Started by Rupert Patrick, Aug 17 2014 07:49 PM
18 replies to this topic
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#1 Rupert Patrick
PFRA Member
Posted 17 August 2014 - 07:49 PM
I saw an commercial for this upcoming documentary on the EPIX Network and thought I would pass it along. It looks really interesting:
http://press.epixhd....f-pro-football/
Apparently there is a free screening at UCLA in a couple weeks.
#2 TouchdownTimmy
Forum Visitors
Posted 17 August 2014 - 08:24 PM
Thanks for posting. I saw this a few weeks ago when googling Kenny Washington. Am looking forward to watching it.
#3 Jeffrey Miller
PFRA Member
Posted 17 August 2014 - 09:05 PM
Is Andy Piascik involved in any way?
#4 Rozehawk
PFRA Member
Posted 18 August 2014 - 12:41 PM
I'll be interested to see it too, but I have to admit, I find the title more than a little misleading. "Forgotten Four"? Bill Willis is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Browns Ring of Honor. Marion Motley is also in the Hall and was on the NFL's 75th Anniversary Team. Those guys don't seem forgotten to me...at least any more so than any other great 1950s-era player.
Washington and Strode have been constantly labeled as "forgotten"...Kenny Washington in particular. Still, in the last five years, Washington has been featured in Sports Illustrated, USA Today, NFL.com, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, in addition to playing a large role in the Third and Long documentary as well as this documentary. My perspective is clearly skewed as a huge Duke Slater supporter, but a lot of guys wish they could be that forgotten. How much more recognition do Washington's fans want?
The answer, of course, is that they want him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The problem with that is it's almost impossible to make a case for a guy who only played in the NFL for three seasons. I know, I know...his career was cut short by the color ban. Well, so was Joe Lillard's, and no one's making his case for the Hall. Ozzie Simmons had it far worse than both of them...his career wasn't cut short by the ban - he was completely shut out altogether. And I would argue that Simmons was as talented as both of them. Again, as a Duke Slater supporter (and Slater still can't get in, even though he faced every bit as much racial discrimination as any of these men and still managed to have a Hall-of-Fame career on the field), I can't buy Washington's argument for taking a Seniors slot through on-field performance.
Interestingly, Washington's best chance at the Pro Football Hall of Fame is probably through the newly-created "contributor" category. His career on the field doesn't really merit it, but as a general contributor to the game, I can see the argument. That is something I could get behind.
Anyway, looking forward to the documentary and hoping it does these gentlemen justice.
Like This
"They can bring all the tackles in the country, but this fellow Slater is the best of them all. Slater is a marvel and is so strong and powerful that he seems to sweep one-half of the line aside when he charges. I've played against Slater, and I know what I'm talking about." - Red Grange
#5 conace21
Forum Visitors
Posted 18 August 2014 - 02:29 PM
Kenny Washington should be in the HOF just like Pat Tillman is in the HOF, in a special exhibit regarding the four who broke the color line. Tillman had (has?) a life size picture and a jersey in the exhibit of the NFL players who served in combat.
#6 oldecapecod 11
PFRA Member
Posted 18 August 2014 - 05:09 PM
Rozehawk
Posted Today, 12:41 PM
"... Anyway, looking forward to the documentary and hoping it does these gentlemen justice."
Serving Justice
It will come someday so why not now?
It will come because one of these days the overwhelming majority of black players in the NFL will demand that it be done.
It will come because the NFL and the Canton building will bend the knee and comply with the wishes of the largest body of players.
It will come because most businesses are not so foolish as to openly defy and alienate most of its membership.
Finally, it will come because it is about time for it to come.
In the near future, we will very likely see a wing or a room or a corner but surely some space dedicated specifically to a particular group of players.
Let's say they call it: Great Negro Players of the Past - Too Long Overlooked.
They will follow the Cooperstown lead - hopefully not as foolishly - and have a one-time induction of a fair number of players or coaches or even ball girls who could not otherwise qualify for Canton due to short careers, racial stacking, or any other valid reason.
Will this be fair? Of course not - but it will be an answer.
It will not be fair to men like Duke Slater who may or may not deserve to be enshrined on his own merits.
But, on the other hand, it will be fair because it is probably the only way he is going to get in.
Better to be inside looking for a comfortable spot than to be outside looking in and fighting the cold.
So, we know the "What." We certainly know the "Why." It is the "How" that will create the crisis.
We surely do not want to see this matter put into the hands of the current incompetents - those whose lore outside of their own little community of focus has been given to them by Steve Sabol, or organizations like ours, and NOT by study, research, or personal experience.
There must be a better way?
Perhaps the first step is tenure or we will see a lifetime in oblivion for the oblivious.
#7 Rozehawk
PFRA Member
Posted 19 August 2014 - 11:29 AM
oldecapecod 11, on 18 Aug 2014 - 5:09 PM, said:
In the near future, we will very likely see a wing or a room or a corner but surely some space dedicated specifically to a particular group of players.
Let's say they call it: Great Negro Players of the Past - Too Long Overlooked.
They will follow the Cooperstown lead - hopefully not as foolishly - and have a one-time induction of a fair number of players or coaches or even ball girls who could not otherwise qualify for Canton due to short careers, racial stacking, or any other valid reason.
Will this be fair? Of course not - but it will be an answer.
It will not be fair to men like Duke Slater who may or may not deserve to be enshrined on his own merits.
But, on the other hand, it will be fair because it is probably the only way he is going to get in.
Better to be inside looking for a comfortable spot than to be outside looking in and fighting the cold.
I'm not convinced the Hall of Fame will do anything quite like Cooperstown...football didn't have an equivalent to the Negro Leagues where prominent African-American athletes were banished for their entire careers. For many great football players (like Ozzie Simmons) who were completely shut out, they played a year or two of minor league ball and then vanished. Talking about how they would have done in the NFL is speculative, and we don't have the benefit of Negro League numbers to help us with a projection...at least in many cases. And that's assuming there's movement in that direction from anyone attached with the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and I've never gotten the sense there is. But anything's possible.
As for Slater, obviously, I sincerely hope he doesn't get in that way...as a token member of a class of early African-American players who didn't actually have careers that would merit regular induction. I disagree that it's the only way Slater will get in. Duke Slater will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, period. That's my unshakeable opinion. Now, I don't know if it will be five years or ten years or fifty years from now, but I believe his case is too strong to ever fully fade away. He'll get in...I just hope I live to see it.
In the meantime, if Slater sits alongside Dilweg and Emerson and Wistert and other players who had Hall of Fame careers but who, for whatever reason, are not chosen by the selection committee for the honor, well, then that's his fate, and that's the company he belongs in. One nice side benefit while we wait is that it gives people like me an opportunity to trumpet his career in a way that, say, Pete Henry fans don't have, a phenomenon Chuck Klosterman outlined pretty well in an article a few years back. Either way, I hope Slater only ever gets in on his true merits.
Like This
"They can bring all the tackles in the country, but this fellow Slater is the best of them all. Slater is a marvel and is so strong and powerful that he seems to sweep one-half of the line aside when he charges. I've played against Slater, and I know what I'm talking about." - Red Grange
#8 oldecapecod 11
PFRA Member
Posted 19 August 2014 - 12:36 PM
Rozehawk
Posted Today, 11:29 AM
"...I'm not convinced the Hall of Fame will do anything quite like Cooperstown...football didn't have an equivalent to the Negro Leagues where prominent African-American athletes were banished for their entire careers..."
No; football did not but football had a large body of men excluded for an even more heartless reason than "they have their own league." This is why football can only mimic Cooperstown and learn for baseball's mistakes.
The key would be the establishment of a qualified (and there's a word for argument) group to create a filtering process and then an elective procedure. It should not be that hard becuase this would like be a one-time affair.
What needs to be avoided is the uneducated (in Sports) groups dominating the programing or we will see something akin to the NAACP website bozo who labeled Grant Fuhr an African-American rather than the African-Canadian that he is.
===
"...And that's assuming there's movement in that direction from anyone attached with the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and I've never gotten the sense there is. But anything's possible..."
Indeed and unfortunate!
===
"...In the meantime, if Slater sits alongside Dilweg and Emerson and Wistert and other players who had Hall of Fame careers but who, for whatever reason, are not chosen by the selection committee for the honor, well, then that's his fate, and that's the company he belongs in..."
That company will fade as those who are aware of them will fade just as old soldiers "just fade away."
===
"...trumpet his career in a way that, say, Pete Henry fans don't have, a phenomenon Chuck Klosterman outlined pretty well in an article a few years back..."
In two instances, it seems Klosterman summed the problem quite well.
===
"... And that’s [- - - - ed] up, but it’s what happens whenever media becomes the overwhelming force in a society..."
"... But that’s what happens in a mediated world of the unreal: The winners feel as empty as the losers."
There is the major problem: the media creates losers (and most electors are media members.)
Perhaps Chuck meant to type medicated for it does seem we accept numbness and make no move to encourage change.
The greatest shame is the continuing compounding of the problem as more and more "seniors" become part of the vast pool that should receive consideration at the very least.
And, the NFL and its Canton minions know this quite well.
Look back, if you will, to the PFRA's own Ken Crippen's interview of the Pittsburgh Steelers' Dan Rooney - seven years ago.
It's a sad ending to an otherwise great piece of work and... it does not have to be sad.
#9 John Grasso
Board of Directors
Posted 20 August 2014 - 07:21 AM
conace21, on 18 Aug 2014 - 2:29 PM, said:
Kenny Washington should be in the HOF just like Pat Tillman is in the HOF, in a special exhibit regarding the four who broke the color line. Tillman had (has?) a life size picture and a jersey in the exhibit of the NFL players who served in combat.
Isn't there a small exhibit now in the HOF on early black players? I was there a couple of weeks
ago and remember seeing a photo of Woody Strode and telling my friend and his son about him.
Both are avid football fans but neither had heard of him. So "Forgotten Four" is a true name
since outside of this forum, most modern-day fans do not know much about those four.
#10 Rozehawk
PFRA Member
Posted 21 August 2014 - 01:12 PM
John Grasso, on 20 Aug 2014 - 07:21 AM, said:
Isn't there a small exhibit now in the HOF on early black players? I was there a couple of weeks
ago and remember seeing a photo of Woody Strode and telling my friend and his son about him.
Both are avid football fans but neither had heard of him. So "Forgotten Four" is a true name
since outside of this forum, most modern-day fans do not know much about those four.
There is...in fact, Duke Slater's jersey appears in the exhibit*. And I don't dispute that your avid football fan friends may not have heard of Strode, but I'll bet you could make that case for a lot of players from the 1920s-40s. Not your friends specifically, but I'll bet most self-described "avid football fans" haven't heard of, say, George Trafton, which doesn't make him forgotten, of course. But that's why "the NFL/ESPN/whoever else pretty much ignores the pre-merger game" is such a common refrain around here.
Strode would also qualify as more "forgotten", I suppose, than Willis or Motley. In Strode's case, that's mostly because he was pretty much a role player who is much better known for his post-football exploits than anything he did on the field. (I think The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one of the great Westerns of all time.) IMO, and this is nothing but an opinion, I believe Strode's post-football fame leads to his actual pro football accomplishments on the field being a bit exaggerated...he's a bit like Paul Robeson in that respect. But again, that's just my take.
*They have an old Chicago Cardinals #10 jersey prominently displayed in that exhibit and labeled as Duke Slater's jersey, even though Maxymuk's book lists Slater as wearing five different jersey numbers for the Cards, none of which are #10. So who the heck knows. I suppose "when the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
#11 oldecapecod 11
PFRA Member
Posted 21 August 2014 - 01:28 PM
Rozehawk
Posted Today, 01:12 PM
"...(I think The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one of the great Westerns of all time...)"
Sergeant Rutledge was a far more powerful role and his brief appearance in Spartacus helped establish the reason for the "rebellion."
#12 JohnR
PFRA Member
Posted 22 September 2014 - 03:33 PM
Bump. Airs tomorrow night.
#13 MIKETOUHY
Forum Visitors
Posted 22 September 2014 - 04:01 PM
What channel?
#14 Rupert Patrick
PFRA Member
Posted 22 September 2014 - 04:42 PM
MIKETOUHY, on 22 Sept 2014 - 4:01 PM, said:
What channel?
Epix, which is one of those premium cable networks like HBO or Showtime. I have Epix, but it may not be available everywhere. I'm sure it will wind up on the NFL Network in time.
#15 luckyshow
Forum Visitors
Posted 22 September 2014 - 05:22 PM
I think they mean "forgotten" in how the media rarely mentions them. In this sense, Larry Dobie is "forgotten" because they usually only mention Jackie Robinson. Monte Irvin is "forgotten" in this way. Everybody not named Jackie Robinson or Willie Mays is "forgotten." Newcombe, Campanella, many are for the most part :"forgotten" in baseball
Speaking of Canada (which is part of America last I saw a globe), mention should be made of Herb Trawick, who was the first black player to be captain of a pro football team, the Montreal Allouettes in 1950, I believe. Also starting QB I believe. The first (modern) era black player in Canadian pros. A guy named Lew Hayman was GM and signed him in 1946. In later years as GM of Toronto Argonauts, in 1980, he hired Willie Wood as head coach. So he was the Branch Rickey of the CFL (I guess Brown was Branch Rickey of modern American pro football)
The CFL also has had a black GM well before the NFL.
The CFL seems well ahead of the NFL in starting black QBs on rosters, but Cookie Gilchrest turned down induction into their hall of fame, citing racism when he played. I don't think I have ever heard of any other player in any sport turning down HoF induction...
Bernie Custis of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats was the first to hold down the Qb job for a while, beginning in 1951
http://ideas.typepad...3dfd0640970c-pi
(I have no idea how anyone gets images and moving uimages to show on these pages)
Actually I have noticed a trend even here to limit certain lists to post 1960s players, sort of turning the earlier past into a sort of ESPN "forgotten" zone. In my mind any actual cut-off could be 1956, as before this runners had to be pinned to the ground to be downed. Few mention this as part of rushing or reception yardage totals. Pre-1956, this had to add a certain percentage of yardage per year for players on all plays, interceptions, returns, etc...
#16 smith03
Forum Visitors
Posted 22 September 2014 - 07:28 PM
Fritz Pollard was player-head coach for Akron in 1921
#17 coach tj troup
PFRA Member
Posted 22 September 2014 - 08:31 PM
....discussion years ago with john wooten concerning a movie project on the life of fritz pollard....would have been honored to help make this an accurate depiction....again, discussion does not mean producer money$, which of course is key.
#18 Rupert Patrick
PFRA Member
Posted 22 September 2014 - 10:23 PM
coach tj troup, on 22 Sept 2014 - 8:31 PM, said:
....discussion years ago with john wooten concerning a movie project on the life of fritz pollard....would have been honored to help make this an accurate depiction....again, discussion does not mean producer money$, which of course is key.
I remember at the PFRA meeting in 2012 at NFL Films, I talked with a guy there who was trying to secure the financing for a documentary about the sad demise of Cookie Gilchrist that he was hoping to sell to ESPN for their 30 for 30 series. I guess he was unable to make his film.
#19 Ken Crippen
Administrator
Posted 23 September 2014 - 07:39 AM
Rupert Patrick, on 22 Sept 2014 - 10:23 PM, said:
I remember at the PFRA meeting in 2012 at NFL Films, I talked with a guy there who was trying to secure the financing for a documentary about the sad demise of Cookie Gilchrist that he was hoping to sell to ESPN for their 30 for 30 series. I guess he was unable to make his film.
I do not think that he got it beyond the discussion phase.
I know that they are still working on the Marlin Briscoe film. The last time I talked to him, the NFL lawyers were looking it over to give approval.