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

by Chris Willis

  During intermission President Carr spoke to the crowd over the field mike. He promised rule changes for next season that would make professional football more replete with thrilling plays. He was then given a big ovation. Both teams seemed to be feeling each other out in the first half, but the second half would be a different story, as the fans and the rest of the country would get a chance to see the future of the NFL. Coach Halas rallied his troops. "Halas says 'We can win this ball game. We've just been making a few mistakes out there. Just play the kind of ball that we're capable of playing and there'll be no doubt you can win this ball game,"' said George Musso in a 1999 interview with NFL Films.60

  In the second half the fans saw the lead bounce back and forth with one exciting play after another. In the third quarter Manders kicked his third field goal to give the Bears a 9-7 advantage. The Giants then came back with a sixty-one-yard drive ending with a one-yard Moose Krause touchdown plunge to regain the lead at 14-9. The scoring had just begun, but one spectator already thought his team was going to win. "I used to sit on the bench in those days, " recalled Wellington Mara, who was seventeen years old at the time. "I remember they kicked a field goal, kicked two field goals. We scored a touchdown. They kicked a field goal. We scored a touchdown. I remember saying, boy this is great. We'll trade a field goal for a TD anytime. 1161

  The Bears quickly retaliated by scoring on a play made famous one year earlier in the "Indoor Circus." Deep in Giants territory, Halas called for a line plunge by Bronko Nagurski, who would then stop short and pull back to toss a pass to rookie Bill Karr. It worked perfectly for an eightyard score. Now that you could pass from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage, this play didn't cause any uproar from the Giants. The third quarter ended with the Bears leading 16-14 and the Giants driving again. Carr and the other 26,000 spectators had just witnessed three lead changes in one single quarter. Both offenses were playing the wide-open, exciting, entertaining game that Carr and the other owners envisioned when they made the rule changes just ten months earlier. Carr was on the edge of his seat, so excited to see how this great game would end.

  On the first play of the fourth quarter, with the ball at the Chicago eight yard line, Ken Strong took a handoff. But then he became trapped near the sideline and lateraled the pigskin back to a surprised Harry Newman. "Ken Strong took the ball and he went across the field. [But] he couldn't find an opening," remembered Harry Newman in a 1999 NFL Films interview. "Meanwhile, I'd gone to my right. He threw the ball back to me. The Bears all followed me. I tried to go through, find a hole. I couldn't find one. I started back. I looked and there was Ken waving his arms over the goal line. I threw the ball back to him for a touchdown."62

  The remarkable touchdown caused the hometown crowd to moan, but also ooh and ah, because the lead changed hands once again. Late in the fourth quarter and down 21-16, the Bears came back again one final time. After a Keith Molesworth pass to Carl Brumbuagh brought the ball to the Giants thirty-three yard line, the next play saw the Bears pull off one of the most amazing plays in NFL history. Nagurski took the handoff and threw a quick jump pass to a helmetless Bill Hewitt from his left end position. After Hewitt gained fourteen yards, two Giants defenders converged on his left. Hewitt then saw teammate Bill Karr coming hard on his right and in a split second he lateraled the ball to Karr. Caught by surprise, the Giants watched the rookie from West Virginia sprint the remaining nineteen yards for a stunning touchdown.

  The Windy City crowd erupted, as did George Halas on the sidelines. "We called it 'Little Pea Pass.' It worked for us many a time that play," recalled George Musso. It was the sixth lead change of the game, and it gave the Bears a 23-21 lead late in the fourth quarter. Carr asked himself, could the Giants come back one more time? He was about to see one more great play.63

  When the Giants got the ball back again there were only a few seconds remaining. Newman faded back and threw his twelfth completion of the day (on seventeen attempts) to wingback Dale Burnett, who broke open in the Bears' secondary. Racing a few steps behind him was All-Pro center Mel Hein. Standing in between the two Giants players was the great Red Grange, and he knew quickly what Burnett wanted to do. He had just seen the Bears pull off a lateral, so Grange wasn't about to see the NFL title slip away on another.

  "I could see he wanted to lateral, so I didn't go low. I hit him around the ball and pinned his arms," said Grange after the game. After the two men fell to the ground, the gun sounded ending the game. The crowd let out a big gasp and then roared for joy as the Bears won their second straight NFL title and the league's first championship game. "Red Grange saved the game for Chicago ... that quick thinking prevented a score on the last play," said Tim Mara after the game. George Halas would always say "that play Grange made was the greatest defensive play I ever saw."64

  The two teams left Wrigley Field knowing that they played the best they possibly could. The public and press nationwide agreed the NFL's first championship game was a big hit. The headlines and game recaps across the country proclaimed the action on the field:

  National Pro Football Honors Won by Bears in Spectacular Aerial Struggle ... the struggle was a revelation to college coaches who advocate no changes in the rules. It was strictly an offensive battle and the professional rule of allowing passes thrown from any point behind the line of scrimmage was responsible for most of the thrills.-Nezv York Times

  Fans Call Bears' Win Greatest Grid Game-Chicago American

  Universal comment on Sunday's game was that the Giants and Bears staged the greatest offensive battle in modern football.-Wilfrid Smith, Chicago Tribune

  The game was a brilliant display of offensive power ... in one of the most spectacular games ever witnessed.-Associated Press

  Chicago Bears Capture "World Series" of Pros.... [The] most dramatic football game ever played.-Burlington (North Carolina) Daily-Times

  I advocated their forward pass rule for the colleges last year. The BearsGiants game is proof that it produces a more open contest with resulting thrills for the spectators.-Dick Hanley, Northwestern University head coach, who attended the game."

  The first NFL Championship Game was a huge success, and Carr quietly rejoiced inside. All the hard work over the past twelve months; including taking the risk of establishing new rules to break away from the more popular college game, had paid off. After the game Carr broke down the gate receipts and announced the good news to everyone involved. The net receipts of the game, after paying the tax, park rental of Wrigley Field (cost-$3,170.77), and expenses of staging the game, were $14,606.92. Of this amount, 60 percent was to go to the players based on the meeting in Columbus. The Bears would take 60 percent of that pie for winning, which came out to $210.84 dollars per player. The Giants got 40 percent, or $140.22 per player. The two franchises received $2,101.04 each and the league received $1,460.66

  The money was secondary-although the players enjoyed the extra cash-to Carr. The tremendous publicity by the press and the enthusiasm for a title game shown by the fans is what Carr wanted to see. "[We] are primarily interested in developing a spectacular scoring game. We haven't the pageantry that goes with college games, hence as a substitute we must offer wide open play, with frequent scoring. Then too, we are not compelled to throw as tight a wall of protection around our players. They are more mature, more experienced than the collegians and thus are better able to protect themselves."67 The NFL now had is own identity and something to sell to the public for the future.

  n the eve of the 1933 championship game, President Joe F. Carr reflected on a very successful season. "Professional football has been conducted upon a high plane of sportsmanship and has increased each year in popularity. This year pro football drew the largest crowds in its history," he said to the press gathered in Chicago. Counting the championship game, the NFL saw an attendance figure of 657,594 (fifty-three of the fifty-eight games reported in newspaper accounts) fans.'

  The NFL increased the number of games played in 1933 (forty-eight in
1932 to fifty-eight in 1933) , and Carr was correct in that the league saw an increase in the total number of fans attending games-599,561 in 1932 to 657,594 in 1933-but the average per game fell just a little, from 12,490 per game to 11,337 per game. So there was plenty of work to be done. There was no time to rest on his laurels. As for the rule changes helping open up the game, Carr was extremely pleased with the increased scoring, excitement of the games, and the reduction of tie games.2

  The NFL had a tremendous jump in field goals made, from the embarrassing six in 1932 to a whopping thirty-nine (including the three kicked in the NFL Championship Game) in 1933. The league average for scoring jumped from 16.4 points per game to 19.4, and the tie games went down from ten to just five. The new rules would pay off in a big way in 1934, when the league didn't have one tie game. Also in 1933, Carr's recruitment of a new trio of financially capable owners paid off. By selecting Bert Bell (Philadelphia), Charlie Bidwill (Chicago Cardinals), and Art Rooney (Pittsburgh) to run NFL franchises, Carr was suddenly making the league more stable than ever before.

  Table 21.1. Scoring/Tie Games Comparison

  While Carr rejoiced in these positives, he would quickly have to deal with the negatives. First up was what to do with the financially strapped Portsmouth Spartans. In 1933 the team lost money for the fourth straight year-nearly $14,000 in the hole. The small town and their not-so-wealthy board of directors just couldn't support an NFL team anymore. Spartans fans were admirably loyal but were just simply too small in number to provide big gates to help pay guarantees of $4,000 or $5,000 to the Bears or Giants-as well as a share of the gate. The owners failed to pay the players after some games too. Although they didn't want to sell the team, they had no choice.'

  "We didn't get paid for the last three or four games [in 1933]," recalled Glenn Presnell, former Spartans halfback. "We thought if we continued to play then somehow we'd get paid. But most of us didn't-at least I didn't."4 Carr was a big fan of the city of Portsmouth and how the team was operated. But he knew that he had to get the franchise out of there. His vision of the NFL being a big-city league was just about to swallow up and spit out the second-to-last attempt of a small-town team in the NFL. The city of Green Bay would be the only small-town franchise to survive from the NFL's humble beginnings.

  The Spartans would finish with a four-year record of 28-16-7; they almost won NFL titles in 1931 and 1932, and they participated in the league's first-ever playoff game-not a bad lasting legacy for the city of Portsmouth. Although all the players are now gone, the original NFL stadium that they built in 1930-Spartan Stadium-is still around and is being used every Friday night by two local high schools. Carr attended more games in Portsmouth over those four years than any other stadium (proximity to his home in Columbus was a big factor) and would miss the quintessential setting of Spartan Stadium. He now had to find a new location for the franchise.

  After the 1933 NFL season, Carr attended Major League Baseball's winter meetings in New York, as he was appointed the publicity director of minor league baseball earlier that year. By 1933 minor league baseball was in danger of collapsing. There were only twelve minor leagues in operation and most of them were in shaky financial condition. Carr eventually pumped life back into baseball's farm system, and by 1939 there were forty-one minor leagues in operation, twenty-eight of which were personally organized, sponsored, and launched by Carr.

  This extraordinary achievement didn't go unnoticed in later years. In 1935, Branch Rickey, who at that time was the general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, made Carr an offer. "If you give up football," Rickey was quoted as saying. "I'll make you the biggest man in baseball." Carr responded, "If that's the price I'd have to pay, I'll have no part of it." Carr knew where his heart was and nobody could take him away from it.'

  At the winter meetings Carr sought out H. G. Salsinger, the esteemed sports editor of the Detroit News. Carr knew that pro football had failed four times in Detroit. The Heralds (1920); Tigers (1921); Panthers (19251926), led by Jimmy Conzelman; and Benny Friedman's Wolverines (1928) all tried to capture the fancy of the Motor City but couldn't. Even with that track record, Carr still considered it a prime location for an NFL team. It was the perfect spot for the struggling Spartans.

  Carr met with Salsinger, who was well respected in the city when it came to his knowledge of sports. His connections would be vital in finding an investor. Salsinger was receptive to the idea of helping the league, so President Carr commissioned him an agent. Salsinger returned to Detroit and started to put together a committee of influential sportsmen, but they were still missing a key investor who would put up the money to buy the Spartans. While having lunch at the Detroit Athletic Club, Salsinger's group saw Leo Fitzpatrick, an executive at WJR radio in Detroit. The group thought Fitzpatrick's boss was the perfect man to invest-he had money and was a big football buff. Fitzpatrick listened to the proposition, liked it, and promised to relay the information to his boss-G. A. Richards.

  George Arthur Richards was a forty-five-year-old millionaire who was born in Illinois before moving to Detroit. In 1911 he became a very successful salesman for a tire company, which gradually developed into him running his own automobile dealership. Richards eventually sold his auto franchise to General Motors for a reported $100,000 to go into the emerging radio industry. The flamboyant Richards invested in two 50,000-watts stations in Detroit (WJR radio) and Cleveland (WGAR). In 1937 he would add KMPC of Hollywood, California, and his empire would be called the Richards Stations.

  In 1934 Richards was an established star in the radio industry, and WJR in Detroit was the city's most popular station, nicknamed "the Good Will Station." Richards was intrigued by the offer to own a franchise and felt honored that Carr would seek him out to invest. "My father was a rather small, five feet eight, but vocal man," says Rozene Supple, daughter of George Richards. "He always enjoyed sports, so it was a perfect fit for him." Richards was a fan of the NFL and had the financial means to support a franchise. It was a perfect combination. Carr then arranged for Richards to meet with Spartans executive Harry Snyder in Detroit to discuss the compensation for transfer. "It did not take much persuasion for me to enter the pro game," Richards said in October of 1934.6

  On March 23, one day after returning from Detroit, Snyder traveled to Columbus to confer with Carr on the negotiations relative to the transfer of the Spartans to Detroit. In his office Carr heard the terms in detail and announced that the agreement would be completed in ten days, because the Spartans shareholders had to officially sign off on the deal. On April 5 the stockholders met in the Shelby auditorium and agreed to sell. Richards and his syndicate agreed to purchase the Spartans for $15,000, which included the contracts of head coach Potsy Clark and all the players. He also agreed to pay off the remaining $6,500 (Lions media guide says $7,952.08) debt of the Portsmouth owners. Richards not only had an NFL franchise, he had an experienced, well-stocked, well-coached team.7

  Richards announced that the franchise's front office would include William Alfs, a local Detroit attorney, as vice president; Cy Huston, who operated billiard halls and bowling centers in Ann Arbor and Detroit, as general manager; and P. M. Thomas, an executive at WJR radio, as secretary-treasurer. He then revealed that the team would play its home games at University of Detroit Stadium (capacity 25,000). It was also announced that the new franchise would drop the Spartans nickname. Just like George Halas did in Chicago, Richards honored the city's baseball team, the Tigers, by choosing the ball team's more ferocious counterpart and named the squad the Detroit Lions. A team spokesperson would say, "The lion is monarch of the jungle and we hope to be the monarch of the league."8

  On April 10 Carr and Snyder attended a luncheon at the Statler Hotel in Detroit to officially announce the transfer and introduce the newest NFL franchise to the press. In a room filled with newspaper writers, newsreel cameras, and team executives, Carr, and Cy Huston (business manager) put their signatures on the league's paperwork. While speaking to the pre
ss (which included Tod Rockwell of the Detroit Free-Press and Frank MacDonell of Detroit Times), Carr stated he was thrilled to have Detroit back in the league and made a bold prediction for the NFL.

  I am interested in the development of the Detroit team. We have had several offers to place a team in this city, but have waited until the situation was placed in able hands. The pro game will be a success here. Detroit is recognized all over the country as a great sports town, and from what I already have learned, it will be represented by one of the best teams in the loop.

  Some outstanding critics were skeptical [of pro football] back in 1920. But a few years from now a crowd of 100,000 persons won't be unusual at a league professional game. As far back as 1925, 77,000 spectators saw the Bears and Giants play in New York.9

  Carr's vision got the best of him. He could see the future of the game growing, but Detroit was a city that had already seen several teams fail. But in his head, Carr could see it-a stadium with 100,000 screaming NFL fans. After returning from Detroit, Carr sat down with his secretary, Kathleen Rubadue, to start sending out the NFL Bulletins to all team owners. The purpose of these bulletins was for the president's office to release league information on player's contracts, free agents, suspended players, rules, meetings, and anything pertaining to the NFL. Carr had started sending out a version of these bulletins as far back as 1932 and very few issues have survived. On April 26, 1934, he sent out 1934 NFL Bulletin, number 1 (four pages in length) in which he covered, among other things, the announcement that George Preston Marshall had become the publisher at the Washington Times; the potential of a St. Louis franchise; a congratulatory letter to the new ownership in Detroit; and the members of the NFL Rules Committee, which included George Halas (chairman), Lud Wray, Steve Owen, Curly Lambeau, and Potsy Clark.'°