" named Jack Cusack offered his unpaid services as treasurer and secretary to a newly organized Canton Professionals football team. Within weeks the aggressive rookie promoter found himself in total control of the born-again football club. Cusack set out to restore Canton to its earlier prominence. To that end, in 1915 he lured Olympic champion Jim Thorpe, the biggest name in sports, to Canton. Anxious to resurrect the rivalry between Canton and Massillon, Cusack rechristened his Canton team the "Bulldogs" and scheduled two games--home and away--with the newly reorganized Massillon Tigers. In Thorpe, pro football had its first bona fide star and a major gate attraction. Some fans could hardly believe it when word leaked that Cusack was paying him $250 per game. "Even the most loyal Cantonites thought Cusack had lost his mind and would soon lose his shirt," wrote pro football historian Bob Carroll. But when 6,000 paying customers showed up for the first Canton-Massillon game and 8,000 for the second, the doubters were silenced. The Thorpe-led team went on to capture Ohio League championships in both 1916 and 1917. While Thorpe's presence certainly bolstered attendance and revenues for Canton, things weren't as rosy for the other Ohio League teams. For them, except for games against Canton, attendance and revenues were down. A good part of the downturn, however, had nothing to do with the game. On April 6, 1917, the United States officially entered World War I. Almost immediately teams felt its effect as players either enlisted or were drafted. Compounding the problem, a deadly influenza pandemic swept the country in early 1918. To limit the spread of the outbreak, ordinances were passed restricting large gatherings, including sporting events. The manpower shortage and the fear of contagion caused most pro teams, including Canton and Massillon, to fold during the 1918 season. While Cusack and other team managers proclaimed the interruption would be a one-year pause, no one could be certain pro football would survive. Relief came with the war's end in 1919 and the simultaneous decline of the pandemic. Anxious to pick up where they had left off, the four "Ohio League" teams ended their hiatus. But some serious challenges remained. To begin with, during the wartime layoff, Cusack sold the Bulldogs to Ralph E. Hay, a twenty-seven-year-old Canton entrepreneur and owner of the Ralph E. Hay Motor Company. Over in Massillon, while Tigers owners Jack Donahue and Jack Whalen proclaimed their readiness to once again field a team, their constant complaints about how much money they'd lost in 1917 cast a question mark over the new season. To the north, Akron Indians owner Vernon "Mac" McGinnis indicated he was ready to give it another go. And even though Youngstown Patricians manager Mickey Stambaugh was drowning in red ink and angry about having his roster poached in 1917, he said he was willing to forgive and forget and start anew. Despite these challenges, a sense of optimism seemed to take root among these strange bedfellows. Hay emerged as the group's main cheerleader. Whether it was his naïveté as a rookie manager, previous entrepreneurial successes, having Thorpe under contract, or a combination of all three fortuitous circumstances, his passionate confidence was the dose of "recovery medicine" needed by a sport already on life support. The same problems that faced the pro game ever since Heffelfinger's big payday continued to plague the Ohio League in 1919: players jumping from one team to another for a few dollars more, high salary demands and bidding wars for "big name" players, and the signing of amateur collegians. Sound familiar? In many ways, they're the same problems still facing the game today. The Ohio League managers decided it was in their own best interest to at least discuss the issues. However, just getting together proved to be difficult. Three meetings in three different cities were needed to address the important matters before them. Hay hosted the first meeting on July 14 in Canton. Massillon and Akron showed up. Youngstown didn't. Manager Stambaugh was reportedly "on vacation." Likely a hunting trip for additional investors. Excerpted from NFL Century: The One-Hundred-Year Rise of America's Greatest Sports League by Joe Horrigan All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.