New FB Acquisitions

[TanksAndSpartans]

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne

There were lots and lots of really great players in the 20s and 30s who either didn't play professional football at all or had short careers and quit. I think it mostly had to do with deciding that it was time to find a career to pursue as playing football just wasn't lucrative enough to make it worthwhile for most. For those athletes not interested in business, law, or medicine, it seems like coaching / athletic administration was the field of choice and so a lot quit football to become coaches or went straight into coaching after college.

I can probably rattle off 10-20 players that, if they had just continued playing the sport, would be in the pro football HOF today.

jeff

Right, that's a really good point Jeff. I actually did some research on players from the 30s that I'll share with the board before the end of the summer and I realized the same - for any career 3-4 years (even though that seemed short to me at first) I gave consideration to the player for my analysis. A lot of them had short careers/moved on like you said. Not sure of the effect of the depression - it could probably be argued some played a little longer due to lack of better alternatives - I have no idea on that one.

But Nevers? Such a huge name, I wouldn't have guessed that Grange's career was essentially twice as long..

[Hot Springs Bathers]

There is a fair bio on Nagurski that came out about ten years ago by Jim Dent, MONSTER OF THE MIDWAY.

While I consider Dent the best college football author of this era this is not his best effort though still very readable. Apparently Bronko made twice the money wrestling than he did in football during those years. Perhaps a bigger factor was that he had a very private personality, he loved farm life and later he owned a gas station in International Falls and just didn't like travel that much.

I wrote to him twice, sending black and white 8 x10s and both times he signed them very quickly and sent them back, very nice man. I did the same with Grange back in the early 80's and he did the same. I always felt like I had the Ruth and Cobb of football!

[jefferyepayne]

Originally Posted by DezHood

Right, that's a really good point Jeff. I actually did some research on players from the 30s that I'll share with the board before the end of the summer and I realized the same - for any career 3-4 years (even though that seemed short to me at first) I gave consideration to the player for my analysis. A lot of them had short careers/moved on like you said. Not sure of the effect of the depression - it could probably be argued some played a little longer due to lack of better alternatives - I have no idea on that one.

But Nevers? Such a huge name, I wouldn't have guessed that Grange's career was essentially twice as long..

Nevers footage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pttgKlG8Vds

Enjoy!

jeff