Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

All online materials relating to the football career of Orban Eugene Sanders, a running quarterback and defensive back with the New York Yankees primarily in the AAFC, who had a short but groundbreaking career and was a 2008 HOVG inductee, refer to him as going primarily by "Spec" Sanders. However, I have substantial evidence that this may have been wrong all along. His autograph is uncommon, as it seems he did not sign much despite his long life, but examples that I have seen all spell his nickname as "Speck" Sanders. Doing a brief Google search for "Speck Sanders" and "Oklahoma", where he lived most of his life, brings up a business called "Speck Sanders Friendly Cleaners", spelled thusly, in Lawton, OK. And sure enough, an article from the Muskogee Phoenix on him and his son also refers to him as "Speck" and confirms the family owns a dry cleaning business:

https://www.muskogeephoenix.com/news/lo ... c90d6.html

Has he actually been "Speck" Sanders the whole time? Or did he originally go by "Spec" and switch to "Speck" at some point? Notably, I have never seen any autographs of his contemporary to his playing career, so I would love it if a PFRA member could produce a specimen for comparison. Such evidence should either show that he always went by "Speck", or that he changed the spelling at some time later in his life. Honestly, "Speck" kind of makes more sense, as it evokes an image of an elusive runner who fits through tight holes and evades tacklers easily; on the contrary, I've never been able to understand the etymology of "Spec". I imagine I can't possibly be the first person to bring this issue to the attention of historians, but I can't find any explanation for why his name is recorded as "Spec" only in reference to him as a football player, but "Speck" everywhere else, including his own autographs. He is a player whose historical contributions are far too great to simply leave such a matter unresolved, so I would like to figure out if he changed the spelling, or we are just repeating it incorrectly.

From what I can tell, news accounts used "Spec" and "Speck" interchangeably from the time he started, well, making a name for himself before WWII. The AP wire stories consistently used Speck, as did his hometown Okla papers, but pro beat writers in other cities often used Spec.

BTW He got his nickname as a kid because of his noticeably large freckles---Speck being an abbreviation of "flyspeck," I would imagine.

A Speculative Career ...

I would think we would want to use the spelling that was most widely used or if there are awards that say "Spec" then that should be preferred.

Bronislau Nagurski was called Bronco, Broncho, and Bronko interchangeably because it was, after all, a nickname. His estate uses "Bronko."

RyanChristiansen wrote:I would think we would want to use the spelling that was most widely used or if there are awards that say "Spec" then that should be preferred.

Bronislau Nagurski was called Bronco, Broncho, and Bronko interchangeably because it was, after all, a nickname. His estate uses "Bronko."

Now that's interesting. I wonder how it ultimately ended up settling on Bronko? It's the least orthodox of the three spellings.

I can't find evidence in a rather hasty search, but it seems to me that I've read that Sanders got his nickname as a kid because he had a lot of freckles, so it would have been "Speck" as in "Speckled.":

JameisLoseston wrote:

RyanChristiansen wrote:I would think we would want to use the spelling that was most widely used or if there are awards that say "Spec" then that should be preferred.

Bronislau Nagurski was called Bronco, Broncho, and Bronko interchangeably because it was, after all, a nickname. His estate uses "Bronko."

Now that's interesting. I wonder how it ultimately ended up settling on Bronko? It's the least orthodox of the three spellings.

The first time I ever read about Nagurski was an early 60s Sport Magazine article in which he was called "Bronko Nagurski."

Most people probably don't remember that his son, Ronco Nagurski, used to sell rotisseries on late-night TV in the '70s.

At this stage, I'd recommend that some note be made of the ambiguity on Sanders' PFR page; for example, in the line where nicknames are typically listed for players that have them (e.g. Slingin' Sammy), give it as "Orban Eugene Sanders (Spec or Speck)". More definitive contemporary evidence would probably be required to edit the primary page header, though. I'd still love to see how his signature looked during his playing career, to see if he ever changed his personal opinion on the spelling.

Here's his WWII draft card. No Spec or Speck, just plain ol' Orban. Interesting (but certainly not unusual) that his 1917 birthdate makes him actually two years older than the 1919 date he used when playing pro ball.