Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Typically when I research a player, a “Where are they now?” story comes up, also called “Catching Up With” or “Whatever Happened To”. I’d like to propose that PFRA starts an archive of links to these stories, as they often have anecdotes that I believe are interesting to historians.

I’m not sure of the best way for PFRA to store these links, so for now I’m proposing a thread within the Forum, but if there is a better way, please move forward in that direction.

I would propose a listing of each article noting the player, the year of the article, the source, some “curation” per se of items you thought were interesting, and the link. Such as:

Fred Cox (2012 – Vikings.com) – anecdotes include invention of Nerf football, trying out to be a blocking back for Jim Brown, problems as a punter, lack of job security with the Vikings. http://www.vikings.com/news/article-1/W ... f12634e915

So to get us started, here are some others:

Brian Sipe (2009 - Akron Beacon Journal) – anecdotes about influence of Siddhartha, becoming an architect, not being as good a QB as people thought, Richmond Brothers commercial. https://www.ohio.com/akron/writers/the- ... -his-dream

Jim Hart (2008 - Washington Times) – anecdotes about best sport being basketball, how he joined the Cardinals and Redskins, fundraising as AD for SIU. http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/red ... /?page=all

Alfred Jenkins (2016 – Atlanta Journal-Constitution) - anecdotes about deciding between going into the Air Force or the WFL, comparing to Lynn Swann, Rolland Lawrence’s demise. http://www.myajc.com/sports/football/wh ... LEbEspwVI/

John Brockington (2011 – Packers.com) - anecdotes about trade of MacArthur Lane, playing against Dick Butkus, moving to San Diego. http://www.packers.com/news-and-events/ ... a13833ee52

Cliff Branch (2011, Bay Area Super Bowl Nation) – anecdotes about getting drafted, moving to LA, Hall of Fame chances, JaMarcus Russell. https://bayarea.sbnation.com/oakland-ra ... iff-branch

Bert Jones (2016 – footballcountry.com) – anecdotes about stepping away from football, growing up wanting to play football, seeing his wife for the first time. http://footballcountrymag.com/whatever- ... ert-jones/

Joe Ferguson (2016 – footballcountry.com) – anecdotes about being a two-time cancer survivor, relationship with former coach A.L. Williams, high school career, being CFL QB at age 45, staying in shape. http://footballcountrymag.com/whatever- ... -ferguson/

Russ Francis (2016 - Cody Enterprise) - anecdotes about career as radio host, interactions with Andre the Giant, Steve Prefontaine, Paul Hornung, Howard Cosell, http://www.codyenterprise.com/news/loca ... 4f911.html

1978-79 Oilers (2007 - Houston Chronicle) - a collection of interesting updates and anecdotes on Dan Pastorini, Ken Burrough, Robert Brazile, Willie Alexander, Gregg Bingham, J.C. Wilson, Mike Barber, Rich Caster. http://www.chron.com/sports/texans/arti ... 555979.php

There’s also lots of video and audio “Catching up with” and “Where are they now” features out there too.

So feel free to add to this list by posting your discoveries below. Thanks!

Jeremy Schapp's "Outside the Lines" interview with Brockington and Diane Scott goes into a bit more detail:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NG2PX7a6hRk

(Really like the Ken Burnsian slow zoom of a photo of Brockington reading Jerry Poling's book, "Downfield" in this clip)

Evan wrote:Typically when I research a player, a “Where are they now?” story comes up, also called “Catching Up With” or “Whatever Happened To”.

I specifically search for these type of stories, though for players that played their high school ball in the Great State of Washington. Because it's always a player's local paper/website and you get good stories/anecdotes from their high school days.

Works for college and pro, too. Obviously.

Great idea, Evan.

{Shameless self promotion}

Here are some that I did a few years ago:
http://kencrippen.com/where-are-they-now.htm

{End of shameless self promotion}

Great idea, but as with any link archive, one must deal with "link rot" (i.e., links going bad over time).

Back when USENET was a thing, people used to copy and paste entire articles w/o regard to copyright. I don't support such flagrant violation of copyright, OTOH, there have been times when looking for an article, I lucked out and found the whole thing available on USENET.

I don't know the answer, but I do know it can be a problem.

fgoodwin wrote:Great idea, but as with any link archive, one must deal with "link rot" (i.e., links going bad over time).

Back when USENET was a thing, people used to copy and paste entire articles w/o regard to copyright. I don't support such flagrant violation of copyright, OTOH, there have been times when looking for an article, I lucked out and found the whole thing available on USENET.

I don't know the answer, but I do know it can be a problem.

You can screen capture, I suppose, and save them as pdf files, but I think even that constitutes a copyright violation. There is, of course, that internet wayback machine, where it archives the net. I don't know if you can use that to search on dead links.

Doug Dennison (2016 - Lancaster Online) Dennison's work for NFL Alumni, his feelings about the current Dallas Cowboys, reflections on his time as a Dallas Cowboy
http://lancasteronline.com/sports/footb ... d7096.html