2025 PFRA CONVENTION
July 10-13, 2025
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota
Watch this space for additional details about the convention.
The 2025 PFRA (Professional Football Researchers Association) Convention will be held in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN at the Drury Plaza Hotel located at 175 10th St. E in Downtown St. Paul during the weekend of July 10-13, 2025. The Convention sessions will take place during the evening of Friday July 11 and all day Saturday July 12 with add-on activities on Thursday July 10, Friday July 11, and Sunday July 13. The theme of the 2025 Convention will be A Celebration of Minnesota’s Pro Football Legacy. The fee for the Convention will be $75 for PFRA members and member spouses and $100 for non-members. The fee includes admission to the Convention, a Friday evening meal, and Saturday luncheon. To register for the 2025 Convention click on the Paypal link above. Convention logo T-shirts will be available for purchase at a later date.
The Convention host hotel also will be the Drury Plaza Hotel in Downtown St. Paul. The Drury Plaza Hotel will charge the PFRA a special group discount rate of $134 per night for their standard rooms (1 King or 2 Queen beds for up to 4 people).
Parking at the hotel is free.
Hotel amenities include the following:
Complimentary Hot Breakfast – Enjoy scrambled eggs, oatmeal, fresh fruit, potatoes, pastries, the all-important coffee and more. Hot, fresh, and, best of all, free. Free hot breakfast is served daily from 6:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. on weekdays and 7:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. on weekends.
Complimentary Evening Drinks and Snacks** - Join us from 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. every evening to enjoy complimentary hot food and cold beverages at our 5:30 Kickback®. The Hotel features a rotating menu of hot food, beer, wine, mixed drinks and soft drinks.
Complimentary Wi-Fi Throughout the Hotel - Get the score, check social media, or respond to emails from anywhere in the hotel.
On-Site Facilities - Take advantage of the business center, fitness center or pool while away from home. Print boarding passes, finish a presentation or check e-mail in the hotel’s business centers.
To book the Drury Plaza Hotel at the special group discount rate go to the following link…
Drury Hotel St. Paul
Reservations may also be made by calling 1-800-325-0720 and referring to the PFRA group number 10109244.
Individual reservations must be cancelled prior to 12:00 p.m. on the day before the reservation's confirmed date of arrival in order to avoid a non-refundable fee equal to one night’s room rate plus tax. Hotel requires a valid payment card and photo ID to be presented at check in. Check In Time: 3:00 p.m. Check Out Time: 11:00 a.m. Arrangements may be made for baggage storage with the Hotel’s front desk staff. June 8, 2025 is the cut-off date for the special group discount rate. Reservations made after that date will be subject to prevailing rates and availability.
The Convention itinerary will include our usual mix of speakers and tours.
The following speakers have agreed to make presentations at the Convention. Additional speakers will be added.
Chuck Frederick will make a presentation about his book Leatherheads of the North: The True Story of Ernie Nevers & the Duluth Eskimos. Chuck has dedicated nearly three and a half decades of his life to telling the stories of people as a newspaper reporter, editor, and author. He is currently Editorial Page Editor for the Duluth News Tribune in Northeastern Minnesota. His series of stories that helped to get a toddler a life-saving kidney transplant earned him a Citizen of the Month award from Superior, Wisconsin — even though he lives in Duluth, Minnesota. He is a two-time winner of the Herman Roe Editorial Writing Award (2017 and 2023) from the Minnesota Newspaper Association and has received numerous other state and national writing prizes, including from the Associated Press and the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists.
Chuck has a passion for local history and is the author of two other books.
Chuck also has been tapped as an actor for the big screen. He played a race official in the 1994 Walt Disney movie, “Iron Will” and was featured in the short films “Just Coffee” (2017) and “Hate Storm: A Prologue” (2018).
Raised in Greenfield, Wisconsin, on the south side of Milwaukee, Chuck first moved to Minnesota as a student at Winona State University, from which he graduated with a degree in Mass Communications-Journalism. He has written for a number of Minnesota newspapers, including the Winona Daily News and the Daily Journal of International Falls, in addition to the Duluth News Tribune.
Despite all his quality time in Minnesota, he admits that he still bleeds green and gold when it comes to his support of the Green Bay Packers. Chuck and his wife, Julie, have been married since 1991 and have three daughters, Claire, Charleigh and Regine.
Ashley LaVigne will make a presentation about the Bronko Nagurski Museum. Ashley joined the Koochiching County Historical Society (KCHS) and Bronko Nagurski Museum in May of 2016. In November of 2019, she took over the role of Executive Director for the organization and oversees the day-to-day operation, programming development, collections, and exhibit design. During her time with KCHS, the museum has been named one of the top 3 Historical Societies to visit in the state of Minnesota, and has earned numerous local awards for community involvement. Prior to her role in International Falls, she worked with Glensheen Mansion of Duluth, MN and the Maritime Museum, also of Duluth, MN.
Terry McConnell will make a presenation about his book Breaking Through The Line: Bobby Marshall, The NFL’s First African American Player. Terry served in public education for forty years as a secondary social studies teacher, school librarian, video production teacher, track and cross-country coach, and special education worker. He is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology at Springfield College in Springfield, MA. Terry lives with his lovely wife, Carol McConnell, in western Massachusetts. Terry has eight grandchildren, and is the author of two other books. He does breath training with clients to help them manage asthma and other ailments, runs 20 miles a week, plays guitar, and writes and performs his own songs. Terry can be reached at runnerwithasthma@gmail.com.
Former Minnesota Vikings and Cleveland Browns wide receiver (1981-1991) Leo E. Lewis III will speak during our player panel discussion.
Leo is currently Principal of Lewis Performance Partners, a human performance company focused on consulting and training for business and physically active individuals. Prior to his private business and teaching pursuits, he was a high school athletic director and Associate Athletic Director at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Prior to his hiring in Gopher Athletics, he spent 24 years with the Minnesota Vikings Football Club as a player, pro scout and Director of Player Development.
Lewis received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Missouri and his Master of Science degree from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. He earned his Ph.D. in Kinesiology from the University of Minnesota. To complement his career goals, Leo completed a Master ofArts degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at Argosy University. Leo’s primary research and applied interests focus on the social and psychological dimensions of sport and human performance. He presents scholarly papers and appears in various domains advocating for the lifestyles of physically active people. He currently serves as a college instructor and mental health practitioner.
Lewis’ sports career includes four years as a student athlete at the University of Missouri where he was inducted into its Athletic Hall of Fame and All-Century Football Team. After completing 13 years of professional football - 11 with the Minnesota Vikings - Leo retired in 1991. Recently, he was enshrined as a member of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
As an extension of his professional work, Leo established the Lewis Sports Foundation (LSF) in 1999. The Foundation is “dedicated to provide resources to America’s youth in various communities for the development of life skills through education and physical activity”. LSF is a funding and educational resource for individuals, programs, organizations, or services. Within its Life Skills Through Sport concept, LSF provides academic, life skills, and sports skills instruction focused on improved life management, health, and wellness.
Website: lewipp.com
LinkedIn: Leo's LinkedIn
LSF: lewissportsfoundation.com
Former Minnesota Golden Gophers and Green Bay Packers running back Darrell Thompson has agreed to join Leo E. Lewis III on our player panel.
Having served 29 years and counting with Bolder Options, Darrell is known as a leader in Minnesota’s youth development circles. Originally founded by the Minneapolis Jaycees, Bolder Options is a comprehensive youth mentoring program working with referred youth from ages 10-14 who may be at-risk towards delinquent or unhealthy behaviors.
Youth are matched with a caring adult mentor and introduced to an active-lifestyle based program. Our program provides guidance, support, and opportunities through one-on-one experiences with their mentor as well as attending small groups. Our youth also attend family specific programming designed to help them make positive choices and live a healthier lifestyle.
As the organization’s first full-time employee, Darrell was hired as program manager in 1994. After five years of success, Bolder Options became a separate 501 (c) 3 entity and Darrell was named Executive Director and now serves in the role as President of the organization.
Through his leadership, the program has grown exponentially, serving over 4,500 kids annually in the Twin Cities Metro program alone. In a bold and visionary move, Darrell also expanded Bolder Options to include his hometown of Rochester, MN. Our combined offices now boasts 15 full-time staff members and works with more than 23 volunteer advisory committee members serving the Bolder Options mission: Teaching youth to succeed in ALL of life’s races.
Basing our program components on best practices and leading edge youth development research, Bolder Options has become a pioneer in the mentoring field. Darrell and his staff have created an award winning, multifaceted approach unseen in many mentoring programs. Our numbers speak for themselves, with a success rate of 36% higher than the national average of mentoring programs.
Darrell sits on the board for the NFL Retired Players Association, V3, and Twin Cities Public Television. Darrell lives in Plymouth, MN with his wife Steph. He and Steph have four children and two grandchildren. In his off time you might find Darrell riding his Peloton, fishing, or enjoying a round of golf. You can also listen to Darrell throughout the college football season as one of Learfield Sports Gopher Game Day announcers, which broadcasts on 100.3FM KFAN
Charles Billington will make a presentation about his new book The 1963 Chicago Bears: George Halas and the Road to the NFL Championship. Charles is also the author of Wrigley Field’s Last World Series and Comiskey Park’s Last World Series. He has led panel discussions at the Illinois Authors Book Fair and was a featured speaker at Chicago’s Printers Row Lit Fest. Charles was a commentator on the late John Calloway’s PBS Eddie Waitkus documentary in the award-winning Chicago Stories series and on Fox Sports Net’s Baseball’s Golden Age. He has appeared on Comcast, NPR, C-Span, and WTTW television. After the Cubs won the World Series in 2016, US News & World Report invited Billington to pen an op-ed on the historic event. Most recently Charles helped put together and is an announcer on the Marquis Network’s documentary, Cubs Flicks.
Tommy A. Phillips is a writer and member from Pittsburgh, PA who primarily writes on decades of the NFL and college football bowl games. He is currently working on the fourth book of the self-published “Pro Football Decades” series, which includes Nifty Nineties, Great Eighties, and Sweet Seventies. He has also been published three times by McFarland Publishing, with the books Penn State Bowl Games, The Orange Bowl, and The 1980 Moscow Olympics. His newest project is The Perfect Packers, a book on the 1929 Green Bay Packers team.
A lifelong Minnesota Vikings fan, Rick Bowman resides in Akron, Ohio. A first-generation Ohioan, he followed the Cleveland Browns but fell in love with the NFL powerhouse Vikings due to their frequent appearances on regional broadcasts from WJW-TV, a CBS affiliate out of Cleveland. After a stint as a football player at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tenn., he completed his schooling at the University of Akron before becoming a sports broadcaster for Warner Cable and sports editor of Record Publishing's sports department for 13 years, interviewing such homegrown products as Dante Lavelli, Mike Vrabel and Larry Csonka. Now a freelance writer, he has served as a pastor in Tallmadge, Ohio for 10 years. Rick will speak about his upcoming book tentatively entitled The Purple Clad Boys of Winter about the Vikings playoff years under Bud Grant.
Chris Willis has worked at NFL Films as Head of the Research Library since 1996. His first book, Old Leather: An Oral History of Early Pro Football in Ohio, 1920-1935, was published in 2005. Old Leather was given the 2005 Nelson Ross Award by the Professional Football Researchers Association for recent Achievement in Football Research and Historiography. Over the past three decades Willis has written nine books on pro football including, The Man Who Built the National Football League: Joe F. Carr (in 2010); Dutch Clark: The Life of an NFL Legend and the Birth of the Detroit Lions (in 2012); Walter Lingo, Jim Thorpe and the Oorang Indians: How a Dog Kennel Owner Created the NFL’s Most Famous Traveling Team (2017); in 2019 Red Grange: The Life & Legacy of the NFL’s First Superstar was published. And his most recent book was The NFL’s 60-Minute Men: All-Time Greats of the Two-Way Player Era (1920-1945) published by McFarland & Co. in 2024.
As the resident historian at NFL Films he helps oversees all aspects of research for the company and their producers. In 2002 he was nominated for an Emmy for his work on the HBO Documentary “The Game of Their Lives: Pro Football in the 1950’s” and won an Emmy in 2016 for his work on HBO’s “Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Houston Texans.” Before starting at NFL Films he graduated with a B.S. in Physical Education from Urbana (OH) University- while playing four years on the Urbana football team- and attended one year of Graduate School at the Ohio State University in Sports History. Chris Willis is a native of Columbus, Ohio and currently resides in Audubon, New Jersey. Chris will give a presentation on the 100th Anniversary of the Red Grange Barnstorming Tour: The Galloping Ghost’s 3 Tour Managers.
Two add on activities have been added to the schedule, one for early arrivals on Thursday afternoon and one on Friday afternoon. A Sunday add on is also planned.
The Thursday July 10 add on activity for early arrivals is a tour of Vikings Museum in nearby Eagan, MN from 2:00-4:00. The fee for the tour is $12. Parking is free. Deadline for reservations for the Thursday add on is July 3, 2025. To register for the Thursday add on use the PayPal link mentioned above.
To register for the Thursday add on use the PayPal link above.
The Friday July 11 afternoon add on activity is a tour of the of Huntington Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota from 1:00-3:00 including the President's Suite, Indoor Clubroom (a common event space & most expensive ticket on game days), Club Cambria (biggest event space & most popular space on game days), Hall of Fame, Gopher Football Locker Room, and the Field (weather permitting). Fee for the tour is $10 plus parking. Deadline for reservations for the Friday add on is June 27, 2025. To register for the Friday add on use the PayPal link mentioned above.
Please stay tuned to The PFRA Coffin Corner Magazine, PFRA Website, and PFRA Forum for additional details and announcements. If you have any questions regarding the PFRA, the 2025 Convention, Convention add ons, or hotel reservations please contact 2025 Convention Organizer George Bozeka by email at sundaygolfer48@aol.com, or by phone at 330-867-1950 or 330-571-0112.
