Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

About Reuben Ursella, and why I believe he belongs in the Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good:

Reuben John “Rube” Ursella, a black-haired, brown-eyed first-generation American of Italian heritage attended two years of high school at Minneapolis South but never played football there. Ursella played mainly quarterback for the Minneapolis Marines (1907-17, 1921, 1927-28) and Minneapolis Red Jackets (1929) sandlot, semi-professional, independent professional, American Professional Football Association, exhibition, and National Football League teams, for the West Duluth (1916) independent professional team, for the Rock Island Independents (1917, 1919-20, 1924-25) independent professional, American Professional Football Association, and NFL teams, for the Hibbing All-Stars (1922-23) independent professional team, the Tollefson's All-Stars (1923) exhibition football team, and the Akron Indians (1926) and Hammond Pros (1926) in the NFL. During World War I, he served in France with the 604th Engineering Regiment and played for the 604th Engineers service team in the 5th Army Corps League.

In the midst of his career, in 1926, Minneapolis Journal sportswriter Halsey Hall wrote a feature about Ursella and called him "one of the greatest football players the west has been proud of, collegiate, scholastic, or otherwise." Hall acclaimed Ursella's "wizardry in running, his statesmanship in field marshalling, [and] his marvels in kicking."

After Ursella retired from football, in 1935, Tribune sportswriter George A. Barton suggest that Ursella, "with proper training by a university coach, no doubt would have been developed into one of the all-time greats as a punter and field goal kicker. He consistently booted the ball 50 yards on the fly and was ever-dangerous at drop-kicking or place-kicking goals anywhere within the 40-yard line. Ursella had the ruggedness and speed to make him a splendid ball carrier and he likewise was a dependable defensive player."

In 1941, sportswriter Marvin Quinn of the Minneapolis Tribune suggested at the time, thousands of Minneapolitans still remembered Ursella's exploits on the gridiron and "every one... might mention him in the same breath with [Jim] Thorpe and [Red] Grange and [Herb] Joesting." Ursella had played alongside Thorpe, against Grange, and alongside Joesting.

Ursella is remembered for kicking a 54-yard drop-kicked field goal in 1913. Halsey Hall suggested Ursella was in his time "the greatest kicker of local and possibly national history." Ursella said he learned learned how to better drop-kick the ball with his instep instead of his toe, “and I discovered that, inside the 50, I might as well try for a field goal because I could get the ball down there just as well as a punt,” he told Hall.

In 1958, Minneapolis Star Tribune sportswriter Dick Cullum said, “There are people qualified to judge [he didn't say whom] who say that Ruby Ursella was one of the two or three greatest football players we have ever had in Minnesota.” In 1960, Cullum talked to Ossie Solem, the former Marines coach, and Solem said Ursella "was about the best kicker football has ever had.”

In 1974, Okla Eugene "Oak" Smith, who had played end for the Rock Island Independents alongside Ursella, wrote about Ursella in the Long Beach, California, Press-Telegram. He said, "Rube Ursella was our quarterback, captain, and coach. He came from the old Minneapolis Marines and was rated by college coaches as the most natural signal caller they ever saw in action at that time. A tactical genius, a superb punter and drop kicker, he was a real leader possessed of great ability and considerable experience."

John Dunn, the vice president of the National Football League who played alongside Ursella and who owned the Minneapolis franchise said he felt Ursella and Paddy Driscoll were the best professional players he ever saw play. “Rube was the better all-around player, could do more,” he told Minneapolis Star sportswriter Bernard Swanson in 1941, “but Paddy was the one who could break up a ball game any time.”

Outside of football, Ursella had a short-lived professional boxing career. He played baseball for the early Marines baseball team and for the Superior Red Sox in Superior, Wisconsin, in the Central International League (1912), the Virginia Ore Diggers (1913-14) and Grand Forks Flickertails in the Northern League (1915), spring training with the Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association (1916), and the Butte, Montana, Amalgamated Copper Mining Company team in the Mines League (1922).

A bit about Ursella as a tactician:

When Reuben Ursella took over as coach and quarterback of the Rock Island Independents in 1919, five hundred fans showed up at Douglas Park in Rock Island to watch him lead the Independents in their first workout, which included learning the fundamentals of the Minnesota Shift, a pre-snap movement designed by Minnesota Gophers coach Henry L. Williams. (Remember, Ursella never attended college nor did he play high school football, so one must believe he learned these tactics from watching the Gophers play or from talking to former Gophers. Perhaps it was Ossie Solem, the Marines' first outside coach, who taught Ursella the fundamentals of the shift.) One of the Independents players, Okla Eugene “Oak” Smith, later described the shift as employed by Ursella in Rock Island:

“In this offensive formation, the center and tackles lined up on the ball, the ends stood behind the tackles, and the two guards lined up back of the center. The quarterback stood behind the guards, and the two halfbacks and the fullback were in [a] line behind the quarterback. This placed the backs in T formation. The team then would shift strong side right or left with the backs in T formation or box, as called. Also, we shifted into balanced line and short punt. If we ran into a tough tackle, we would use an end in motion before the hike... In those days of yore, you did not have to hold the shift. It was ‘one, two, ball.’ This gave you a two-step charge at your man, and the shift always allowed you to be outside your man when you were to turn him in, and inside of him when you wanted to turn him out.”

It appears that Ursella's implementation differed from Williams' implementation. Here is a description of Williams' implementation of the Minnesota Shift:

The team assembled in a formation with the center and ends on the line but with the guards and tackles positioned back of the line and the backfielders even further back. On the quarterback’s signal, the guards and tackles would move to a position on the line, with the result an unbalanced line, and a split second later the team would execute the play.

The fundamental difference here is that Ursella started with the center and tackles on the line and the guards and ends would shift; Williams started with the center and ends on the line and the guards and tackles would shift. Ursella also added the optional end in motion after the shift but before the snap.

There is debate about which professional football team first used a man in motion, and here is evidence that it was the Independents in 1919, and possibly the Marines before them, that started to use a man in motion AFTER the initial shift. (We know that the Marines employed man in motion in 1922 against the Green Bay Packers.) Perhaps Williams did this, too, but I have yet to run across mention of that tactic, which is to draw the defensive tackle away from the point of attack or to get a lineman to jump offsides.

I wanted to respond because I'm guessing there won't be a ton of responses - apologize if my reply isn't encouraging, but it will give you a chance for a rebuttal and hopefully better than no reply at all.

I think this is a real tough sell - even tougher than Bobby Marshall who also played in that region around the same time. Personally, I don't like to consider off the field accomplishments because those are subjective. In terms of on the field, I'd like to see more evidence that there was contemporary opinion that ranked him among the best - all pro teams etc. I think there are a lot of his peers I would rank higher who have never come close to HOVG, several of whom I've nominated.

Great write-up though. I enjoyed reading it. I will check later - I think Ursella's name shows up in The Sunday Game by Keith McClellan.

TanksAndSpartans wrote:I'd like to see more evidence that there was contemporary opinion that ranked him among the best - all pro teams etc.

Remember, the height of the Minneapolis Marines was around 1916, and their reputation as a pre-war powerhouse under Ursella's leadership carried them into the NFL, where they did not do as well, mainly because Ursella and a few others had gone to play for Rock Island, instead. During those years Ursella and the others were in Rock Island, the Independents were very, very good.

TanksAndSpartans wrote:I think Ursella's name shows up in The Sunday Game by Keith McClellan.

Unfortunately, there are errors about the Minneapolis Marines in The Sunday Game, but this is not entirely Mr. McClellan's fault.

He said Fred Chicken played for the University of Kansas. He did not. He never went to college.

He said Dewey Lyle played for the University of Minnesota. He did not. He never went to college.

He said Eber F. Simpson Jr. played for the team. He did not.

In my research, it appears that Mr. McClellan took his information about these players from the newspapers in places where the Marines were the visiting team. In many cases, information in newspapers from that era about visiting teams are full of errors, no matter which visiting team you're looking at. The fact Minneapolis was basically on the western frontier back then made it more likely newspapers in other places would make mistakes. Unfortunately, this information gets repeated over and over again. In fact, I discovered several errors in the University of Minnesota football media guide, which says certain players played for Minnesota, but they did not. They have corrected some of the information, but not all of it, because it's not a priority.

For example, another common mistake is to say that Reuben Ursella played at the University of Minnesota. He did not. He did not even play high school football. He was a self-made man in that regard.

I have corrected some of this information with Pro Football Reference, at least.

Why did the Marines have such a great reputation?

Starting in 1913, the Minneapolis Marines were an independent professional team with a manager, coach, a venue, fans, a system, and with revenue.

Records
1913 - 8-1 (Ursella scored 101 points)
1914 - 6-1
1915 - 6-1
1916 - 8-0-1
1917 - 7-0

The 1917 season included a 40-0 win over the Davenport Athletic Club, a 55-7 win over Duluth City, a 7-3 win over the Rock Island Independents, and a 33-14 win over the Rock Island Independents. You also have to include Rock Island's 23-7 win over Davenport at the end of the season because Rock Island had hired the entire Marines backfield, including Ursella, and a couple of key linemen for that game.

In 1919, after the war, Ursella and those same Marines who played for Rock Island in 1917 joined the Independents. The team finished 9-1-1 and arguably finished as the top team in pro football that year. Ursella scored 106 points that season. This was the peak of Ursella's career, but he kept playing.

In 1920, in the NFL, Ursella led Rock Island to a 6-2-2 season.

When he returned to Rock Island in 1925, he led the Independents to a 5-3-3 season.

Thanks @Ryan - great research!

How do you rank Ursella v. Bobby Marshall? Both HOVG? If so, which one would you put in first?

TanksAndSpartans wrote:How do you rank Ursella v. Bobby Marshall? Both HOVG? If so, which one would you put in first?

That's a tough one. (I always find it difficult to compare players at different positions.)

I have a high regard for Bobby Marshall. He was a tremendous all-around athlete, but as you say, we can only judge players by their football accomplishments. (I included Ursella's baseball stuff above not for argument, but for color.) And because this is the pro football HOVG, you need to ignore college football experience.

Here is what I know about Marshall and pro football: He played and coached the independent professional football with the Minneapolis Deans (1907-09). He also organized the Hennepins (1911) semi-professional football team, which featured former Deans teammates, and he played on the Minnesota All-Stars (1912) exhibition team. He played for the Minneapolis Marines (1913-17, 1919, 1927) independent professional and exhibition teams, and he started his own professional team, Bobby Marshall’s All-Stars (1914) and captained and managed the Minneapolis Beavers (1914). He coached and played for the St. Paul White Fronts (1915) semi-professional team. He also played for the West Duluth (1916) independent professional team, the Davenport Athletics (1917) independent professional team, and the Rock Island Independents (1919-20) independent professional and American Professional Football Association teams. He played for more All-Stars exhibition teams (1920-21, 1925), the Minneapolis Liberties (1921, 1925) independent professional team, the Ironwood Legion (1921-22, 1924) independent professional team, the University All-Stars (1922) exhibition team, the Hibbing All-Stars (1923) independent professional team, Tollefson's All-Stars (1923) exhibition team, the Duluth Kelleys (1925) National Football League team, and the Twin City All-Stars (1926) exhibition team. He coached the Ironwood Legion (1922). He played for the Minnesota All-Stars (1932) independent professional team.

In 1960, Star Tribune columnist Dick Cullum talked to Ossie Solem, the former Marines coach, and Solem said, “The greatest football player I ever saw, anywhere, was Bobby Marshall. Bobby could not only tackle a man with his arms but, if he missed, could tackle him with his legs.”

Solem said Ursella was the second-greatest player he ever saw, behind Marshall.

I have Marshall scoring 10 points in 1913, 20 points in 1914, 12 points in 1916, and 13 points in 1917, and 10 points in 1919 with the Marines, 16 points in 1919, 3 points in 1920.

Marshall and Ursella played on the same great teams together, with the Marines and Independents, and they played together in other situations. Who was the biggest contributor? The one who played end? Or the one who coached the team, played quarterback, called the signals, and did a great job punting for field position? It's so hard to know the answer to this question. Marshall was a coach in his own right, and he may have had a lot of influence on Ursella. But Oak Smith holds up Ursella as the leader of the Independents. Marshall was a Black athlete only two generations removed from slavery and in a predominantly white culture, so we have to assume some people in football who held racial bias might have marginalized his contributions because of that, and yet, it seems like Marshall was highly regarded and part of the fabric of Minneapolis and St. Paul athletic circles. Both Ursella and Marshall exhibited durability and longevity in professional football (and Marshall was a freak of nature in that respect), but the PFHOF doesn't give "points" for longevity, or else Jim Marshall, the Minnesota Viking, would be in the Hall, especially in light of his updated, retroactive sack figures to consider.

Marshall's longevity, which includes his time with the Minneapolis Deans and Ironwood, place him above Ursella in terms of long-term accomplishment, but who was a bigger contributor on those Marines and Independents teams that were so good? I think Ursella stands above Marshall on those teams. I would have to go with Ursella.

Bobby Marshall is in the Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame and in the College Football Hall of Fame, but both of those halls take into account more than just his professional football accomplishments.

Thanks Ryan - great analysis!

Reuben Ursella played quarterback. He was a great scat back, kicker, and kick returner. This is how Reuben Ursella (and Fred Chicken) impacted both the Minneapolis Marines and the Rock Island Independents during the period when their teams outscored opponents 1,725 to 157 points. Ursella took over as coach of the Marines in 1912 and he implemented the Gophers' "Minnesota Shift" offense. Ursella had never played college football (reports that he played for the Gophers are incorrect), so I suspect he picked up the offense by watching the Gophers and talking to the players. After 1912, the Marines had former Gophers as coaches. Ursella took the Minnesota Shift to Rock Island in 1919 where he coached and played for the team ("The Champions of the U.S.A."). I nominated Reuben Ursella for the Hall of Very Good. I believe he deserves to be on the ballot.