Pro Football Hall of Fame question

[PFHOFlover]

Why wasn’t the Pro Football Hall of Fame founded until 1963

The Pro Football Hall of Fame should have been founded earlier then we wouldn’t be talking about Lavvie Dilweg Verne Lewellen Ox Emerson Cecil Isbell and Al Wistert not being in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Buddy Parker too

[rewing84]

agreed

[JeffreyMiller]

Why wasn’t the Pro Football Hall of Fame founded until 1963

The Pro Football Hall of Fame should have been founded earlier then we wouldn’t be talking about Lavvie Dilweg Verne Lewellen Ox Emerson Cecil Isbell and Al Wistert not being in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Buddy Parker too

Leo Lyons, league co-founder, owner of the Rochester Jeffersons and the league's first historian, was pushing for the establishment of a PFHOF as early as 1936! Joe Carr, George Halas, Carl Storck and Bert Bell all kept putting it off due to lack of funds. Lyons, in the meantime, was amassing a HUGE collection of artifacts and documents from pro football's early years.

[John Maxymuk]

Jeff would know since he has a terrific book coming out this year on Lyons, a sadly forgotten figure from the NFL's early days when he rubbed elbows with Thorpe and Halas and Ralph Hay et. al.

[Brian wolf]

Yes, there should have been a HOF for pro football sooner, but like I stated last year on Zoneblitz.com, it took awhile for the sport to hit the big time, especially when attendance in the mid-50s was still around 30,000 a game average.Television, specifically the airing of the 1958 NFL Championship game, finally gave the owners the jolt they needed to build a Hall Of Fame.

[JameisBrownston]

Isbell might've gotten in if the HOF existed while he was playing, but if it waited until very long after, everyone expected more longevity by then. Oh, don't forget Benny Friedman, who'd have been one of the first guys in.

[rewing84]

Isbell might've gotten in if the HOF existed while he was playing, but if it waited until very long after, everyone expected more longevity by then. Oh, don't forget Benny Friedman, who'd have been one of the first guys in.

Do you mean should've

[RichardBak]

Yeah, it was always a question of money. The NFL wasn't flush in the '40s. There also was a debate about where to locate it and whether the league or an outside entity would be paying for it and running it. I know Lions GM Nick Kerbawy tried for years in the '50s to get a Hall up and running in Detroit, with the Big 3 automakers hopefully underwriting all or part of it (GM alone had 54% of the car market in 1954, so there was cash to go around), but that campaign kind of died after Kerbawy left the Lions for the Pistons in '58. I wrote about it a few years ago in Coffin Corner.

[JeffreyMiller]

Yeah, it was always a question of money. The NFL wasn't flush in the '40s. There also was a debate about where to locate it and whether the league or an outside entity would be paying for it and running it. I know Lions GM Nick Kerbawy tried for years in the '50s to get a Hall up and running in Detroit, with the Big 3 automakers hopefully underwriting all or part of it (GM alone had 54% of the car market in 1954, so there was cash to go around), but that campaign kind of died after Kerbawy left the Lions for the Pistons in '58. I wrote about it a few years ago in Coffin Corner.

Truth! There were other cities vying to be the site of the HOF, most interestingly Latrobe, PA, which touted its being home to the first fully pro football team.

[Gary Najman]

I agree that the PFHOF should have been opened earlier, maybe after World War II, but you have to remember that the Baseball Hall of Fame also took years to been founded (The National Association was founded in 1871 and the HOF in 1936), and that pro football was not still so popular until the late 50s/early 60s due to TV. It's interesting that the Canadian Football Hall of Fame also was founded in 1963 and it includes also amateur players from earlier than 1920.