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

by Chris Willis

  "Professional football last year drew crowds as large as many big league baseball games did. With the popular interest already shown and with the successful fight we are making on contract-breaking and other wildcat practices, we are confident of a big league standing before long.""

  League standings were to be kept by Carr, and only games between league teams would count in the final standings. Despite the rather large league, the race for the championship came down to three teams-the Buffalo All-Americans, the Decatur Staleys, and the 1920 APFA champion Akron Pros. Carr's own Columbus Panhandles would go through another bad season, finishing with a 1-8 league record (3-8 overall).

  During the summer of 1921, George Halas went about making his team even stronger than the previous year. He set his sights on Ohio State University star Chic Harley, but Harley would only listen to his brother Bill on what he should do. Acting as Chic's agent, Bill Harley told Halas he could have Chic, as well as fellow Buckeye stars halfback Pete Stinchcomb and guard Tarzan Taylor, if Bill could get 15 percent of what was collected at the gate. Halas reluctantly agreed but he had the guy he wanted. The thrill of trying to get that special player would be a trait that Halas would constantly seek, and he usually got his man.

  With a roster that featured Harley, Stinchcomb, Taylor, Hugh Blacklock, Guy Chamberlin, Ralph Scott, and Dutch Sternaman, the 1921 Decatur Staleys were a talented and very expensive team. After beating Waukegan American Legion to warm up for the APFA season, the Staleys prepared to play the Rock Island Independents at Staley Field. Then Halas was summoned to the boss's office to discuss the football team. In his autobiography Halas remembers the conversation.

  Mr. Staley asked me to come to his office. I had no idea what he wanted. We talked only on the field but there was no question in my mind that the sports program would continue. Mr. Staley greeted me warmly and said, "George, I know you are more interested in football than starch. As you know, there is a slight recession in the country. Time lost practicing and playing costs a huge amount of money. I feel we can no longer underwrite the team's losses.

  "George, why don't you take the team to Chicago? I think football will go over big there. Professional teams need a big city base. I'll give you $5,000 seed money to pay costs until the gate receipts start coming in. I ask only that you continue to call the team the Staleys for one season." I said I will do it. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. We shook hands 20

  A written agreement was signed on October 6 by both Halas and Staley that stated the following:

  • A sum of $3,000 was given in return for two pages of advertising in team programs, plus pictures and 100-word biographies of the chief Staley company officers.

  • The other $2,000 would be paid at the rate of $25 a week per player up to a total of nineteen players.

  • The team would operate in Chicago as the Staley Football Club.

  • The new arrangement would terminate at the end of the 1921 sea- son.21

  After signing the written agreement, Halas immediately telephoned William Veeck, president of the Chicago Cubs, and asked if he could see him. Veeck said come on in. Halas took the train into Chicago and laid out the situation to Veeck. "I'm bringing the Staley team to Chicago and I would like to use Cubs Park as our home, for practices as well as our home games," Halas told him. Veeck welcomed the idea as his ballpark would be empty after the baseball season. Halas asked the terms, and Veeck said 15 percent of the gate and concessions sales. "I considered that very fair and rejoiced silently. All right, providing I can keep the program rights, which sold for ten cents in those days. He said done and I left the park a happy man," Halas said later. After playing the Rock Island Independents at Staley Field in front of just 3,600 fans, Halas's team played their first game of the season in Cubs Park in Chicago against the Rochester Jeffersons on October 16. Nearly 8,000 paid customers saw the permanently new Chicago team come back and win a thrilling 16-13 game over the Jeffs 22

  Once in Chicago, Halas set up headquarters at the Blackwood Apartment Hotel where he rented ten rooms (two dollars a week for the players) and was in walking distance of the field. He also picked out the Staley's uniform colors as orange and blue-the same colors as his alma mater the University of Illinois. But Halas recognized the many problems of running a team and decided to take on a partner. "I wanted Paddy Driscoll but he wasn't available (Driscoll was under contract with the Chicago Cardinals) so I looked around the team and I settled with Dutch Sternaman. I offered him a 50-50 partnership," Halas later said.23

  The move to Chicago would pay off in a big way for Halas, as big crowds (averaging well over 5,000 fans for nine home games) showed up in the big city, despite some bad weather. Although his partnership with Sternaman would cause him some future headaches, the move was a success. By early November the race for the APFA title started to get really tight. The defending champs, the Akron Pros, got off to a great start winning their first seven games of the season. After a 0-0 tie against the tough Buffalo All-Americans on November 13, the Pros met an unsuspecting foe the following week. The Pros traveled south to face Carl Storck's Dayton Triangles (who had a league record of 3-3-1) at Triangle Park. In a close game the Triangles' Russ Hathaway kicked a field goal in the third quarter for the only points and gave Dayton a 3-0 upset victory. It was a devastating loss for the defending champs, and they went on to lose backto-back games and finished the season with a 8-3-1 record, good for third place in the APFA standings.

  So it was down to the Chicago Staleys (6-0 record) and the Buffalo AllAmericans. On Thanksgiving Day (November 24), the Buffalo All-Americans upset the undefeated Staleys at Cubs Park 7-6. The All-Americans were now 7-0-2 and continued to play great football by beating Dayton and Akron at home to set up a rematch with the Staleys, in what was being billed as the APFA "championship game." The All-Americans had played Akron the day before, and it affected their play early as Guy Chamberlin returned an interception seventy yards for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead. But the Buffalo squad came back and scored a touchdown early in the third quarter to tie it at 7-7. A few minutes later Dutch Sternaman kicked a twenty-yard field goal, and the Staleys defense made the 10-7 score hold up. It looked like the Staleys were champs, or were they?

  After defeating the Buffalo All-Americans, Halas scheduled a game with the Canton Bulldogs, and the teams became confused as to what would happen to the title if the Staleys lost. The deadline for the season was an issue that teams debated with Carr, and he issued a statement: "The game in Chicago Sunday between the Canton Bulldogs and [Chicago] Staleys will have no bearing on the championship of the national professional league. Our season closed last Sunday. The championship will probably be awarded at a meeting of directors of the league here next week."24

  With this ruling Carr essentially awarded George Halas his first pro football championship (although it wouldn't be official until the league meeting in early 1922). It was a very hard and busy 1921 season for Joe F. Carr, but seeing his Panhandles complete another difficult year (compiling a 1-8 record in league games) was probably the toughest thing he endured. It would also be the last season for four of the Nesser brothers as Fred, John, Phil, and Ted would play their last professional football games in 1921. But the season wasn't all bad for the Nessers.

  That fall saw Ted Nesser play the whole season with his nineteenyear-old son Charlie Nesser. The two would make history by becoming the only father-son combination to play together in APFA-NFL history. The historic twosome made the family proud and set a record that might never be equalled. Carr knew his squad was too old to compete in the newly organized APFA, but he decided to give the Panhandles another year to see if they could turn it around.

  The election of Carr as the APFA president would be an inspired choice. Personally a kindly, unassuming, religious man, Carr (who was now prematurely gray, balding, and bespectacled) looked like someone's grandfather. But when push came to shove, he would be tough as a seventen split. He would slowly bring his vision to the sport of
professional football and follow a simple philosophy-strive for the highest standards and always consider the fans first, keeping in mind the league was the most important thing 25

  t had now been fifteen years since Joe F. Carr reorganized the Columbus Panhandles in 1907 and threw his hat into the world of professional football. But it had all been worth it for the son of an Irish immigrant who was now the leader of the sport he loved. He did it the "Irish way" by working hard and gaining the respect of his fellow football executives. They were now looking at him to solve the problems facing the sport.

  After his first year as president, Carr looked to rectify some of the financial difficulties plaguing some of the American Professional Football Association's (APFA's) franchises, but it wasn't an easy task. Ralph Hay revealed that his Canton Bulldogs lost between $8,000 and $10,000. "Running a pro football team at that time did have its problems. It cost us $3,300 to put a team on the field for a game," said Lester Higgins, former Canton Bulldogs treasurer, in a 1976 NFL Films interview. "Sometimes attendance would be a problem. Here in Canton, our field would only hold about 7,000 or 8,000 capacity. When we played Akron we would have an overflow of people. But we didn't have any reserve seating; it was first come, first served. We'd get about 12,000 people in there. They'd break the fence down and didn't pay. Then there were games when we didn't get any more than a couple of hundred people."'

  Most of the money Hay put into the team came from his automobile business. He would continue to invest his own cash in the Bulldogs for the 1921 season, and the rest of the league would see greatness from them the next two years.

  After relaxing with his family for the holidays, the new year started with a scandal for Joe F. Carr. Carr had announced that the owners would have a meeting on January 28 in Canton to discuss league matters. But right before the meeting, a report came out stating that several college football players from several prominent universities played for money with professional teams. Speaking at a banquet in New York, Fielding Yost, head coach at the University of Michigan, claimed that the pros "robs the game of many of the greatest character building qualities, and destroys the ideals of generous service, loyalty, sacrifice and whole-hearted devotion to a cause, which mark the college player."2

  Carr had only been on the job for a year and now had his first black eye to show for it. Colleges and universities everywhere took their shots at the pro game, and they had the proof to do it. There would be two instances of college players playing for pro teams that put the issue right in front of Carr. First was the small-town Green Bay Packers' use of three Notre Dame players late in the 1921 season. For their game against Racine, Curly Lambeau signed Hunk Anderson, Hec Garvey, and Ojay Larson to play. Some reports had the trio playing against the Chicago Staleys too, but regardless, the Packers were found guilty of breaking the association's rule against playing a college player.

  Although the Packers weren't the only APFA team using college players, there was proof against them; the Pack would soon be dealt with. The other instance of illegal players occurred with two nonmembers of the APFA who would get caught up in an even bigger scandal.

  In the fall of 1920, the town of Carlinville, Illinois, defeated its semipro rival Taylorville, 10-7. The rooters of Taylorville (who lost a lot of money) vowed to beat their rivals the next year, this time playing in Taylorville. Carlinville didn't stand pat; they decided to ask several Notre Dame boys to play for them in 1921, paying up to $200 a body. The Notre Dame boys said yes. Everybody in Carlinville heard about the "ringers" and were so confident that they wagered most of the town's money. It looked like a full-proof plan-except the town talked, and word got back to Taylorville.

  Taylorville didn't want to look like fools, so they went to the University of Illinois (which had its share of good players too) and offered their boys some cash to help them win the big game. They said, why not? Game day came, and both towns claimed that each one bet as much as $50,000 on each side. The Taylorville team actually led 7-0 at the half, playing with mostly their regulars against the Notre Dame squad of Carlinville. But in the second half they inserted the Illinois kids and little Joey Sternaman (younger brother of Dutch Sternaman) dominated the rest of the game. Joey kicked three field goals and Taylorville won 16-0 and their $50,000.3

  If anyone expected to keep a $100,000 football game a secret they must have been living on the moon. Before some of the boys reached their dorm rooms, news came out about the big game and soon an investigation started. "A while later, back at school one day, I got a call from George Huff [Ilinois Athletic Director]. He wanted to see me. He said 'I understand you played down in that Taylorville game.' He knew it, and that was that, " said Joey Sternaman to author Richard Whittingham in a 1983 interview.'

  Dick Simpson, manager of the Taylorville team, readily admitted to using the Illinois players but refused to say whether he paid them. The Illinois players say he didn't. On the evening of January 27 the University of Illinois disqualified nine of its athletes from further sports competition for having played in the game as professionals-including Laurie Walquist and Joey Sternaman (both went on to play for George Halas's team). Carlinville coach Rivers Anderson revealed later that he personally "hired and paid Notre Dame men." Notre Dame followed suit, suspending eight players.

  "There's always been the story going around that I wore paint on my face and adhesive bandages to disguise who I was, but that wasn't really so. Everybody at the game knew who we were," said Sternaman. The Taylorville-Carlinville mess instantly grabbed Carr's attention and he quickly responded: "Our league, of which such teams as Taylorville and Carlinville, which figured in the Illinois-Notre Dame scandal are not members, has no desire and in fact is unalterably opposed to the use of college men who are still eligible for intercollegiate competition. We will wipe out this evil sooner or later, but we could do it immediately if assured cooperation on the part of college coaches."5

  Carr's relationship with the colleges and universities across the country had now escalated into a war of words and neither was happy with the situation. But for the time being, college officials looked at Carr and the owners to see how they would respond to this current crisis. Carr knew something needed to be done to show the public (especially the fans) that the sport was stamping out this "evil."

  The day after the Illinois verdict was reported, the APFA opened its meeting in Canton at the Courtland Hotel. They woke up to the Canton Repository's story on the Illinois suspensions, which was directly below its story of the league meeting under the headline of "Pro Football Moguls Here Today to Thrash Out Many Problems for Next Season." With all the bullets flying, Carr and other league owners gathered together to discuss the important issues facing their sport. First up was the matter of the Staley franchise in Chicago.

  Although George Halas's Chicago-based team was a first-rate outfit in 1921-best in pro football-he did not actually own the franchise. The Chicago Staleys were still the property of starch-maker A. E. Staley of Decatur, Illinois. Halas and his partner, Ed "Dutch" Sternaman, were managers of the team (as well as coaches and star players), but old A. E. still had the official ownership according to the APFA. Based on the agreement between Halas and Staley, the two owners needed to secure the franchise after the 1921 season. At the meeting, Bill Harley (brother of Chic Harley) wanted a team for Chicago too and applied. So did Halas and Sternaman. Having been on the scene since 1920 gave the Staleys the inside track.'

  Carr and the other managers telephoned A. E. Staley in Decatur to get his version of the 1921 arrangement with Halas. Halas and Sternaman were able to sit in on the conversation. "A. E. said he had transferred the team to me the previous fall. The company, he said, was quitting all paid athletes," Halas would write in his autobiography. "The members debated all day and into the evening. In the end, they decided to vote on whether the franchise should be given to Sternaman and me or to Bill Harley. Eight votes for us, two for Harley."7

  A couple of years later Harley took his argument to
court; he lost that too. Halas was elated and relieved that he still had his team, but he needed a new name. "I considered naming the team the Chicago Cubs, out of respect for Mr. William Veeck, who had been such a great help. But I noted football players are bigger than baseball players, so if baseball players are cubs, then certainly football players must be bears. The Chicago Bears were born!" said Halas.8

  Next the owners voted the Chicago Staleys the 1921 APFA champion. Halas was now two for two. Though the procedure of voting the league's champions at the first league meeting after the season was clearly a horrible way of deciding a champion, the owners didn't have any reason to change it. It would stay that way. Halas might have been happy in that Canton meeting, but Carr was just starting to sweat, as it was time to handle the issue of college players participating in pro ball. Carr knew someone would have to pay a price. A motion was made to listen to the case of the Green Bay Packers, probably brought up by John Clair who was there representing the Pack, as Curly Lambeau didn't make the trip. But the motion lost, Carr needed more time to think, and the owners broke for dinner at Bender's restaurant.

  At dinner there was much discussion between Clair and the other owners about the evidence against the Packers, which was supplied by the Chicago Tribune. Some historians think that George Halas supplied the information, turning in the Packers to get a chance to sign Hunk Anderson, but it sounds too far-fetched that Halas would cause all the trouble of punishing the small-town franchise just to sign a guard-albeit a good one. Clair was then given the floor, and he asked the association to consider withdrawal of the Green Bay franchise, and he personally apologized to the association. The motion carried.'

  After one year the Packers were out of the APFA. "My grandfather said he knew that some of the teams have been fudging on this particular rule of using college players. But this is the first time [he had] caught somebody in this infraction. So he pulled the league franchise from the Packers and Curly Lambeau and that franchise certificate that was originally sent to Lambeau was returned to my grandfather as a sanction for him breaking the rule. That original certificate still belongs in our family," says James Carr, grandson of Joe F. Carr.10