Happy Birthday PFRA

[Mark L. Ford]

Forty years ago today, on a Friday evening on June 22, 1979, Bob Carroll and five other pro football historians gathered at the Hall of Fame in Canton to form the Professional Football Researchers Association. In the upcoming Coffin Corner, there's an interview with one of those six founders, Joe Horrigan, about that first meeting.

[JuggernautJ]

Did they sit on the running boards of Hupmobiles while so doing?


Happy Birthday to us!
(On a more serious note, my sincere appreciation to Bob, Joe and the rest of our
Founding Fathers. The PFRA has enriched my life and for that I am grateful.)

[NWebster]

Did they sit on the running boards of Hupmobiles while so doing?


Happy Birthday to us!
(On a more serious note, my sincere appreciation to Bob, Joe and the rest of our
Founding Fathers. The PFRA has enriched my life and for that I am grateful.)

I discovered it in 1990 I was 16 it was 11, I've met many great people through it who I call friends. Bob was a tough guy in many ways, but he created something special.

[Rupert Patrick]

I was introduced to PFRA in early 2004 by a guy was was a PFRA member at the time (now deceased) named Matt Floray, and I remember Ken Crippen banned Matt from the forum not long after I joined the forum. I attended the 2008 PFRA meeting in Pittsburgh even though I was not a PFRA member, because I've always believed in the Groucho Marx quote (and still do) that I didn't want to belong to any organization that would have somebody like me as a member, but about a year later I finally gave in and joined PFRA, but only because they were a non-profit organization. And I've attended every biennial PFRA meeting since; I believe Mark Durr is the only other member to have attended every even year meeting since 2008.

[lastcat3]

Happy birthday. I thought I was really heavy into the history of the sport until I came to this site and people were talking about what was on a program from a game in the '20's, lol.

Bob Carroll that is a name I probably won't forget. Got the first Total football book he helped write way back in the day long before I ever heard of this site. Didn't get the second edition though as I heard it was pretty much the same book with just updated statistics and standings (and I could simply look at a website to get that stuff if I wanted it).

Unfortunately I never really had good interactions with him on this site. In my opinion he tended to be a little rude to individuals who came on here who didn't know as much about the sport as he did and at times made fun of some of the questions they asked. Maybe he just had a sarcastic sense of humor (as it can be difficult to tell if someone is just joking when you are talking with them strictly through text) but I also have heard he wasn't in real good health the last years of his life so that may have had something to do with it to.

[Mark L. Ford]

I attended the 2008 PFRA meeting in Pittsburgh even though I was not a PFRA member, because I've always believed in the Groucho Marx quote (and still do) that I didn't want to belong to any organization that would have somebody like me as a member, but about a year later I finally gave in and joined PFRA, but only because they were a non-profit organization. And I've attended every biennial PFRA meeting since; I believe Mark Durr is the only other member to have attended every even year meeting since 2008.

I think you're right-- there were only 16 people at that meeting in 2008, which was the first that had been held in many years. The one thing I recall most was that the motel's pay-per-view happened to have the recently-released film Leatherheads, so everybody gathered in a room to watch it at the same time. I missed the 2012 gathering at New Jersey, but have been to the other five.

[Rupert Patrick]

Bob Carroll first came on my radar in 1988 when he co-wrote "The Hidden Game of Football" with Pete Palmer and John Thorn. I loved "The Hidden Game of Baseball" when it was written by Palmer and Thorn in 1984, and when I heard a football companion book was being written, I did everything short of pre-ordering it, which you couldn't do back then. The football book was very good, I thought the section where they broke down the play-by-play for the entire 1986 (I think) season was revolutionary. From there I read many more of Bob's books and became more familiar with him thru his work with the encyclopedias.

In late 2001 I emailed him when I had developed a new type of football encyclopedia which would have had two pages per team, and would have had complete rosters, and would have had stats broken down on a game-by-game by player level. I had the whole thing worked out for the 2000 NFL season, and I think it would have been a truly game-changing type of pro football encyclopedia. I sent him some sample pages to get his opinion as to if he thought the project was feasible. He replied (and he was absolutely correct in retrospect) that the era of the printed sports encyclopedia was soon nearing it's end, that it was going to all be online within 5-10 years. He was really impressed with what I did, he said he wished somebody had brought this to him 20 years earlier, that such a book could have been done and would have been comprehensive and would have revolutionized pro football research, but now was probably too late. He suggested I take it online, and put up a website, which I chose not to do, but I thanked him for looking at it, and went on to other things.

The reason for having the 2008 PFRA meeting in Pittsburgh was in the hopes that Bob would make an appearance, since he lived nearby, but he was unable to due to his health. It was great to finally meet people who I could finally talk about pro football history with. I mean, I could talk about last night's game with my friends, but how many people really want to talk about the 1966 NFL Championship game in depth, or really understand it and remember the key plays. It was also the first real visit to my hometown since I left in early 1981, so I was able to work in a trip to my old neighborhood of Squirrel Hill and also went downtown to a sports history exhibit at one of the museums.

The 2010 meeting in Canton was held in Bob's memory, as his family was there, and many of his friends and colleagues were there. John Thorn showed up for the convention, as did David Neft. David Neft, if you don't know who he is, is a statistician and the co-creator of the Neft-Cohen sports encyclopedias of the 1970's and 80's, but he did a lot of other really interesting things. David Neft was the guy who spearheaded the creation of the 1969 MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia, which was the first truly modern sports encyclopedia. He also worked with Sports Illustrated in the late 60's and created a line of sports games with color coded charts for each team for college football, pro football, and baseball; these games were bought by Avalon Hill and became Bowl Bound, Paydirt, and SI Baseball, although the Baseball game never really caught on and was discontinued after three years. I was lucky enough one night at supper during the convention to be seated next to Thorn and across from Neft, that was some very interesting conversation, mostly about baseball.

I never thought I would get to visit NFL Films but we were there in 2012. I remember going into the front doors of the complex and in the lobby there was the large book, the Super Bowl Opus, which is about 24 inches by 24 inches of nothing but luscious full color photos of the first 40 Super Bowls. The book weighs almost 100 pounds. (After visiting NFL Films, I was determined to get a copy of this book, and I cost me a thousand bucks but I found it on Ebay and it was worth every penny of it and I figure it is a good investment.) There is also the wall that has on it nothing but Emmy awards; I counted them and there were about 80 Emmy awards on this wall. At the time, Mr. Steve Sabol was ill but we heard he had been coming back to work. so there was hope he had recovered, but he died a couple months later. The tours were great, and we got to see some films in the theatre there. I hope we can go back there at some point in the future.

2014 in Cleveland was great because the Browns let us go everywhere, no place in the Browns complex or Cleveland Stadium was off limits during the tours. We even went into one of the VP's offices at one point, I seem to remember. The free morning before the events started I worked in a quick trip to the Christmas Story house (the house where they filmed the movie "A Christmas Story" at) which was in suburban Cleveland and took the tour, and also went thru the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but I only had less than two hours to get thru it so it was a very rushed tour.

Green Bay in 2016 was tremendous; I'll never forget standing on top of the stadium unsuccessfully looking for downtown Green Bay and asking the tour guide in which direction downtown was, and she said the top of the stadium was the highest point in the city of Green Bay. Also I remember the guy who brought the dioramas of the previous football stadiums that existed in Green Bay. I also remember asking former Packers PR director Chuck Lane during the Q&A session if there was any discussions about postponing the Ice Bowl game a day because of the weather, and he said they were going to play it that day no matter what the weather was.

Going to Buffalo in 2018 was very nice, and getting to meet and talk to Thurman Thomas was a thrill. It was the only time I had eaten Buffalo Wings since my double bypass in 2011 as I gave up fatty foods, but made an exception during the trip. The museum was fabulous, but I never made it to Tim Russert's office, and the memorabilia Greg Tranter had assembled was nothing sort of remarkable. I remember the group of people who showed up just to see Thurman and the other Bills and they left as soon as the football players departed; I never heard if they paid admission or not to attend.

But the things I remember most about the PFRA conventions, the presentations, the tours, the getting to put a face to these words on a screen, the having drinks dinner and talking sports with my friends at these events, the getting to renew old friendships and start new ones, the table of McFarland books, of which I always leave with a few. I don't remember the delayed airplanes and packing and unpacking and dragging luggage all over the place and sitting in uncomfortable airplane seats for hours and having to take taxis everywhere.

[JeffreyMiller]

I joined the PFRA around 2000, when I was beginning work on my Buffalo's Forgotten Champions book. I has purchased Pigskin by Robert Peterson as reference material and read in his bio that he was a member of this group, of which I had never heard. so I did a little additional research and sent a letter to Bob Carroll, and soon after was a full fledged member.

I too found Bob to be a bit caustic at times, but he was extremely helpful to me and we developed a pretty good friendship. He even sketched a logo for the Buffalo Bisons for me, since there did not seem to be an official one. He also wrote a blurb for my Rockin The Rockpile book.

The PFRA has been invaluable to me in helping find sources and contacts, and through the association I have made many friends, some of whom I now consider to be "good" friends. I've only been to two national conventions, but we have had four regional chapter meetings in Western New York which dozens of members have attended. Both the national and the regional meetings have been extremely enjoyable! Good fun with like-minded people … like the beer commercial said, "It doesn't get any better!"

[Ken Crippen]

I joined the PFRA around 1990 after having a phone conversation with Bob Carroll. He loved baseball and never wanted to miss a game on TV. I called him while he was watching a game and thought that he would tell me to call back another time. He actually took time away from watching the game to help out a fellow researcher. That always meant a lot to me, knowing how much he loved baseball.

Granted, when we held the convention in Monroeville, the goal was to hopefully have Bob attend. Secretly, I was doubtful that it would happen. The day before, I went to Bob's house to talk and could see his failing health in person. I knew that it was bad, but did not know the extent. We had talked for a few years prior to that about a succession plan. He knew that he did not have a lot of time left and that it would get to a point where he would no longer be able to continue. I gradually took more and more of his duties over without letting on that it was no longer Bob doing the work. As Kristy and I were walking out the door of his house that day, we shook hands and he said, "I am glad that you are taking over the PFRA." That is something I will always stick with me.

Bob was very sarcastic and it did not always come across electronically. He also could be caustic online. That was Bob. If you were a serious researcher, he would always try to help. However, he had little tolerance for people who were arrogant. I remember many times when people would send articles for Coffin Corner and say that they did not want anything edited. Bob would read over the article, and as a former English teacher, he could not publish it its current condition. The author would get upset that Bob would not publish it as is. Bob would send it to me to see if he was missing something. It was always true that the article needed a lot of work. We lost authors that way, but Bob would never compromise the quality of Coffin Corner in order to massage someone's ego. He would always work with them, but felt that it was a two-way street.

The conventions have been great and I like seeing that they continue to grow and evolve. George Bozeka has been doing a far better job than I could have with organizing the last few events. Kudo's to George for his hard work!!

I will always be grateful to the PFRA for the friendships that it has created. Seeing everyone at the conventions having a great time talking to fellow researchers is something that Bob would have loved to see. That was his goal with the PFRA. Getting like-mined people together to talk about the sport that they love and to collaborate on projects.

Happy Birthday, PFRA!!

[George Bozeka]

Thanks for the kind words, Ken. I joined PFRA around 2004 after a brief phone conversation with Bob Carroll. After retiring, I wanted to become more actively involved with the organization so I attended the Biennial Meeting in Canton in 2010 which honored Bob Carroll after his death. I truly felt like a fish out of water, as most of the attendees had forgotten more about pro football history than I would ever know. I reached out to Ken Crippen and Mark Ford after the meeting and they graciously brought me into the fold, first writing for the Coffin Corner, and then editing the Great Teams book series, serving on the Board and organizing our Conventions. Both have been valuable mentors to me. I enjoy the sense of camaraderie amongst our members, and cherish the friendships fostered by my involvement in PFRA. Ken Crippen has done an extraordinary job carrying the torch that Bob Carroll passed on to him. We should all be indebted to Bob and Ken for their fine leadership. Happy 40th Birthday PFRA!