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

by Chris Willis

  Rubadue would type up the bulletins and mail them out. In 1934 he would send out a total of twenty-three bulletins. In the second NFL Bulletin (June 23), he announced the dates for the summer meeting, June 30 and July 1, at the Commodore Hotel in New York. The two-day session kicked off at 2:00 p.m. with Carr, Storck, and the ten NFL franchises all present. Carr announced that Dan Topping, a Greenwich, Connecticut, sportsman and golfer had purchased an interest in the Brooklyn Dodgers, joining John "Shipwreck" Kelly, who remained as team president. The league accepted the application of the Detroit franchise, and Carr called on Richards and Huston to give a few remarks which were "well received.""

  Carr then introduced Bert Bell to the group, because this was his firstever owners meeting. Bell gave a few short remarks that were "also well received." The owners must have been in a giddy mood, as they awarded the 1933 championship to the Bears next. Then a motion was brought up by Lud Wray and seconded by George Preston Marshall "that beginning with the 1934 season the game for the League Championship between the Eastern and Western be played in the Eastern section, the following year in the Western, and alternate each year. 1112 The motion carried easily. This was a simple rule for the owners to make by alternating sites for the annual championship game. Since the 1933 game was played in Chicago (Western team), the 1934 game would be played in the East.

  The owners then agreed to "have each club install in their home parks an electric clock that was in sight to spectators and records actual playing time during the game (cost: $150); they reelected Carr and Storck for one year; and that all officials wear arm bands, designating positions: R for referee; U for umpire; H for head linesman; and F for field judge. Arm bands are to be furnished by home club and created by President's office." All motions carried.13

  Before the first day ended Tim Mara made a motion that the "President be authorized to purchase 100 copies of book on professional football being published by Dr. Harry March, for distribution by Pres. in manner he deems best for the League." The motion carried. Published in 1934, Pro Football-It's Ups and Downs: A Light-Hearted History of the Post-Graduate Game would go down as the first ever single-volume book on the history of pro football. Printed by the J. B. Lyon Company of Albany, New York, the book contained 160 pages and forty-two photos on the history of the game beginning with the "Birth of Pro Football" in western Pennsylvania and going through the 1933 season with the Bears as champions of the NFL.14

  In short detail, and over time with inaccurate information, March wrote about the sport's important men, great players, key rules, famous games, and big moments. Within the pages were photos which included images of the six Nesser brothers, a head shot of NFL vice president Carl Storck, team photos of every NFL champion since 1920, and (on page 98) a nice studio portrait of NFL president Joe F. Carr.

  The book came out in limited release for seventy-five cents in leather and one dollar in binding and was sold at the ticket offices of the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. The book was also advertised in Giants programs as a favor by his good friend Tim Mara. Carr's office bought 100 copies, and he sent them out at his discretion. As the years passed March's book became a staple for sportswriters and authors who took his book as gospel when writing future books on the history of professional football. March mainly wrote his book on memory and didn't do any real research. In the end March's book should be taken for what it's really worth-"a light-hearted history of the post-graduate game." Over time the book has become a tough volume to find. In 2009 Abebooks.com listed six copies of March's book with prices ranging from $245 to $400, with a signed one listed at $1,250.11

  The second day began a 1:30 p.m., and the owners agreed to several rule changes: "that a player entering the game can talk to teammates; game officials tell team when last time-out is used; and any off-side penalty inside 10-yard line, is half the distance, instead of 10 yards." After the rules discussion Bert Bell brought up a motion (seconded by Tim Mara) that the "League obtain a suitable permanent trophy, to be known as the 'Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy,' said trophy to be transferred from year to year to the team winning the championship; each team winning the championship to be presented with a small replica of permanent trophy which remains property of championship club.""

  The motion carried and it was a great gesture by the owners to honor a very successful and popular football man. Ed Thorp was a respected college football official whose family ran a sporting goods store in New York. Thorp had worked the January 1 Rose Bowl matchup between Columbia and Stanford as the side judge before dying of a heart attack on June 23 at the age of forty-eight. Thorp was good friends with Carr, Bell, and Mara, and they all thought this would be a great honor to bestow on their fallen comrade. It was also a great idea to have a formal trophy awarded to NFL teams for winning the NFL title-as the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy became the precursor of the NFL's Super Bowl Lombardi Trophy"

  To wrap up the summer meeting, a motion called for "the President to develop a Professional Football Rule Book, for distribution among members, such a book to be ready on or before August 1, 1934."18 The motion carried and Carr put together an NFL rule book for every team. Upon returning to his office Carr received a letter from the family of Ed Thorp.

  My Dear Mr. Carr:

  Words fail me in expressing to you the deep sense of appreciation I feel towards you for your devotion to Ed [Thorp] in having the league offer a Memorial Trophy in his name. I don't know of anything finer in the field of sports.... Lots of thanks. Sincerely yours,

  Tom Thorp19

  The letter from Ed Thorp's brother meant a lot to Carr; he put it in his scrapbook, where very few letters made it. When Carr sent out the newest NFL Bulletin on July 7, a name under the recently released players list probably didn't draw any interest from the ten NFL owners. On the seventh line under player movements, the name of Joe Lillard appeared as being cut by the Chicago Cardinals. After Ray Kemp, the release of Lillard meant there were no black players in the NFL. Starting with the 1934 season and going until the summer of 1946, when a foursome of black players (Kenny Washington and Woody Strode signed with the NFL's Los Angeles Rams; Marion Motley and Bill Willis signed with the All-America Football Conference's [AAFC's] Cleveland Browns) joined professional football teams, no black players would play in the NFL 2°

  Historians and sportswriters have claimed that there was a "gentlemen's agreement" that excluded black players from the NFL. In the league minutes from those years, there is no such rule on record. Joe F. Carr had always allowed black players to play in the league for the past thirteen seasons, as thirteen black players played in the NFL over those years. He also covered black athletes as a sportswriter, and he allowed his Panhandles team to play against black players. Even as late as 1921, on November 6, he invited the Akron Pros, with Fritz Pollard and Paul Robeson, to play his squad in his hometown of Columbus.

  The disappearance of the black players in the NFL has always been a mystery that nobody wanted to solve. Owners such as George Halas and Art Rooney gave the same answers when asked the question of the supposed "gentlemen's agreement." "There weren't very many black ball players at that time." "Blacks just didn't play football." "As far as I'm concerned there was no such thing [as an agreement]. I can sincerely tell you that that was never part of our club," said Art Rooney. "In no way, shape or form, " recalled George Halas in 1970. While writing his book Pro Football: It's Ups and Downs in 1934, Harry March wrote two pages on early black players and claimed that "there is no rule against it ... there is no such agreement in the football League ... such a rule would likely lead to litigation, the colored man claiming his constitutional rights of equality were being violated.""

  No documents have been found to suggest an anti-black policy existed in the NFL. The answer may lie more in the time period of the so-called agreement. As scholar Gerald Gems wrote in 1988, "The Depression took both an economic and psychological toll on white America, as blacks were perceived as threats, or at least competitors for jobs."22 The
thought of paying a black player over a white one probably didn't make sense at this time. In the subsequent years, several owners did try to sign black players. In 1934 Rooney wanted to bring Kemp back but didn't and Halas tried to sign Ozzie Simmons (Iowa) in 1936 and Kenny Washington (University of California at Los Angeles) in 1939 to no avail.

  One of the supporters of a "gentlemen's agreement" could have been George Preston Marshall, who openly expressed his anti-black opinion in public and was the last NFL owner to reintegrate his team (in 1962) after the so-called ban was lifted in 1946. "1 definitely don't like to hear it. But I do think you've gotta talk about the times that this all happened," says Jordan Wright, granddaughter of George Preston Marshall. "For him it was a business decision. He didn't want to lose his fan base. Now he didn't triumph the cause of the underprivileged or the lower classes or other races. He did not. So I hate to have to defend him in that. It makes me very uncomfortable and it's a legacy that I'm stuck with. I don't like it.23

  "I just wish people would at least put it in context of the period of the day and how it was for everybody. I don't think anybody wanted to stick their neck out. I don't think anyone wanted to say 'I'm gonna be the first person to put a black person in a prominent position in my company.' He certainly bore the weight of those bad decisions. For us it was appalling," says Wright 24 If there was an agreement nobody actually knows what roles Carr or the other owners played in establishing the color barrier. In the end the twelve years of no black players on NFL gridirons is one of the biggest injustices in NFL history.

  On July 6, 1934, the pages of the Chicago Tribune carried an announcement of what the newspaper described as the "most unusual football game ever scheduled." This game would be played on the evening of August 31 at Soldier Field, the city's magnificent lakefront stadium, and the participants would be a professional team, the Chicago Bears of the NFL, and a squad of college All-Americans made up of players who had just completed their eligibility in the previous season (1933)."

  The man behind this idea was Arch Ward, the esteemed sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, who established Major League Baseball's All-Star Game the previous summer in Chicago. When Chicago's Century of Progress World's Fair was extended into 1934, Mayor Ed Kelly of the city asked Ward to arrange yet another unique sporting event. When the announcement of the game appeared in the Tribune on July 6, Ward said that "the game will stand as football's contribution to the Century of Progress Exposition."26

  The game was to be sponsored by the Tribune and the proceeds were to be donated to Chicago-area charities. Ward announced that major newspapers across the country would help in conducting a national vote by fans to select the College All-Stars team and coaches. Many conferences objected to the game, but most college coaches felt it was a great honor. In the end nearly thirty newspapers worked with the Tribune in conducting the vote. For the player poll, the two individuals at each position receiving the highest vote totals would be invited on the team, with an additional ten or so players joining as backups.

  Carr gave his blessing to the game and worked with Ward to get the exhibition contest as much publicity as he could. Halas didn't mind helping his friend Ward either, by agreeing to have his team play in the game. As the contest approached, Ward waged a relentless publicity campaign in the pages of the Chicago Tribune by painting the matchup of professional and collegians as an event that football fans across the country were eagerly anticipating. He also billed the College All-Stars as the "People's Team."

  Balloting closed on July 25 and a total of approximately 165,000 votes had been cast. Among the stars selected were halfback Beattie Feathers (Tennessee); quarterbacks Bernie Masterson (Nebraska) and Joe Laws (Iowa); fullback George Sauer (Nebraska); and ends Bill Smith (Washington) and Sid Gillman (Ohio State). Most of the college stars selected had just signed pro contracts-which didn't make their respective NFL teams too happy. As a matter of fact, Feathers and Masterson would be playing against their future teammates as Halas had signed the duo to play for the Bears.

  As for the coach, Noble Kizer of Purdue was selected by the fans, and he would be pitted against the great football mind of George Halas. A few weeks before the game, Carr attended a baseball meeting at the Hotel New Yorker in the city and was asked to compare the two sports he had helped organize.

  This avid interest 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 outdrew baseball or any other sport, game for game.

  And in making this predication, 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 is not comparable to that in football.27

  Carr's unrestrained belief in the NFL and the game of professional football never seemed to hold back his imagination. He truly believed the words he spoke when talking about the future of the sport. It was not just hollow talk to him. It was his vision, and he could see it in his mind. He could see what the sport could become.

  On August 31 the Chicago Tribune Charity Football Game took place at Soldier Field featuring thirty-five college stars and the NFL's Chicago Bears. One hundred and thirty newspapers from twenty-two states had requested press credentials, while WGN radio carried the game. After visiting with Ward on the field, Carr was one of the 79,433 fans to jam into the stadium (sitting in section 21 of the grandstand) to see a clash of styles. From the start the crowd was mesmerized by the pageantry of the game, starting with the spotlight introduction of the collegiate squad in an otherwise darkened stadium. As for the game itself the two teams didn't give the large crowd much to cheer about. The Bears were playing their first game of the season, and the college squad had been together for only a few weeks. The game ended in a scoreless tie.

  Carr hated to see games with no scoring, especially when weather wasn't an issue. Writing in the September 14 edition of the NFL Bulletin, he said, "COACHES should be instructed to use as much open play as possible in all of our games. The more you open the game up, the larger our crowds will be." Despite the lack of scoring in the charity game the reaction by the press and fans was very encouraging. The Associated Press wrote, "The result was a moral victory for the All-Stars, who out-played the National Football League team, out-gaining and out-maneuvering their foes with dazzling speed," and Ward included in his recap that "[It] was a football game long to be remembered." After the game the Tribune had $21,000 left to spread out over the three local charities. The exhibition game was a complete success. The NFL's fifteenth season began on September 9, and for the entire year it looked as if two teams in the same division would make histor .28

  The newly formed Detroit Lions roared out of the gate by winning their first seven games-all by shutouts. The city of Portsmouth would have been proud of "their boys." After three more wins, the Lions under Potsy Clark stood at 10-0. Equally as dominating were the Chicago Bears, who also won their first ten games by outscoring their opponents 240-57. Behind the blocking of Bronko Nagurski, the Bears' rookie halfback Beattie Feathers made NFL history by becoming the first player to rush for 1,000 yards in a single season. Feathers finished the 1934 season with 1,004 yards (averaging an amazing 8.44 yards per carry). With back-to-back games to be played at the end the season, the two powerhouse teams were on a collision course to decide the Western Division title.

  As the season was rolling along, President Carr was faced with a crisis. The Cincinnati Reds franchise was in big trouble. Kearns and McCoy, who brought the team into the NFL in 1933, handed over the franchise to a five-man group of investors before the season started. But the team was a disaster in every single way, as they scored a paltry ten points in eight league games and attendance was lagging. Only 2,000 fans showed up for the game against the Cardinals on October 7, and three weeks later the Reds moved their game aga
inst the Lions to Spartan Stadium in Portsmouth.

  The end came on November 5 when the club announced it was surrendering its franchise to the league because it could not pay its players or bills. The next day the Reds took the field for the last time. The game was a classic. At Temple Stadium against the Philadelphia Eagles, and with morale low, the Reds lost 64-0. Carr worked quickly to move the Reds franchise. He contacted the St. Louis Gunners, a very successful independent team that had been trying to get into the NFL for several years, to see if they would take on the Reds players and finish the remaining three NFL games on their schedule. They agreed.

  On November 11 Carr traveled to St. Louis to attend the Gunners' first NFL game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. After speaking to the crowd of 13,700, Carr sat with St. Louis mayor Bernard Dickman to witness the Gunners pull off a surprise 6-0 win over the Pirates. The Gunners would go on to lose the remaining two games. Carr was satisfied that his league didn't have to cancel the games because of the failed Reds owners. But he wasn't too happy with himself by being so wrong in choosing the ownership to begin with. He didn't want the league to experience anymore setbacks like this.

  As the season wound down the New York Giants wrapped up the Eastern Division with a mediocre 8-5 record. The only good thing was that they would be hosting the 1934 NFL Championship Game at the Polo Grounds. Carr and the rest of the league were gearing up to see who would come out of the West, with the Bears and Lions about to play two games for all the marbles-with one of the games making NFL history. Early in the season Lions owner G. A. Richards saw that his team was struggling at the box office. In their first five home games, the Lions averaged 11,600 fans per game, and with the Tigers in the World Series, Richards saw his team usually on the back page of the sports section. So he came up with an idea that changed the NFL forever.