Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I recently had a conversation regarding Red Grange, and it was mentioned off-handedly that Red Grange should be credited with "saving" the NFL. Do you think that's true?

hmmm. Well he was the first "star". Signing his contract immediately after his last college game certainly made headlines. So my answer is yes.... but no. If there was no Red Grange there would have been someone else.

Yes. Unless no Red Grange meant that the Colts/Giants '58 championship game wouldn't have happened on television I'd say he didn't have anything to do with saving the NFL.

While Jim Thorpe might be credited as the pro game's first marquee player, I would say Grange's timing was spot-on in that the league was just gaining a foothold in big cities such as New York and Chicago, and by the time of Grange's appearance, Thorpe was beyond washed up. Grange gave the game a needed shot in the arm, but I think the league would have survived, though the growth might have been slower had he not come along. But Chris has a good point that someone (or more than one) else would have come along if not Grange.

My understanding of the idea of Red Grange "saving" the NFL was not that he signed, but rather that he made a coast-to-coast barnstorming tour with the Bears made after the 1925 season; the conventional wisdom was that it attracted large crowds and gave credibility to professional football. Not everyone agreed; John M. Carroll wrote a book about it, excerpted here http://www.profootballresearchers.org/a ... 02-742.pdf

Carroll's view was that "Because there are so many variables to consider, it is difficult to state with certainty Grange's role in the rise of professional football. We can safely say that Grange did not save a faltering NFL in 1925.
The preponderance of evidence suggests that Grange's emergence as pro football's first real superstar propelled the NFL and pro football in general forward in establishing the game as a major league sport.
The line of progress was halting and certainly Grange was only one of the forces that contributed to the rise of pro football.
But Grange deserves some of the accolades accorded him as a pivotal individual in the emergence of the professional game.

Given the popularity of college football, the emergence of a professional league seems like an inevitability. As effective a promotional tool as barnstorming was in the 1920's, coast-to-coast radio broadcasting was just around the corner, and television was coming. The game was going to succeed or fail on its own merits, with or without Grange.

I've never looked into this to see whether it's credible, but I have read somewhere (and in more than one place) that Grange's biggest impact was making it respectable for well-known college players to play professionally.

rhickok1109 wrote:I've never looked into this to see whether it's credible, but I have read somewhere (and in more than one place) that Grange's biggest impact was making it respectable for well-known college players to play professionally.

I've read that too. Grange's college coach, Bob Zuppke, tried to talk Grange out of signing with the Bears on the grounds playing football for pay was somehow beneath a "respectable" young man. Grange supposedly told Zuppke something like "You are paid to coach football, why can't I be paid to play it?"

SixtiesFan wrote:

rhickok1109 wrote:I've never looked into this to see whether it's credible, but I have read somewhere (and in more than one place) that Grange's biggest impact was making it respectable for well-known college players to play professionally.

I've read that too. Grange's college coach, Bob Zuppke, tried to talk Grange out of signing with the Bears on the grounds playing football for pay was somehow beneath a "respectable" young man. Grange supposedly told Zuppke something like "You are paid to coach football, why can't I be paid to play it?"

It seemed to me that with all the money already being made at that time (1923-24) by star players like Cobb and Ruth in professional Baseball, that Grange saw the concept of professional Football as an untapped market, and all he needed was the right promoter like a CC Pyle to make it a reality.

rhickok1109 wrote:I've never looked into this to see whether it's credible, but I have read somewhere (and in more than one place) that Grange's biggest impact was making it respectable for well-known college players to play professionally.

I have read that as well - that at the time, playing football professionally was considered to be beneath the dignity of a college player; though, at the time, there were more than a few college players who did play under assumed names so they would not lose their college eligibility. Could it be that the stain associated with professional football was more about that practice than the concept of play college ball/graduate/play pro ball?

One thing I learned - just last night, reading - is that Grange was the commissioner of the short-lived USFL in 1944-45. The league was announced in mid-'44 and Grange was hired in late '44 to be commissioner. It was to have ten teams, including one based in Hawaii that would train in California and spend the first half of the season there, traveling to away games at other USFL cities before returning to Hawaii and play host for the second half of the season. Grange left the job after about six months and the league dissolved within a week, before any games were ever played. According to the book I was reading, at the time, Grange did make a statement about competing leagues and bidding wars for players being something would be an issue for the NFL going forward (who knew better than Grange, perhaps?).