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

by Chris Willis

  The owners quickly motioned to vote for a new executive staff for the APFA. For the post of president, the owners nominated Carr. After giving his passionate speech, Carr couldn't turn down the job, so he accepted the post and he was elected unanimously. In his 1953 book The Story of Pro Football, Howard Roberts writes that Carr accepted a salary of $1,000 for the year, although there was no mention of his salary in the league minutes. No salary was set. In later years the humble, unassuming Carr would give his own version of being elected president by saying, "I was elected much against my will and while I was out of the room." Made for a good quote, but to be honest, Carr absolutely wanted the job 2

  "Jim Thorpe, although he was the greatest athlete of the century, he was not an administrator. So they looked at my grandfather. Through his experience with the Panhandles and baseball he had become a first rate administrator and that was his forte. They needed somebody with a good business sense to develop the league because the other folks who were involved, that was not their area of expertise, but it was my grandfather's," says James Carr, grandson of Joe Carr. "At this time, for him, there was something very special about football and that was his passion, his love. He loved football and he wanted to make his mark."3

  After Carr accepted the post, the owners went on to elect Morgan O'Brien as vice president (mainly because Halas would have been the choice if he were there) and Carr's good friend Carl Storck as secretarytreasurer. At this point Ranney turned the meeting over to Carr, and for the next eighteen years, he would be called Joe F. Carr, Mr. President. Carr would now use his middle initial of "F" to sign his name, he would tell a reporter once to "never omit that 'F' because no issue would be complete without it." Carr's first act as the leader of professional football was to name a committee to help draw up a league constitution and bylaws, which Thorpe had never done. The league needed rules to make progress, and these rules had to be in print so everybody could follow them.'

  Carr selected Storck, Dr. Charles Lambert, and Art Ranney (chairman) as the men to do it. He then announced that the next meeting would be held on June 18 in Cleveland, and at that date the constitution would be ready-showing how serious he was about the league's rules. To make his point even more clear, the league carried the following rules stated in the league minutes:

  • that all players of last year's teams are not to be approached by any other managers of any other teams until managers notify the President of the Association that a player is a free agent.

  • to prohibit players playing on two different clubs in the same week.

  • deadline of all players of last year's club to President by May 15th.

  • all clubs present send check $25.00 to Treasurer, take care miscellaneous expenses of Association.'

  Carr also reiterated that no player with college eligibility was allowed to play in his league or that club would be barred from the association. This topic would provide Carr with some serious headaches in his first years as president, and he would take it more seriously than any other rule that he established. On the financial front, the price of an association membership dropped from $100 to just $50, but each team would have to pay this fee, unlike 1920. Carr also set up territorial rights for league franchises, giving teams exclusive rights to play their home games without another APFA team coming into their area and playing the same day. This gave APFA team owners and their franchises a little more value. Carr then finished his first meeting as president.

  The forty-one-year-old Carr hadn't gone into the Akron meeting looking to become president, but his passion and unquenchable belief in the sport was revealed in a big way to his fellow owners. Now the other owners were starting to see in him what Carr felt all along, that he was the right man for the job. Even though he wasn't at the meeting that initially elected Carr, George Halas could always see it in Carr, too. "Before Joe came along, teams were run by coaches and ex-players," Halas recalled. "Joe was the first non-sportsman to become involved in this area of sports management. He had what the rest of us lacked and that was real business-sense. All we were interested in was winning games. He was a born organizer. It was Joe who said our real concern should be the future of the sport."6

  Carr would be the first to think about the league first, and that philosophy is still used today by the NFL. When Carr arrived back home he got right to work. He first announced that the league's headquarters would be located in his hometown of Columbus, and he would work at his desk on the third floor of the Ohio State Journal. Newspapers around the country revealed Carr's new job, including his hometown paper.

  Joe Carr, Head of Pro. Football Men

  Ten professional football clubs of the United States were represented at the annual meeting of the American Professional Football Association here [Akron] today. Fourteen other cities sent word that they would become members of the association before the next football season.

  Joe F. Carr was elected president of the association, Morgan P. O'Brien vice president, and Carl Storck, secretary-treasurer.

  A committee of three was appointed to amend the constitution and bylaws to be submitted at the next meeting in Cleveland, June 18. Iron-clad rules were adopted prohibiting the jumping of players from one team to another. Any club which harbors or plays a man who has not completed his college course will be barred from the association. Other teams will refuse to play with any team using college players. A regular set of officials will be chosen to officiate at all games played by teams in the association.'

  The press's reaction to Carr being elected president was very positive; the Canton Daily News stated Carr "should make a strong head for the organization" and the sport got a big shot in the arm by making the decision. The June 18 meeting at the Hollenden Hotel in Cleveland was another step for the young league. At this meeting the owners would first approve franchises in Rock Island (Independents), Illinois; Detroit (Tigers), Michigan, who replaced the Heralds franchise; and Toledo (Maroons), Ohio, although the Maroons didn't field a team in the APFA in 1921. Then after a short dinner break they came back to officially accept the league's new constitution and bylaws. After two months of work, Carr was extremely thrilled with the new constitution. The league now had a list of rules and regulations that helped established a solid foundation for the owners and franchises to follow.'

  With these rules Carr now had the power to see that professional football would be operated as a respectable sport-especially in the eyes of the media and public who deserved to know. As part of the new constitution, Carr introduced one of the major rules that would finally give the sport some much needed stability. On June 19 the Canton Daily News would comment on this new rule under the headline "Professional Football Men Adopt Reserve Clause Similar to That in Baseball": "Adoption of a reserve rule similar to that now existing in professional baseball was the outstanding feature of the meeting of the professional football league here [Cleveland] tonight. Official records will be kept and those under contract to play with a professional football team will not be permitted to 'jump' to some contender offering a higher salary, it was declared."9

  The APFA now had some stability as Carr reached back to his baseball background to use the unique reserve clause to keep player movement limited. The reserve clause would give teams the first right to sign their players each season, unless they wanted to release them, essentially allowing that player to become a free agent. This would eliminate the days of players hopping from one team to another.

  Carr also addressed the issue of using college players, as the bylaws would include a rule-under Article IX, Section 1-that would say "that no college player shall participate in any games of the Association while he is in college.""

  This rule was highly publicized by the press and garnered the APFA even more praise, but it would be tested by pro teams and players. The rule and its "specific wording" would cause Carr much stress over the next couple of seasons. It was a busy three months for Carr after he was elected president of the APFA, establishing a home base for the le
ague in his hometown; creating a new constitution; and expanding the sport with several new franchises. It was now time to go home and take a break.

  After returning to Columbus, Carr would spend most of his summer with his family and celebrated his tenth wedding anniversary with Josephine on June 27. The ten years had passed in a blink of an eye, and for the couple they were very happy. The two kids were healthy and preparing for the new school year, and Joe was about to embark on the first season of his presidency that would change the course of his career. At this time the family would begin to keep a scrapbook chronicling the achievements of the head of the household.

  As the season approached, Carr and the owners held one last meeting to finalize everything. On August 27 at the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago, the owners would put the finishing touches on the upcoming season. Five new franchises-from Minneapolis (Marines), Minnesota; Evansville (Crimson Giants), Indiana; Tonawanda (Kardex), New York; Green Bay (Packers), Wisconsin; and Buffalo (All-Americans), New York-joined Carr's association. The Buffalo franchise was the same as in 1920, as this transaction was just a formality, but it was the small-town Green Bay Packers that would be the surprise entry in Carr's new pro loop."

  Pro football played in Green Bay, Wisconsin, can be traced back to as early as 1895, but it would be the Green Bay Packers, formed on the city's far east side, that would become the NFL's most unlikely success story. The story starts with a University of Notre Dame dropout. Earl Louis Lambeau was born in Green Bay on April 9, 1898, to parents Marcel and Mary Lambeau. Marcel ran a successful construction business in town and would eventually build the stadium in which the Packers and his son played. Earl Lambeau was born with a thick shock of black hair that was so "curly" that he would be known by that nickname the rest of his life.12

  Curly grew up to be a five feet ten, 186-pound triple threat football star at Green Bay's East High School, making him an instant legend in his hometown. Just like Carr and Halas, he also fell in love with the game and would dream of playing for his city's team. But first his father wanted Curly to go to college, and in the fall of 1918 Lambeau enrolled at the University of Notre Dame to play for the school's new head coach-Knute Rockne. Lambeau was there for just one reason, to play football; despite his father's dream, Curly had no illusions that he was there for the academics.

  Rockne's intense, sure-minded personality, as well as his football formations and emphasis on the passing game as an offensive strategy, rubbed off on young Curly. Because of the war freshman were eligible to play, so Lambeau got plenty of playing time. After the season Curly returned home and was suddenly stricken with a severe case of infected tonsils that kept him home for six weeks. By the time he recovered he thought it was too late to return to Notre Dame, plus there was no football to go back to. So he decided to stay in Green Bay and was offered a fantastic job that led him to his ultimate destiny.

  Frank Peck, an executive with the Indian Packing Company (a local meatpacking business), had followed Lambeau's high school exploits just two years earlier, and offered Lambeau a job as traffic manager with his company. "The Indian Packing Company offered me a job at $250 a month and I thought that was all the money in the world," Lambeau recalled years later. Since he was engaged to his high school sweetheart, Marguerite Van Kessel, he was ready to settle down in the small town. Then he had a chance encounter with another local citizen that changed the course of professional football.13

  George Whitney Calhoun was the cantankerous, cigar-smoking sports editor of the Green Bay Press-Gazette who everyone called "Cal." Like Peck, Cal knew of Lambeau's football exploits while writing for the paper and ran into Curly one day while in town. "I met Calhoun on the street one day in August (1919) and after talking it over, we decided to organize a football team and ask the company to sponsor it," Lambeau recalled. Some historians say they agreed to form the team over a beer but wherever it was, Curly Lambeau was about to establish the team he would lead for the next thirty-one years.14

  After the meeting Curly went to his boss, Frank Peck, and asked if the company would sponsor a team and help buy football uniforms, equipment, and balls. Peck responded by giving Lambeau $500 and the use of the vacant field the company owned next to the plant so his team could practice. He only asked that the team use the name Indian Packing Company to help advertise the company. Curly said no problem. Lambeau would be the captain of the squad on the field and run the business matters, and Calhoun would write about the team in the Gazette-giving the team free publicity.

  Calhoun and other sportswriters started calling the team the Big Bay Blues (the jerseys were blue and gold), as well as the Packers. Lambeau wasn't thrilled with either name but would soon be fond of the name Packers. "It's a great name, but we didn't realize it then, " Lambeau later recalled. The team practiced three days a week with most of the roster loaded with local Wisconsin boys, and in 1919 they played their home games at small Hagemeister Park. They didn't charge any admission that first year and only made money by passing the hat; usually it was Cal's fedora accepting the coin. "We just wanted to play for the love of football. We agreed to split any money we got and each man was to pay his own doctor bills, " Lambeau remembered.15

  Like George Halas in Decatur Curly Lambeau knew football. He understood and evaluated players as well as anybody, and his weekly practices helped his team dominate opponents in the state of Wisconsin. The pro game's coaching and practice habits were starting to take shape (although not every team had daily practice sessions), and with the likes of Halas and Lambeau running these powerful squads, they were going to prove to the likes of Pop Warner-and his comments back in 1920-that the pros could field a true "team" that played as one. The Packers proved that in 1919-1920 by beating almost every opponent they faced, including an 87-0 whipping against Sheboygan.

  Lambeau was the star, especially his passing, and Calhoun would praise his partner. "Lambeau was shooting 'em all the way from 20 to 40 yards with the other back fielders and ends making sensational catches" was a typical Calhoun description of the flamboyant passing ace. After two great years, the Packers were now ready to join the big boys. Calhoun found out about the newly reorganized APFA and that sometime in August they were going to meet again in Chicago to talk about new franchises. Once again Lambeau went to his boss; this time it was John Clair (whose ACME Packing Company bought the Indian Packing Company) who gave him the go-ahead. John sent his brother Emmett Clair to the meeting to pay the fifty dollar franchise fee. The small town of 31,643 now had a team in the APIA .16

  For the twenty-three-year-old Curly Lambeau, it was now time to prove he belonged with the best teams in the country. He bolstered his squad by signing Howard "Cub" Buck, former star at the University of Wisconsin, who had played four years with the Canton Bulldogs, to a contract of $75 a game. They would also charge fifty cents admission at all home games. This was the big time, so it was now time to start acting like they belonged.

  To wrap up the Chicago meeting, applications from Gary, Indiana, and Davenport, Iowa, were to be delayed and investigated at a later date. The APFA now had nineteen teams-five more than in 1920. Carr thought that to build his league, the more franchises the better (plus the fifty dollars for each team padded the league's bank account), but this was a philosophy that would hurt the APFA, and over the next couple of seasons Carr would map out a plan to move the league to the big cities. This philosophy of accepting any franchise was done to keep the sport alive, but most early pro teams would be broke at the end of the season or the manager of the team didn't have the financial resources to lose money and continue to operate a team on a yearly basis. It would take nearly a decade for Carr to establish a plan to solidify franchise stability.

  At the end of the August meeting the owners passed one final issue that Carr suggested. The move was to allow the president to ensure "that season passes be sent from the President's office to newspaper [men] & prominent officials

  This would turn out to be a good public relations move for the
young league. Carr's newspaper and promotional experience saw the advantage of getting the press and other prominent individuals out to the games and this would only help the image of the league. Over his entire time as president, Carr made sure the press would be taken care of even if it meant that he would personally accompany these passes. Carr would not only give free passes to games but he would make sure they were the best seats in the house. Columbus Citizen-Journal writer Lew Byrer once asked Carr why he would give up a good seat for free, and Carr replied, "The usual thing is to give a pass-holder a seat right in back of a post. That doesn't make sense to me. If I give a man a pass it's because I want his good will. Why, then risk losing the good will you're trying to get by giving the man poor seats?""

  Some time between the August meeting and the beginning of the season Carr accepted eastern franchises in Washington (Senators), D.C., and New York City (Brickley's Giants). The New York franchise was backed by Billy Gibson, a well-known boxing manager and promoter, who signed two-time Harvard All-American Charles Brickley to coach and play. There is no league record to say when both teams joined the association, but they were the last two teams to be allowed in the league. The Senators played three league games and the Giants played only two, so neither team would be a factor during the season. Although neither city embraced the pro game in 1921, Carr did not give up on the sport in those well-populated eastern cities. Carr's league now had twenty-one teams, and the first season under his presidency was about to kick off. Speaking to the United Press, he predicated a big year: