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

by Chris Willis

  As the Carr family moved forward, so did the NFL. But this time the owners weren't on the same page. In 1939 the NFL passed over 1 million paid fans in attendance (1,071,200) for the fifty-five regular-season games, as the sport continued to show more growth. With the league at an alltime high in popularity, the owners became divided in their opinion on who should be at the forefront leading them. Once again several owners started a discussion about hiring a "big-name" executive to run their organization. They wanted a "commissioner" to run the league similar to what Major League Baseball had with Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Heading into the 1940 off-season, the owners interviewed a few big names about the position.'

  George Preston Marshall and G. A. Richards combined their efforts into recruiting a big-name person to succeed Carr. In December of 1939, they had a conversation with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover about taking the job. "Sorry but I cannot consider the proposition at this time," Hoover said in a telegram. The owners then quickly moved to their most popular choice. About the same time they approached Hoover, the owners chatted with Arch Ward, the promotional genius who also was the sports editor at the Chicago Tribune, about the job. George Halas approached Ward and offered him the position with an unbelievable offer of $25,000 a year for ten years. But Ward was not interested, saying, "[I] could not overlook the splendid opportunities in my position with the Chicago Tribune." The owners were now 0-for-2, and time was slipping away before the spring meeting to select a president.'

  Storck was confident he would be reelected despite the rumors of the owners wanting a bigger name. "I warmed up to the work for the start. If the league re-elects me and requests that I make the office a full-time job I feel sure I would be more inclined to comply with their wishes than I was last spring." Storck was still working for General Motors, but spending all his time as NFL president was something he wanted to do. "I will continue to carry on and give the league my best efforts; it is likely that I will retain the president's office in my home at Dayton."5

  On April 13 in New York the owners met to prepare for the 1940 NFL season and to vote on who would be the next NFL president. Instead of a multiyear contract, the league was back to the one-year deals that dominated the early years. Marshall, who most owners expected to oppose Storck's reelection, remained silent when Carr's protege was selected for one more year. After the meeting Marshall talked to the press: "I think Storck is a fine executive but I can name a better one. However, I know of no available candidate now ... all is harmony, and we've done more on the first day at this meeting than any one I ever attended before."6

  Storck's hard work was rewarded again, but he would be on a short leash. Some of the NFL owners-led by outspoken George Preston Marshall-didn't think he was the right person to lead the league. The year 1940 would be Storck's last as NFL president. Marshall's frustration from the off-season continued into the NFL season. His Redskins dominated the regular season, winning the Eastern Division with a 9-2 record. In the NFL Championship Game the Redskins hosted the Chicago Bears (who won the Western Division with an 8-3 record), who they defeated 7-3 late in the season. After that game Marshall had called the Bears a "bunch of crybabies." Little did Marshall know he would regret saying those words. In the championship game on December 8, the Bears pummeled the Redskins 73-0, unleashing the modern T-formation on the NFL and giving Halas his fourth NFL title.

  Shortly after the season several owners continued their onslaught of hiring a "big-name sports executive" to be their next leader. Poor Carl L. Storck-who had been involved with the NFL since it was founded in Canton, Ohio, in 1920-was the sacrificial lamb. "My father was so honest and always jovial and friendly with everyone in the NFL. He got along with everyone," says Dolores Seitz, daughter of Carl L. Storck. Except for one. "[Marshall] is the only one I ever knew that he did not. He was the new guy on the block and he was going to come in and change everything to his way of thinking," says Seitz.'

  In the end Marshall won out. Before the spring meeting Marshall and the owners made another offer to Arch Ward. He declined again, but this time he offered an alternate. He recommended Notre Dame athletic director Elmer Layden-who became famous on the field as one of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame during the Roaring Twenties. He was the big name the NFL was looking for, although he had never been an executive in the professional ranks. As the meeting approached, Storck defended his reputation and his lifetime of work with the NFL.

  This morning two club owners came to me as a committee to see how I stood. That was the first time they had ever consulted me on the matter of a commissionership. I told them how would you feel in my place? I told them I haven't a letter in my files criticizing my work as president for two years. They made the rules and I simply enforced them. I've been in this league for 20 years-not for the money but because I loved it.

  I told the league I would serve as president under Layden only on the provision that I get a contract which defines my duties. I have nothing against Layden, but I don't think he knows what a contract or a waiver means. And while they say they have, I tell you they haven't got enough votes for him yet.

  For 15 years I worked for nothing. Two years ago when I became president I didn't quit my job with General Motors because I was afraid something like this would happen."

  But it was too late. Marshall had the votes. Knowing he didn't want to work under Layden, Storck resigned as president. The owners hired Elmer Layden to be the NFL's first commissioner. He signed a five-year contract for $20,000 a year. Storck left the NFL with a broken heart. "I am convinced that Layden is not qualified to handle the job, due mostly to his lack of administrative experience in professional sports. Layden was steamrolled into his job when George Halas and Arch Ward saw an opportunity to put it across."9 Even if the owners wanted a more wellknown name to run their organization, the ousting of Storck-after his lifetime of work-was not the proper thing to do. Over time Storck would never get over leaving the NFL the way he did.

  "He was heartbroken. That's what I always thought my father died of was heartbreak," says Dolores Seitz, daughter of Carl L. Storck. "He was just stunned I guess. It was shortly after that he had the stroke. I thought leaving the NFL is what caused the stroke. I do think what he did helped the NFL. I think it helped the NFL become bigger and more important." In the end Storck died from a broken heart. On March 13, 1950, just nine years after resigning from the NFL, Storck died from numerous health issues in a Dayton nursing home. He was just fifty-six years old.'°

  Storck was right about Layden. Despite his success on the gridiron, Layden lacked the leadership skills to help further the NFL. Although the NFL was greatly effected by World War II, with players serving overseas, Layden failed to recognize the growing field of television to help promote the NFL. When Layden's five-year contract expired, the owners looked at one of their own to lead them. In 1946 they hired Bert Bell as NFL commissioner. The man Carr gave an NFL franchise to in Philadelphia back in 1933 moved the league's office from Chicago to the city of Brotherly Love. His leadership guided the NFL to greater heights through the "fabulous fifties" and made the NFL a staple on television. The league was now in good hands.

  On August 30, 1950, Josie Carr, the beloved widow of Joe F. Carr, died at her home of natural causes at the age of seventy. She was buried next to her husband. Seven years later, the Carr family was once again struck by a death in the family. On July 2, 1957, Joseph F. Carr Jr. died of a sudden heart attack at the age of forty-one. Just like his father, Buddy was stricken with a weak heart that took his life much too soon. He left behind his sister, Mary; his wife, Marjorie; and five young boys. On July 5 after a small ceremony at St. Catharine Church in Columbus, Joe Carr Jr. was buried next to his father at St. Joseph's Cemetery.

  n 1961 paid attendance in the NFL exceeded 4 million for the first time .ever. The year before saw the country's second professional league formed, with the American Football League (AFL) playing in eight citiesgiving pro football twenty-one different franchises from coast to
coast. Professional football was now a big-time business. The founders and pioneers of the sport could rejoice. Ever since Major League Baseball opened its Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in 1939, there had been talk of football having its own shrine. Cities such as Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and Buffalo, New York, wrote proposals to build a museum but nothing happened. Then the city where the NFL was founded suddenly got to work.

  On December 6, 1959, Clayton Horn, the editor of the Canton Repository, instructed one of his sportswriters-Chuck Such-to issue a Hall of Fame challenge to the city of Canton. The headline read, "Pro Football Needs a Hall of Fame and Logical Site Is Here." This headline raised a lot of eyebrows around the city, but none rose higher than those of H. H. Timken Jr., the chairman of the board at Canton's largest industry, the Timken Rollar Bearing Company. He called Such to offer his support and assigned the company's recreation director, Earl Schreiber, to the project. Other cities which also applied for the potential site at this time were Detroit and Pittsburgh. But it was too late; Canton was well in front of everybody, and on January 25, 1961, at the NFL's owners meeting in New York, the city of Canton made a formal bid for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.'

  William Umstattd, chairman of the executive committee at Timken, accompanied Schreiber to New York for the meeting to be held at the Warwick Hotel. They showed the NFL owners a scale model of the proposed hall (not one owner looked at it) and gave a short three-minute presentation in which Umstattd estimated the cost of the Hall of Fame to be $350,000. He also said the city of Canton would donate $250,000 while Mr. Timken himself would donate $100,000. At this point the owners began to listen. Three months later at an NFL meeting in San Francisco, Canton was selected as the Hall of Fame city.

  A fund-raising campaign started on December 7, 1961, and in less than three months, the city raised $378,026 through community pledges. Pro football had found a home for its Hall of Fame, where the greats of the sport would live on forever. Dick McCann, an executive with the Washington Redskins, was selected as the Hall of Fame's first director. Canton's hard work became a reality with a ground breaking ceremony on August 11, 1962, when NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle (who had replaced the recently deceased Bert Bell in 1960) shoveled the first dirt. The ceremony also launched the annual Hall of Fame game series at Fawcett Stadium-the high school field that was located across the street from the site of the Hall of Fame.

  At the end of the 1962 season, the Hall of Fame selected fourteen men to help vote for the charter class of enshrinees. The selection committee would select seventeen charter members from a list of the game's great players and contributors. The committee consisted of twelve sportswriters (one from each NFL city) and two former NFL stars:

  1. Lewis Atchison (Washington Star)

  2. Jimmy Conzelman (former NFL player-coach)

  3. Arthur Daley (New York Times)

  4. Art Daley (Green Bay Press-Gazette)

  5. Herb Good (Philadelphia Inquirer)

  6. Sam Greene (Detroit News)

  7. Chuck Heaton (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

  8. Charles Johnson (Minneapolis Star)

  9. Jack McDonald (San Francisco News-Call Bulletin)

  10. Paul Menton (Baltimore Evening Sun)

  11. Bob Oates (Los Angeles Herald-Examiner)

  12. Davey O'Brien (former NFL quarterback)

  13. Jack Sell (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

  14. George Strickler (Chicago Tribune)

  The committee poured over eighty potential candidates for election, and after reviewing all of the names, they finally made their choices. On January 29, 1963, the Hall of Fame held a press conference to reveal the seventeen names. Hall of Fame director McCann spoke of these great men.

  The selectors can be proud of their dedicated efforts. When you look back over the great long line of pro football players (and contributors) it wasn't an easy task to settle upon just a few. Many have been great. But this is a long, firm stride toward catching up with the past.

  These are the milestone men of pro football. Their deeds and dogged faith wrote the history of this great game.'

  McCann then rattled off the seventeen names-eleven players and six contributors. The names of the first Hall of Fame class read like the names on the Declaration of Independence. These were the founding fathers of professional football. The eleven players were

  1. Sammy Baugh

  2. Dutch Clark

  3. Red Grange

  4. Mel Hein

  5. Pete Henry (deceased)

  6. Cal Hubbard

  7. Don Hutson

  8. Johnny "Blood" McNally

  9. Bronko Nagurski

  10. Ernie Nevers

  11. Jim Thorpe (deceased)

  Hearing the names of the six contributors would have been personally gratifying to the late Joe F. Carr, as they all worked closely to make professional football and the NFL a successful and stable sports organization. They were also his close friends.

  1. Bert Bell (deceased in 1959)

  2. George Halas

  3. Curly Lambeau

  4. Tim Mara (deceased in 1959)

  5. George Preston Marshall

  The sixth and final contributor was Joe F. Carr. Twenty-four years after his death Carr was going to join sixteen other pioneers to be immortalized in the sport's ultimate shrine. For the panel of selectors, Carr's election was a simple choice. Voter Paul Menton of the Baltimore Evening Sun said it best about the man who cleaned up professional football. "One man was largely responsible for stopping these shenanigans, bringing money men into the sport, blending the group into a solid league which slowly gained respect. That's why I think Joe F. Carr, the National League's first president for some eighteen years before his death, deserves the honor of being the first person picked for the new Hall of Fame."'

  The seventeen charter members were scheduled to be inducted at the Hall of Fame dedication on September 7, 1963, although the Carr family would not be invited. "There was supposed to be an invitation extended to her [daughter Mary Carr] and us boys so that we could be part of the induction ceremony," says James Carr, grandson of Joe F. Carr. "But there was no invitation extended."4 But several families-especially those of deceased members-weren't involved in the first ceremony. The families of Jim Thorpe, Pete Henry, and Bert Bell didn't attend to accept the honor for their loved ones either. The Hall of Fame wanted star power for the first ceremony, so David Lawrence, special assistant to the U.S. president; Philip Hart, senator from Michigan; Byron "Whizzer" White, who went from the gridiron to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice; Harry Aben- droth, major general; and other celebrities served as presenters for the Hall of Famers.

  To represent the Carr family, the Hall of Fame selected Earl Schreiber, president of the Hall of Fame, to act as presenter for Carr, and Dan Tehan, former NFL official who was hired by the late Joe F. Carr, accepted the honor on behalf of the Carr family. "Let me say it was a great thrill to receive on behalf of the Carr family, the Joe Carr replica at Canton as his memory was honored by induction into the professional Football Hall of Fame, " recalled Dan Tehan in a 1964 interview.' On the day of the dedication, the city of Canton rolled out the red carpet. On a beautiful September day the Hall of Fame's first induction weekend-nicknamed "Pro Football's Greatest Weekend"-started at 9:30 a.m. with a parade through the city that ended at the steps of the Hall of Fame. Then immediately after the parade the induction ceremony was held in Fawcett Stadium in front of a crowd of over 6,000 football fans. After a welcome by Canton mayor James Lawhun, the ceremony got started with the induction of George Halas, who remembered his first trip to Canton back in 1920.

  On my trip down here, my memory was stirred back quite a few years when I think of the wonderful men who did so much to develop football in this area and throughout the country. Such fellas like the Nesser brothers, Ralph Hay, Frank McNeil, Leo Lyons, Joe Carr of the Columbus Panhandles, who was president of the National Football League from 1921 to 1939, some 18 years and you may be sure that so
me of those years were pretty tough. They were pioneers and this is the land where football set its roots and here is the Hall of Fame where its history and traditions will be preserved and remem- bered.6

  The roll call continued with names such as Grange, Mara, Nevers, Hubbard, Henry, Clark, and Lambeau, and then it was time for Joe F. Carr to take his turn to enter the hallowed place of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame president Schreiber praised the son of an Irish immigrant.

  Joe Carr was the engineer of organized pro football. The little railroader put it on the right track for its ride from rags to riches. He started as manager of the Columbus Panhandles, a railroad yard team whose lineup had almost nobody but Nessers. Turning to newspaper work he became a force in organized baseball, and he was sure pro football could be developed along the same lines. His urging led to formation of the league, in its second year he took over as president. His faith had blinkers but not once did his eyes leave the rails which gleamed ahead towards his major league goal. Not once, till death shattered them. Too bad you say he's not here to proudly survey results of his devotion. Yes, but actually he's already seen it. Like he kept trying to tell so many of these people and so many others. Joe Carr saw it all down the tracks through the mist a long time ago. Receiving for Joe Carr, Sheriff of Cincinnati, Dan Tehan, football official in this league for thirty-four years ... Dan Tehan.'