The Man Who Built the National Football League: Joe F. Carr

by Chris Willis

  After saying good morning to his secretary, he took off his hat and coat and made himself comfortable by lighting up one of his favorite cigars. Sitting down at his desk, he began to read the local newspaper dated January 27, 1933. His piercing blue eyes peered through his tiny rimmed glasses as he turned to the Sports section. A few moments later a friend walked through his door. Actually the friend was just a local sportswriter who wanted to interview him for his daily newspaper column. But to the man at the desk everyone was a friend, and he greeted his guest with his trademark handshake and cheery hello. "Come in young man. How have you been and what can I do for you?"'

  "OK, Joe," the reporter asked. "You just finished another season of play in the National Football League. How do you think the league is progressing?" The man named Joe-the president of the National Football League, Joe F. Carr-responded by saying,

  This avid interest in football in all its phases is responsible largely for the amazing success of professional clubs. Because of the healthy increase in attendance at pro grid games each year since the National Football League was organized in 1920, I believe that I am making no mistake in predicting that in a few years it will outdraw baseball or any other sport, game for game.

  And in making this prediction, I am confident that baseball's best days are in the future. That there is an increase of interest in baseball but an increase that it not comparable to that in football. Professional football has progressed steadily ... in a decade the helter skelter assortment of teams, several of which could not afford to play at home has been reduced from 22 to an organization which has financial backing in all of its cities and which now will be big league from start to finish.

  Professional football is for those who understand the game. College football was built with a background of tradition and pageantry. The professional game hasn't much tradition or pageantry yet, but it provides the hardest and most interesting competition for those who love the sport purely for its own merits.2

  While looking outside the window of his office Carr noticed the snow slowly falling and gave the sportswriter another quote: "If only they knew how near our football league is to moving indoors and what a smashing success we are going to make of the pro game under cover, they would not hesitate for a moment to spend the additional money needed to size the building up to the requirements of the game."3

  The sportswriter got what he came for. The always accommodating Carr thanked the writer; anything to help the progress of the National Football League (NFL) was well worth the time spent. The writer left and Carr finished his cigar. He thought about the idea he just revealed. The NFL played under a roof-a domed stadium; that would be spectacular for the sport of professional football. Pro football bigger than baseball? A domed stadium? In 1933 it was just a vision. It was Joe Carr's vision for the NFL.

  For eighteen years, from 1921 until his death in office in 1939, Joe F. Carr was the president of the NFL. It was his guidance, leadership, and unbelievable vision that led the pro game from small-town obscurity to being a successful sporting venture located in major cities across the United States. The foundation on which the NFL sits today was established under the presidency of Joe F. Carr. His influence and integrity rubbed off on all the early NFL owners, and together Carr and the owners built a sport that is still seen every fall weekend; the NFL has become the most popular spectator sport in the country. But who was Joe F. Carr, and how did he build this foundation?

  Starting with his humble beginnings in Columbus-before the start of the twentieth century-until the time of his death, Carr devoted his life to the promotion and organization of sports. Carr started his sports career as a sportswriter and assistant sports editor of the Ohio State Journal. He moved on to become the manager of the Columbus Panhandles, a very successful professional football team made up of employees from the Panhandle Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was also the president of the Columbus Senators baseball team, was appointed the head of the minor leagues in 1933, and was an early leader in promoting professional basketball as president of the American Basketball League (1925-1927).

  But this story is about his legacy in professional football. Starting with his election as NFL president in 1921, it was Carr's vision to have an NFL franchise in every major city. He thought this was the only way for professional football to survive as a successful business venture-to pattern itself after Major League Baseball and have franchises in the cities where the most people lived. So during his presidency Carr slowly moved the pro game from the small towns, which were the lifeblood of the early pro game, to the biggest cities east of the Mississippi.

  In Carr's early years as president, NFL franchises came and went as quickly as the sun rises and sets. From 1920 through 1934 more than forty NFL franchises went through the league and twenty-four of those teams lasted just one or two years. After his first several years as president, Carr realized that the NFL's long-term success rested on better franchise stability just like Major League Baseball. In those same years (1920 to 1934) Major League Baseball had the same sixteen teams in just eleven cities.

  In 1920-the first year of the American Professional Football Association (APFA), the forerunner of the NFL-the average city population for an APFA franchise was 753,176 (fourteen football franchises in thirteen cities), while the average city population for a Major League Baseball franchise was 1,326,124-almost more than double the population of the NFL cities. During the 1920s the NFL placed franchises in small towns and cities, such as Akron, Ohio; Decatur, Illinois; Duluth, Minnesota; Evansville, Indiana; Kenosha, Wisconsin; LaRue, Ohio; Pottsville, Pennsylvania; Rock Island, Illinois; Hammond, Indiana; Dayton, Ohio; Racine, Wisconsin; Toledo, Ohio; and Tonawanda, New York. This was not the big-time; this was a sport just trying to survive 4

  But Carr was trying to buy some time to keep the sport alive so he could eventually find financially capable owners in larger cities to help build the NFL into a profitable business. These owners who he recruited would lose money in the beginning, but if they kept the league alive, they would see the sport become bigger than baseball and maybe make a little money in the process. Carr had that much faith in the NFL and was willing to sell it.

  By using baseball as an example, Carr started to move his league to the big city. As the early 1930s roared by, the population of cities that housed NFL franchises started to go up. Carr's vision was starting to come true as professional football was beginning to resemble Major League Baseball. He reduced the NFL from twenty-one fledgling franchises in 1921 (his first year as president) to a more successful ten franchises in 1937. By then the National Football League and Major League Baseball (MLB) were almost identical, with nine out of ten NFL franchises existing in MLB cities:

  1. Brooklyn

  2. Chicago

  3. Chicago (second team)

  4. Cleveland

  5. Detroit

  6. New York

  7. Philadelphia

  8. Pittsburgh

  9. Washington

  10. Green Bay (the only NFL city not to have an MLB team)

  By 1940 the average city population of NFL franchises had caught up with the average city population of MLB franchises. The NFL was now a big-city sport and was making strides into becoming a successful business for team owners-although big paydays for owners were still years away. By having teams in big cities, the NFL gained the stability it needed to succeed, and the foundation for the future was being built.'

  In addition, Carr's recruitment of financially stable owners paid off in a big way. Carr and his close friend George Halas-who owned the Chicago Bears and was one of the original founders of the NFL in 1920-would only recruit men who had the same passion for the sport as they did. The owners Carr brought into the league during his presidency would turn out to be a who's who of NFL history. In 1925 he found a wealthy bookie by the name of Tim Mara to buy a franchise in the biggest city of them all-New York. After eighty years, the New York Giants are one of the longest-running NFL franchises
and are still owned by the Mara family. Both Mara and his son Wellington are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

  In 1933 Carr recruited Bert Bell and Lud Wray to purchase a franchise in Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Eagles were born. Bell went on to be an NFL owner for over a decade and then became the commissioner of the NFL in 1946, serving in that role until his death in 1959. Bell put in over twenty-five years of service with professional football and earned a spot in the Hall of Fame.

  Also in 1933 Carr wanted a franchise in Pittsburgh and selected Art Rooney, a local sports promoter and former boxer from the Steel City, to buy the team. The Pittsburgh Pirates began play that year and changed their name to the Steelers in 1940. The Rooney family still owns the franchise; Dan Rooney now runs his father's team. Both Art and Dan have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. The year before the Eagles and Steelers joined the NFL, in 1932, Carr persuaded George Preston Marshall to buy a franchise for the city of Boston. Marshall, who owned several successful Laundromats in Washington, DC, moved the Boston Redskins franchise to Washington before the start of the 1937 season. The Washington Redskins have played in the nation's capitol city for over seventy years, and Mr. Marshall is also enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

  The cities of Detroit and Cleveland joined the NFL in 1934 and 1937, respectively, and the Lions and Rams franchises helped the NFL become a solid ten-team big-city organization. The foundation of the NFL was now established. The current NFL would look very different without the following franchises: the Chicago Bears (1920), Chicago-St. Louis-Arizona Cardinals (1920), Green Bay Packers (1921), New York Giants (1925), BostonWashington Redskins (1932), Pittsburgh Steelers (1933), Philadelphia Eagles (1933), Detroit Lions (1934), and the Cleveland-Los Angeles-St. Louis Rams (1937).

  Except for 1943-when there were only eight league teams because of World War II-the NFL would stay as a ten-team league for the next twelve years, until 1950 when the league grew to thirteen teams. When Joe Carr passed away in office on May 20, 1939-at the age of fifty-nine-the NFL he helped build was showing signs of becoming a successful sport that would eventually become more popular than baseball. On December 11, 1938, at the last game he ever saw, Carr and a then-record championship game crowd of 48,120 saw the New York Giants defeat the Green Bay Packers 23-17 at the Polo Grounds in New York City in an exciting, close game that decided the NFL title. Carr's vision of a big-time sport was complete; it was now time for the NFL owners, who he selected, to continue to build the great sport he loved so much and put so much energy and time into.

  The men who were the pioneers of the NFL have names that are synonymous with the game of professional football. Names such as George Halas, Curly Lambeau, Jim Thorpe, Tim Mara, Art Rooney, George Preston Marshall, Charlie Bidwill, and Bert Bell have dominated the history of the sport, and rightly so. But for some reason the name of Joe F. Carr has been lost in time. Although Carr was the unquestioned leader of this group of pioneering men and guided the young league when nobody else wanted to, his accomplishments have been largely ignored.

  The leadership, incredible vision, and solid foundation that Carr built while working from his rather small two-room office in Columbus can be seen today every fall weekend in what we now know as the NFL. His life and legacy are stories that shouldn't be forgotten and need to be told.

  itting in his small two-room office on the eleventh floor in Columbus, 'Ohio, Joe Carr probably pondered more than a few times, how did I get here? How did the son of an Irish immigrant with a grammar school education get to become the president of the sport he loved? The sport he would go on to help build as the model of all sports leagues.

  Joe Carr's values, work ethic, and personality, which guided the ways he would lead his life, were reflected and learned from his father. A man who looked to America to have a better life, he taught Joe how to live and how not to live. Michael Karr was born in Northern Ireland in County Armagh in 1841. The family's surname in Ireland was spelled K-a-r-r and would be changed later while living in America.' County Armagh was surrounded, to the west, by County Monaghan; to the east, by County Down; to the south, by County Louth; and to the north, by Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles.

  According to the 1840 Irish Census, County Armagh had a population of 232,391 and the majority of the county residents made their living in the linen industry as weavers and spinners. A few years later, however, the Karr family and the rest of Ireland were affected by the famous Potato Famine. As a result of the famine, over 1 million Irish citizens died and another million were left to avoid starvation. Young Michael Karr survived, but most of his family it seems didn't. "Researching our family tree we never found out about his immediate family. We assume they didn't survive the famine, so considering that and his economic situation, it clearly shows he wanted to have a better life. America was the land of opportunity. So he went," says James Carr, the grandson of Joe Carr.2

  From May 1851 to December 1860 nearly 30,000 residents of Armagh alone left the Emerald Isle. In 1864, at the age of twenty-three and by himself, Michael raised enough money and left Ireland for the United States. After traveling across the Atlantic Ocean he reached the "promised land" and arrived at the port of Baltimore. After landing in Baltimore he jumped on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line and headed west. Maybe thinking Ohio was the last stop on the ride, Michael stopped and settled in Columbus, Ohio. More than likely he heard Columbus had a big Irish contingent and that jobs were available to them around central Ohio.'

  By the end of the year-with the finish of the Civil War just a few months away-Karr would make Columbus his permanent home. The city of Columbus was first laid out in 1812 and incorporated in 1816 to be the state capital of Ohio. Columbus was mainly chosen as the site for the new capital because of its central location within the state. The city was split down the middle by the famous intersection of Broad (running east-west) and High (running north-south) streets. At the time Michael arrived, the city of Columbus had a population of just 18,554, as well as having just six banks, seven schools, and twenty-nine churches. But the city was thriving with the railroads. In 1850 the city's first railroad, the Columbus-Xenia line, was established and shortly after that the more popular Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati railroad came transporting Ohioans to every part of the state.4

  The two railroads (which would eventually be purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad in May 1868) built a joint Union Station on the east side of High Street just north of North Public Lane, which ran along the established Irish neighborhood in Columbus. The new railroads created plenty of jobs in the railroad shops for the newly arrived immigrants in central Ohio. Although Michael did not seek this type of employment, Joe Carr would later use this railroad connection to start his career in sports and expose him to the game he would eventually love.

  After settling in Columbus, Michael Karr lived at residences on East Gay and then McCoy streets in the Irish neighborhood that was north of the capital city's downtown. This wasn't the best end of town, as Columbus historian Ed Lentz would write, "with its patch of malarial swamp, the ever-growing town cemetery and the smelly, dirty and noisy railroads of Columbus, it was precisely these factors that attracted the new immigrants. The soil was poor but the land was cheap."5 The neighborhood contained a fairly large contingent of Irish immigrants, and their language, dress, and lifestyle set them apart-including new citizen Michael Karr.

  The place the Irish closed in on was North Public Lane-soon to be renamed Naghten Street (which it is still called today) in honor of William "Billy" Naghten, who became the first Irish-Catholic president of the Co lumbus City Council. Irish workers would empty out onto Naghten Street on Friday nights, as merchants, laborers, and railroader workers would make their way to the many shops, groceries, or saloons to enjoy the city's nightlife. Michael would jump right into the community feet first.

  He quickly found work in one of the Irish shops as a shoemaker, which was becoming a booming business in the city. "Shoes were a big oper
ation in central Ohio at that time. As a matter of fact, the well-known Wolfe family owned a shoe-making or a boot-making operation which I suspect may've spun-off other business types similar to the one that my great-grandfather would [have been] involved in," says Gregory Carr, grandson of Joe Carr.'

  By 1870 the city of Columbus had close to sixty shoe-making/bootmaking shops, and Michael was one of these hard-working employees dedicating ten hours a day to making shoes. Michael found the work to be rewarding, and he tackled it head on as only an Irish immigrant would. It was the "Irish way." Like most Irish immigrants he felt a hard day's work in America was better than dying of hunger back in Ireland. Spending ten hours making shoes was heaven and nothing to complain about. Michael earned a reputation of being a man of action, not words. He lived life like the old Irish saying, "The person of the greatest talk is the person of the least work."7

  While living in the Irish neighborhood, Karr worked, socialized, drank, and engaged in what would have been the center of the Irish cultureattending church. The young Irish immigrant loved going to church, and because he was new to Columbus he attracted attention from the other churchgoers. "Michael wasn't a big man-he stood about five feet ten and around 200 pounds, he had that typical Irish look to him," says Michael Carr, grandson of Joe Carr, who was named after his great-grandfather.' Michael did have the tough Irish look. He had blue eyes, a strong jaw, and a small beard on his chin that was about an inch and a half in length, and like most immigrants he was a serious man.

  Shortly after arriving in Columbus and getting settled, Karr met a fellow Irish immigrant, Margaret Hurley. Hurley was born in 1840 and her family was well traveled, having spent time in New York (where she was likely born), Connecticut, and Montreal. Just like Michael she eventually made her way to Columbus.'

  "She had light eyes and dark hair and from the pictures of our greatgrandmother, Margaret Hurley-Karr, you can tell that she was somewhat slim, not a big women, of slighter stature. Later on she looked more frail. She always looked older than she was. But that was typical of Irish immigrants, life was tough," says James Carr, grandson of Joe Carr. Michael fell in love very quickly with Margaret, and the two made a perfect Irish couple. Both were very simple and had typical Irish personalities. They also would go on to build together another famous Irish traditionhaving a large family. After a short engagement Michael, age twenty-five, and Margaret, age twenty-six, married at the Columbus church where the Irish gathered.'°