Bert Bell
Encyclopedia
De Benneville "Bert" Bell (February 25, 1895 – October 11, 1959) was the National Football League
(NFL) commissioner from 1946 until his death in 1959. As commissioner, he helped chart a path for the NFL to facilitate its rise in becoming the most popular sports attraction in the United States
. For his innovations with the NFL, and his stewardship as commissioner, he was posthumously inducted into the charter class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
in 1963.
Bell began his formal days of playing football at the University of Pennsylvania
in 1914. As the starting quarterback
on the Penn Quakers
, he led his team to the 1917 Rose Bowl
. His college days were interrupted by a stint in the United States Army
during World War I
. After resuming, and then concluding, his college playing days, he became an assistant football coach with the Quakers and then the Temple Owls
.
He became the co-founder and co-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles
in 1933. There, Bell successfully proposed the creation of the NFL draft. He became the sole owner and coach of the Eagles in 1936 and then moved on to become part owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers
in 1940. He was elected to be NFL commission in 1946 and subsequently sold his stake in the Steelers.
As NFL Commissioner, he acted as the principal spokesman for the NFL and persuaded owners to act cohesively to enhance the league's popularity and it's financial viability. He enacted an anti-gambling resolution into the NFL constitution. He negotiated the merger of the NFL with the AAFC
. He developed regular season schedules with the purpose of increasing the competitive balance within the league. He enacted rule changes in the NFL to enhance the appeal of the game on television. He unilaterally recognized the NFLPA and assisted in negotiating the first pension plan for the players. The conclusion of his tenure as commissioner, and life, would abide barely enough for the playing of the Greatest Game Ever Played.
, (1903–1907) the Pennsylvania Attorney General
(1911–1915) an author, and public speaker. His older brother, John C. Jr.
, was born in 1892. Bert's parents were very wealthy, and his mother's lineage in the United States
predated the American Revolutionary War
.
Bell's father (University of Pennsylvania, C' 1884) played football as an end during his college days, and he brought Bert to his first football game at Penn, located a mile from their home, when he was six years old. Soon thereafter, Bert regularly engaged in football games with neighborhood friends. In 1904 Bert attended the Episcopal Academy. About this time, his father became director of athletics at Penn and helped form the NCAA
. Bell attended the Delancey School from 1909 to 1911. For high school, Bell enrolled in The Haverford School
in 1911. He was one of the best athletes in the school, and in his senior year he served as captain of the school's football, basketball, and baseball teams, and "was awarded The Yale Cup, given to 'The pupil who has done the most to promote athletics in the school.'" Although he excelled at baseball, his first passion was football. His father was named trustee at Penn in 1911 (until 1928). and he said of Bert's plans for college, "Bert will go to Penn or he will go to hell."
. He became the starting quarterback on the freshman Penn Quakers
. His play earned him a position on the varsity for coach George H. Brooke as starting quarterback in 1915, an unusual occurrence for a sophomore. He also played as a defender, punter, and punt returner. After a 3-0 start, Bell began sharing quarterbacking duties until the seventh game. As a punt returner, his lack of speed caused him to fumble occasionally because he could not get set properly before catching the ball. After Brooke abruptly quit before the eight game, Bell regained the starting quarterback position. Penn finished with a record of 3–5–2 in his first year on varsity.
Fleurette passed away on September 24, 1916, while Bell was en route from campus to her bedside. Nevertheless, he started the first game of the 1916 season on September 30 for new coach Bob Folwell
. But again mixed results by Bell caused him to be platooned for the rest of the season. The team finished the regular season with a record of 7–2–1, 10th seed in the east., After Harvard, and then Yale, turned down an invitation to the 1917 Rose Bowl
, Penn was offered an invitation and accepted it. In the game against the Oregon Ducks
, Penn's total offensive yards for the game was 230 vs. 242 for Oregon. The most successful offensive play for the Quakers was a 20 yard rushing gain by Bell. Late in the game, Bell was replaced at quarterback after throwing an interception, from the Quaker's fifteen yard line that led to the final score, Oregon 14, Penn 0, three plays later. At the time, this game was considered to be the greatest football game ever played on the West Coast. In the 1917 season, Bell led Penn to a 9–2–0 finish.
On December 1, 1917, Bell was inducted into a Mobile Hospital Unit of the United States Army
for World War I
and after training, he was deployed to France
in May 1918. As a result of his unit volunteering for one of several dangerous assignments, it received a congratulatory letter for bravery from General John J. Pershing
. He was promoted to top sergeant
and, after the war ended, arrived back in New York City
in March 1919 with a discharge soon to be. He returned to Penn as captain of the football team in the fall and again played erratically. The Quakers finished 1919 with a 6–2–1 record. His collegiate playing days were over, and he was viewed as having been, depending on sources, an above-average player to a borderline All-America
n candidate. Off the field, Bell's aversion to attending academic classes caught up with him, and in February 1920 he left Penn without a degree.
from 1920 to 1922. Under Heisman, he became well regarded as an assistant coach. After Penn's declaration as collegiate champions in 1924, Bell received offers for head-coaching positions, which he declined. In 1928, Bell and assistant coach Lud Wray
had a dispute regarding Quaker football strategy. Bell felt Young and Wray overemphasized scrimmages in practices during the season. Consequently, in November, Bell tendered his resignation, which was not accepted. Bell preferred to stay on at Penn, but his resignation was accepted prior to the start of the 1929 season.
Late in Bell's career at Penn, his father set Bert up with at least one job, as a manager of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Around 1929, Bell become a stock broker and managed to lose approximately $50,000 during the Wall Street Crash of 1929
. His father bailed him out of his losses, and Bell continued to work, or returned to working, at the Ritz for an unspecified period. In December 1929, Bell announced he would become an assistant coach for Temple University
for the next season. He was a backfield coach at Temple under head coach and former Penn teammate Heinie Miller for the 1930 through the 1932 season. When Pop Warner
was hired to coach Temple for the 1933 season, he chose to hire his own assistants, and Bell was let go.
During his coaching tenure at Penn and Temple, Bell spent most of his off time out drinking, socializing, and gambling. One of his favorite places was the Saratoga Race Course
. He visited Saratoga every August as late as 1926, and there he counted among his friends and companions the Vanderbilts
, the Whitneys
, Tim Mara
, Art Rooney
, and George Preston Marshall
, among others. Marshall met Bell in Atlantic City in 1932 and tried to coax him into buying the rights for a new NFL franchise, but Bell promptly disparaged the NFL and ridiculed the suggestion.
would have to be changed to permit NFL games to be played on Sunday. Bell then played the primary role in getting the Blue laws deprecated. Bell then needed money to purchase entry into the NFL but his father would not lend him any because he disapproved of football as a career. So Bell borrowed money from Frances Upton
, his future wife, which he used to partner with Wray, among others, and buy the rights to play in Philadelphia that the Frankford Yellow Jackets
once held. Bell named the franchise the Philadelphia Eagles
, the partners paid the league entrance fee of $2,500 (presently, $) and agreed to guarantee the outstanding debt of the Yellow Jackets. The Eagles, Pittsburgh Pirates
, and the Cincinnati Reds
entered the NFL for the start of the 1933 NFL season
.
Wray became head coach of the Eagles, and Bell became president. After the Eagles inaugural 3–5–1 season, a de facto segregation occurred in the NFL and African American
s would not return to the NFL until the 1946 NFL season
as the two remaining African Americans players would not return for the 1934 NFL season
. Bell's proposal to have the winner of the annual NFL championship game be awarded the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy
was accepted at the NFL owners meeting. The Reds went bankrupt amid the 1934 season, and the Eagles finished with a 4–7 record. The lack of the Eagles' success on the field made it difficult to sell tickets and to be profitable. Bell's inability to sign a college player to a contract eventually led him to believe the only way to bring competitive parity and financial stability to the NFL was for all teams to have an equal opportunity to sign eligible players by instituting a draft. In 1935, his proposal for a draft was accepted, and on February 8, 1936, the first NFL draft began, at which Bell acted as master of the ceremony.
Sometime after his father's death in 1935, Bell and his family moved into his father's estate in Radnor, Pennsylvania
, which had been bequeathed equally to Bert and his brother. Bell's desire to maintain ownership of the Eagles amidst its financial losses from 1936 to 1938 eventually led him to convince his brother to sell their father's estate sometime around 1938. Bell and his family moved into a hotel, which was either previously owned by his father or presently owned by his father's estate, in Center City, Philadelphia
.
In their first three years, the Eagles lost about $85,000 (presently, $). In the spring of 1936, the franchise was put up for public auction
. Bell became sole owner with a winning bid of about $4,500 (presently, $). Austerity measures forced Wray to be let go, and Bell became head coach. Bell made the 102,000-capacity Municipal Stadium
the team's home field for the 1936 NFL season
and coached them to a 1–11 finish, still their worst record ever. In December, an application for an NFL franchise in Los Angeles was denied because Bell and Rooney argued it was too far of a distance to travel for games, but the Cleveland Rams
were accepted for the 1937 NFL season
.
The Eagles finished with a 2–8–1 record. With a 5–6 record in 1938
, the franchise made its first profit, $7,000 (presently, $). The Eagles finished 1–9–1 in 1939
and 1–10 in 1940
.
Bell and Rooney apportioned $7,500 annual salaries for each of themselves, pursuant to the Steelers being profitable, at the opening of training camp, Rooney was the general manager and Bell was the head coach. In their inaugural season, Bell was resigned to the Steelers having a dreadful season after Rooney denigrated the team during training camp in a phrase that would soon morph into the "Same old Steelers"−(SOS). After losing the first two games of the 1941 season
, Rooney pressured Bell into resigning as head coach. Bell's coaching career ended with a 10–46–2 record. For coaches with at least five years in the NFL, it was the worst record in NFL history.
By 1943, 40% of NFL players had been drafted into the United States Armed Forces
because of World War II
. This shortage of players could have been eradicated if African Americans had been integrated into the teams. Some owners wanted to shut down the league until the war ended, but Bell was one of the owners arguing against it because the league might not be able to jump start itself after the war, it was their duty as patriots to continue the league, and Major League Baseball
was continuing its schedule.
Consequently, the Steelers and Eagles were forced to pool their players to field a team and temporarily merge for the 1943 season
, into a team referred to as the Steagles
. The following season, the Steelers merged with the Cardinals in a team referred to as Card-Pitt
.
Throughout Bell's partnership in the Steelers, he suffered financially and Rooney bought an increasing share of the Steelers from Bell. Compounding Bell's financial problems, in 1944, Arch Ward
organized a group of investors to create the AAFC for the purpose of competing against the NFL. Although the AAFC would not start its first season until the autumn of 1946, it immediately began battling the NFL to get the best players. Consequently player salaries were immediately driven up drastically. The NFL responded by creating a rule to ban players for five years from NFL-associated employment if they left the NFL to join the AAFC. "Bullet" Bill Dudley
attributed Bell's nervous nature, during his contract negotiations with the Steelers, a consequence of the AAFC's competition. Furthermore at the end of the 1945 season, the Steelers franchise was in the most financially perilous position since it had entered the NFL.
was hired as NFL commissioner in 1941, Ward was viewed as dictating the hiring of Layden. Consequently, some of the owners believed Layden had a conflict of interest in dealing with the AAFC because Ward was seen as his benefactor. Also, throughout 1945, Dan Topping
, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers
, and Mara, had been feuding because Mara would not permit Topping to use Yankee Stadium as his home field, due to the stadium's proximity to the Giants home field, the Polo Grounds
. As a result of this feud, Topping took his Dodgers from the NFL to the AAFC. The rise in player's salaries as a result of the competition from the AAFC, Layden's perceived unconcerned attitude about the threat of the AAFC, and Topping's departure contributed to Layden getting fired on January 11, 1946. Bell, who was not well respected in the Pittsburgh at the time, was selected to replace Layden.
On January 12, 1946, Bell's selection to commissioner became official; Bell had become the second commissioner of the NFL. Bell was given a three-year contract by the NFL at $20,000 (presently, $) per year and consequently sold his stake in the Steelers to Rooney, albeit for a price Bell did not believe was full-value. Bell was then immediately placed at the center of a dispute wherein the owners refused to permit Dan Reeves
to transfer the Cleveland Rams to Los Angeles
. Bell help negotiate a settlement and, as a result, the Los Angeles Rams were created. and the NFL had become the first professional coast-to-coast sports enterprise. The Rams subsequently signed Kenny Washington
, an African American, to the team, as a precondition to leasing the Los Angeles Coliseum, and thereby ending racial segregation in the NFL. The signing of Washington caused "'all hell to break loose...'" among the owners, although no details are provided what that entailed.
The drawing up of the NFL schedule had been a perennial source of contention in the NFL. Developing a season schedule meant dealing with, depending on sources, either teams wanting to play only teams that drew the best crowds at home and when visiting, or stronger teams wanting to play the weaker ones early in the season to pad their win-loss records. The owners, consequently in 1946, granted Bell the sole discretion in developing the NFL playing schedule. Bell created the schedules so that, at the start of the season, the weaker teams would play against each other and the stronger teams would play each other. Bell's goal was to augment game attendances by keeping the disparity in team standings to a minimum for as long as possible.
The day before the 1946 Championship game, Bell became aware that Merle Hapes
of the Giants had admitted he was offered a bribe to fix the game and Frank Filchock
of the Giants had denied being offered one. Hapes was suspended by Bell, but Filchock was permitted to play in the game. At the NFL meeting the day after the game, Bell became worried he was about to be fired when when the owner's asked him to step outside. When he returned, he was advised his contract was changed to a five-year pact at $30,000 per year. At the same meeting with the purpose of adding excitement to the NFL, Bell persuaded the owners to approve a sudden-death overtime for playoff games only. Also, although there was only about 60,000 sets in the country, he was given the task of approving each TV announcer, before they could be employed to announce a game. However, each NFL franchise was empowered to market its own games with television broadcasting companies.
Bell announced plans to get as much legislation written across the country to make it illegal to fix games. He then lobbied to do so and also wrote the anti-gambling resolution to the league constitution, which was immediately approved As a result, the commissioner's office could permanently ban any player for betting on a game or for withholding information on a game being possibly fixed. Under oath weeks later, Filchock testified to being offered a bribe. Subsequently, Filchock and Hapes were suspended indefinitely by Bell. Bert put employees on retainer to investigate potential betting scams. To prevent gamblers from getting any inside information, he mandated that each team had to publish an injury report, 48 hours prior to each game, listing the players who may not, or could not, play, and Bell did not reveal the names of officials he would assign to games. Not long after, Pennsylvania became the last state with an NFL franchise to pass a law making it a crime to bribe an athlete.
Although Bert hated to fly, as late as the mid 1950s, Bell visited the training camps of every team, each year, and made it a point to discuss with the danger gamblers posed to the league.
The competition between the NFL and the AAFC to hire players, and the simultaneous raising of the NFL team roster limit from 28 to the prewar level of 33, caused the NFL payrolls to increase by 250% by the end of the 1946 NFL season
.
The average attendance per game reported by the NFL had been larger than the AAFC in 1946, but the AAFC would surpass the NFL in 1947, and 1948. However after the end of 1948 NFL season
, the NFL had not shown a league wide profit for three years in a row, and neither had the AAFC. After having introducing a 75 mile blackout radius around Chicago, wherein regular season home games would not be televised, Halas sold the rights for the Western Conference title game in 1948 for about the same amount as he received for the entire 1947 season. Bell and representatives from both leagues met in Philadelphia at the end of the 1948 NFL season and were unsuccessful to coming to terms on a merger, but they had come close. At an ensuing league meeting, Bell informed the owners that attendance records had clearly shown televising games locally had a negative impact on the sale of home tickets.
Bell negotiated the first television contract for the NFL in 1949, when ABC
broadcast, on the West Coast
only, the 1949 championship game.
Bill Radovich played for the Detroit Lions in and then left the NFL and played for the Los Angeles Dons
in the AAFC. Subsequently, Radovich was blacklisted by the NFL and was prevented from gaining employment with a team from the Pacific Coast League
. Unable to land a job in the NFL or the Pacific Coast League, Radovich filed suit against the NFL seeking damages. The case weighed very heavily on Bell as it worked its way through the judicial system. Bert and the owners were advised in the fall of 1949 by John C. that a colleague of his thought the case was not winnable, albeit he personally thought it was "'50-50'".
During this time, the AAFC was still signing as many good players as the NFL. The average attendance in the NFL dropped again in the 1949 season to 23,196 and the league again did not show a profit. The primary obstacle in a merger was in making the requests of Paul Brown
, coach of the perennial AAFC champion Cleveland Browns
requests amenable to the NFL owners. Bell finally gathered enough support from the NFL owners to override objections, and on December 9, 1949, the leagues merged. Bell would stay on in his role as commissioner. Three AAFC teams (the Cleveland Browns, the San Francisco 49ers
, and Baltimore Colts) would be incorporated into the NFL. Throughout the entire process, Brown had felt that Bell treated the AAFC, and the Browns in particular, very fairly.
Bell, seeking to capitalize on the residual rivalry between the AAFC and the NFL, Bell then "exquisite dramatic" and business sense by scheduling the 1949 NFL champion Eagles against the former perennial AAFC champion Browns in the 1950 season opener.
However, Bell's handling of the NFL's conflict with the AAFC was viewed as a personal triumph, and contract was changed again from a five-year to a 10-year pact at the same salary. Bell then bought his first house and moved his family into Narberth, Pennsylvania
.
By the beginning of 1950, depending on sources, four or eight million TV sets existed in America, but revenue from radio broadcasts still far outpaced that from television. The NFL mandated home games had to be locally blacked out for the 1950 NFL season
, with the exception of the Los Angeles Rams. As a result of this blackout policy, the U.S. Justice Department
opened an investigation into the NFL's possible violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act
. The Rams attendance dropped off by almost 50%. The only explanation was televising home games was detrimental to attendance. A league-wide drop in attendance from broadcasting home games would be a financial disaster for the NFL. Nevertheless, at league meetings in early 1951, Bell pushed through a motion that teams could still televise their home games if they and the visiting team both agreed. Also, Bell's salary was increased to $40,000 (presently, $) a year for the remainder of his contract. However, prior to the start of the 1951 NFL season
, Bell reimposed the blackout rule. In the spring, Bell negotiated a TV contract with Dumont to televise the NFL championship game for $95,000 for each of the next five years.
In October, the Justice Department filed suit against the NFL over its blackout rules. Bell told the Chicago Tribune
, "You can't give fans a game for free on TV and also expect them to go to the ballpark". Nevertheless, the suit was ordered to trial for January 1952. After the season concluded, Bell gained control over the setting of television policy for all teams in the NFL. In May 1953, Bell negotiated a deal with DuMont Television Network
granting them the rights to nationally broadcast certain regular season games. The revenue from this contract was split equally amongst all the teams and amounted to about $50,000 (presently, $) for each team. In November, the Justice Department's case against the NFL's television policy was decided. The judge's decision permitted the blackout policy but forbid Bell, or the NFL franchises collectively, from negotiating a TV contract; The judge wrote not allowing the blackout policy could result in all the teams in the NFL becoming bankrupt. This decision, however, was subject to a possible reversal by a superior court; nevertheless, Bell was ecstatic.
In 1953, Bell forced one of the owners of the Cleveland Browns to sell all of his shares in the team because he was found to have been betting on Browns' football games.
Bell's focus, with respect to television, was to showcase the NFL's best assets—the players. As a result, Bell mandated an all-star game, the Pro Bowl
, be played at the end of each season. But in the early 1950s, play sometimes denigrated to borderline assault and battery with players trying to take out opposing teams star players. Bell responded in an interview to charges the NFL had dirty players by saying, "'... I have never seen a maliciously dirty football player in my life and I don't believe there are any maliciously dirty players in the National Football League.'" Nevertheless, Bell mandated broadcasts would have to follow a strict rule of conduct. TV announcers would not be permitted to criticize the game, and neither fights, nor injuries, could be televised. Bell said announcers were "'salesman for professional football'" and "'we are selling football'" and "'we do not want kids believing that engaging in fights is the way to play football.'" Bell was criticized frequently for censoring TV broadcasts, a charge he dismissed as not pertinent because he was advertising a product on TV and was not impeding the print media. When CBS and NBC took over the rights to broadcast NFL games in 1956, Bell made it a point to advise the franchises to avoid denigrating the games or the officials of the games—on, or off the field. He wrote that the new relationship with CBS and NBC would give "'...us our greatest opportunity to sell the National Football League and professional football. Everyone must do all in his power to present to the public the greatest games in football combined with the finest sportsmanship.'"
In Radovich v. National Football League
, the Supreme Court
ruled in 1957 in favor of Radovich. Furthermore, the court declared the NFL was subject to antitrust laws. The implications from the Court's ruling were that the legality of the draft and of the NFL's reserve clause
was dubious. Furthermore, the Court delineated a disparity in American professional sports which the Court said was "unrealistic, inconsistent, or illogical"; professional baseball was exempt from antitrust laws, but other professional sports were not. The Court suggested it was Congress's responsibility to legislate uniformity across all of professional sports. Congress immediately scheduled hearings on the ramifications of the ruling. Bell pressed a case in the media for the NFL being legislatively granted an exemption from antitrust regulations. Bell registered himself as a Congressional lobbyist and then claimed to the media that the NFL was a sport and not a business.
The House Judiciary subcommittee met in July 1957. The chairman of the subcommittee, Representative Emanuel Celler
of New York, argued that the NFL draft was illegal and should be abolished. Red Grange
testified before the committee and rejected Celler's assertions and said that the draft was essential and attested to having never heard of any college football players complain about the draft system. Representatives of the NFLPA appeared before Congress and explained that the draft and the reserve clause were anti-labor. At the time, a large portion of the American population was in unions. Members of Congress were unmoved by Bell's arguments, and it appeared as if Congress was going to revoke the NFL's implementation of the draft. Faced with Congress becoming more intimately involved with the running of the NFL, Bell formally recognized the NFLPA and declared he would negotiate with the NFLPA. His decision was heralded in the media as a "master stroke" in thwarting Congressional legal maneuvers. However, Bell was speaking only for himself, with no formal consent from the owners. At an ensuing NFL meeting, Rooney explained that the owners had to recognize the NFLPA or else Bell would have to be removed as commissioner. In order for the owners to formally recognize the NFLPA, they had to agree in a vote that required a supermajority. Finally, Bell was able to take Carroll Rosenbloom
, owner of the Baltimore Colts
, privately aside and persuaded him to vote for recognizing the NFLPA. The ensuing vote passed and the owners agreed to the requests from the NFLPA.
For the 1958 season, the durations of timeouts was increased from 60 to 90 seconds and Bell created a new rule which instructed referees to call a few TV timeouts during a game—a change which brought criticism from sportswriters. The 1958 NFL Championship Game became the first NFL championship game decided in overtime. The game was believed to be the greatest football ever played by some contemporaries in the media. The game further increased football's marketability to television advertising, that had begun after the Giants had won the 1956 NFL Championship Game, and the drama associated with the sudden-death overtime was the catalyst. Years later, after witnessing Bell openly crying after the game, Raymond Berry
attributed it Bell's immediate understanding of the impact the game would have on the popularity of the sport.
and died later that day at age sixty-four. Bell's funeral, on October 14, 1959, was held at Narberth's St. Margaret Roman Catholic Church. Monsignor Cornelius P. Brennan delivered the eulogy. Dignitaries, close friends, and hundreds of admirers attended the mass. Among the many floral arrangements placed at Bell's funeral ceremony was one presented by members of the NFLPA.Dominic Olejniczak
, president of the Packers, and the 11 owners of the NFL were honorary pallbearers. Bell was interred at Cavalry Cemetery in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania
.
, a devout Roman Catholic
, and Bell secretly married on January 4, 1934, and publicly married on May 6, 1934, at St. Madeleine Sophie Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia. They had three children, sons Bert, Jr. (born February 19, 1936), John "Upton"
, (born October 13, 1937), and daughter Jane Upton (born February 1, 1942).
. He was inducted into the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame in 2000, the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame
charter class of 2004, and Haverford's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010. The Maxwell Football Club
, which Bell founded in 1937, has presented the best NFL player of the year with the Bert Bell Award since 1959. The Bert Bell Benefit Bowl
was played annually from 1960
through 1969
.
Commissioners of sports were, idealistically, designed to be completely neutral in mediating disputes between players and owners, but in reality they tended to back the owners over the players. Bell, however, was contemporaneously seen as ensuring the owners treated the players fairly. As part-owner, or owner, of an NFL team, Bell never had an African American player on any of his teams. His son, Bert Jr., believed the mere discussion of whether his father was a racist was not warranted and believed his father's support of Emlen Tunnell
in becoming an NFL player was sufficient evidence. Bell's ability to mediate disputes between owners, such as with the schedule, was unequaled in the history of the NFL. Years later, Rooney believed one of the best things the owners ever did was to let Bell make up the schedule.
After negotiating a pension plan in 1959, little progress was made between the NFLPA and the NFL. Rozelle was not as willing a participant as entering into negotiations with the NFLPA as Bell had willing to be when Bell recognized the NFLPA before Congress in 1958. The first NFL players' pension plan, the Bert Bell National Football League Retirement Plan, was approved on May 24, 1962.
Bell was contemporaneously criticized as being too strict with his blackout policy when he refused to let sold-out games to be televised locally. Nevertheless, Bell's balancing of television broadcast against protecting game attendance during the 1950s had left professional football as the "healthiest professional sport in America" at the time of his passing. and he was the "...leading protagonist in pro football's evolution into America's major sport." Bell had understood that the NFL needed a cooperative television contract with revenue-sharing but he was never able to overcome the obstacles to achieve it.
Bell was not completely successful in preventing players or owners from betting on games. However, Bell's proactive measures in ensuring games were not tampered with by gamblers created the foundation of an NFL policy that continues to this day.
Bell's implementation of the draft did not show immediate results as perennial losers, such as the Eagles and Cardinals, standings' did not improve until 1947. However, Bell's rationale for creating the NFL draft, to make the league more competitive, was "hailed by contemporaries and sports historians as a move that made the NFL more" popular and was "the single greatest contributor to the NFL's prosperity." in the NFL's first eighty-four years. Bell had often said, "On any given Sunday, any team in our league can beat any other team."
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
(NFL) commissioner from 1946 until his death in 1959. As commissioner, he helped chart a path for the NFL to facilitate its rise in becoming the most popular sports attraction in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. For his innovations with the NFL, and his stewardship as commissioner, he was posthumously inducted into the charter class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
Pro Football Hall of Fame
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame of professional football in the United States with an emphasis on the National Football League . It opened in Canton, Ohio, on September 7, 1963, with 17 charter inductees...
in 1963.
Bell began his formal days of playing football at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
in 1914. As the starting quarterback
Quarterback
Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...
on the Penn Quakers
Penn Quakers football
The Penn Quakers football team is the college football team at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. The Penn Quakers have competed in the Ivy League since its inaugural season of 1956, and are currently a Division I Football Championship Subdivision member of the National...
, he led his team to the 1917 Rose Bowl
1917 Rose Bowl
The 1917 Rose Bowl, known at the time as the Tournament East-West Football Game, was a college football bowl game played on Jan 1, 1917. It was the 3rd Rose Bowl Game. The Oregon Ducks defeated the Penn Quakers by a score of 14–0. This remains the last, and to date, only Rose Bowl win ever for the...
. His college days were interrupted by a stint in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. After resuming, and then concluding, his college playing days, he became an assistant football coach with the Quakers and then the Temple Owls
Temple Owls football
The Temple Owls football team participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the East Division of the Mid-American Conference...
.
He became the co-founder and co-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
in 1933. There, Bell successfully proposed the creation of the NFL draft. He became the sole owner and coach of the Eagles in 1936 and then moved on to become part owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...
in 1940. He was elected to be NFL commission in 1946 and subsequently sold his stake in the Steelers.
As NFL Commissioner, he acted as the principal spokesman for the NFL and persuaded owners to act cohesively to enhance the league's popularity and it's financial viability. He enacted an anti-gambling resolution into the NFL constitution. He negotiated the merger of the NFL with the AAFC
All-America Football Conference
The All-America Football Conference was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the nation's best players, and introduced many lasting innovations...
. He developed regular season schedules with the purpose of increasing the competitive balance within the league. He enacted rule changes in the NFL to enhance the appeal of the game on television. He unilaterally recognized the NFLPA and assisted in negotiating the first pension plan for the players. The conclusion of his tenure as commissioner, and life, would abide barely enough for the playing of the Greatest Game Ever Played.
Early life
Bell was born de Benneville Bell, on February 25, 1895 in Philadelphia to John C. Bell and Fleurette de Benneville Myers. John C., an attorney in Philadelphia, was the city's District AttorneyDistrict attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
, (1903–1907) the Pennsylvania Attorney General
Pennsylvania Attorney General
The Pennsylvania Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It became an elected office in 1980. Currently, the office is held by Linda Kelly.- Authority and Responsibilities :...
(1911–1915) an author, and public speaker. His older brother, John C. Jr.
John C. Bell, Jr.
John Cromwell Bell, Jr. was a Pennsylvania politician and judge.He served as Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, 1943–47, and the 33rd Governor briefly in 1947, succeeding Edward Martin, who had resigned to take a seat in the United States Senate...
, was born in 1892. Bert's parents were very wealthy, and his mother's lineage in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
predated the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
.
Bell's father (University of Pennsylvania, C' 1884) played football as an end during his college days, and he brought Bert to his first football game at Penn, located a mile from their home, when he was six years old. Soon thereafter, Bert regularly engaged in football games with neighborhood friends. In 1904 Bert attended the Episcopal Academy. About this time, his father became director of athletics at Penn and helped form the NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
. Bell attended the Delancey School from 1909 to 1911. For high school, Bell enrolled in The Haverford School
The Haverford School
The Haverford School is a private, non-sectarian, all-boys college preparatory day school, junior kindergarten through grade twelve. Founded in 1884 as The Haverford College Grammar School, it is located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, nine miles northwest of Philadelphia, on Philadelphia's historic...
in 1911. He was one of the best athletes in the school, and in his senior year he served as captain of the school's football, basketball, and baseball teams, and "was awarded The Yale Cup, given to 'The pupil who has done the most to promote athletics in the school.'" Although he excelled at baseball, his first passion was football. His father was named trustee at Penn in 1911 (until 1928). and he said of Bert's plans for college, "Bert will go to Penn or he will go to hell."
University of Pennsylvania
Bell entered Penn in the fall of 1914, as an English major, and became a member of Phi Kappa SigmaPhi Kappa Sigma
Phi Kappa Sigma is an international all-male college social fraternity. Its members are known as "Phi Kaps", "Skulls" and sometimes "Skullhouse", the latter two because of the skull and crossbones on the Fraternity's badge and coat of arms. Phi Kappa Sigma was founded by Dr. Samuel Brown Wylie...
. He became the starting quarterback on the freshman Penn Quakers
Penn Quakers
The Penn Quakers are the athletic teams of the University of Pennsylvania. The school sponsors 27 varsity sports. The school has won three NCAA national championships in men's fencing and one in women's fencing.-Men's crew:-Football:...
. His play earned him a position on the varsity for coach George H. Brooke as starting quarterback in 1915, an unusual occurrence for a sophomore. He also played as a defender, punter, and punt returner. After a 3-0 start, Bell began sharing quarterbacking duties until the seventh game. As a punt returner, his lack of speed caused him to fumble occasionally because he could not get set properly before catching the ball. After Brooke abruptly quit before the eight game, Bell regained the starting quarterback position. Penn finished with a record of 3–5–2 in his first year on varsity.
Fleurette passed away on September 24, 1916, while Bell was en route from campus to her bedside. Nevertheless, he started the first game of the 1916 season on September 30 for new coach Bob Folwell
Bob Folwell
Robert Cook "Bob" Folwell, Jr. was an American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at Lafayette College , Washington & Jefferson College , the University of Pennsylvania , and the United States Naval Academy , compiling a career college football record of...
. But again mixed results by Bell caused him to be platooned for the rest of the season. The team finished the regular season with a record of 7–2–1, 10th seed in the east., After Harvard, and then Yale, turned down an invitation to the 1917 Rose Bowl
1917 Rose Bowl
The 1917 Rose Bowl, known at the time as the Tournament East-West Football Game, was a college football bowl game played on Jan 1, 1917. It was the 3rd Rose Bowl Game. The Oregon Ducks defeated the Penn Quakers by a score of 14–0. This remains the last, and to date, only Rose Bowl win ever for the...
, Penn was offered an invitation and accepted it. In the game against the Oregon Ducks
Oregon Ducks
The Oregon Ducks refers to the sports teams of the University of Oregon, located in Eugene, Oregon. The Oregon Ducks are part of the Pacific-12 Conference in the Division 1 of the NCAA. With seventeen varsity teams, the Oregon Ducks are best known for their football team and Track and Field...
, Penn's total offensive yards for the game was 230 vs. 242 for Oregon. The most successful offensive play for the Quakers was a 20 yard rushing gain by Bell. Late in the game, Bell was replaced at quarterback after throwing an interception, from the Quaker's fifteen yard line that led to the final score, Oregon 14, Penn 0, three plays later. At the time, this game was considered to be the greatest football game ever played on the West Coast. In the 1917 season, Bell led Penn to a 9–2–0 finish.
On December 1, 1917, Bell was inducted into a Mobile Hospital Unit of the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
for World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and after training, he was deployed to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in May 1918. As a result of his unit volunteering for one of several dangerous assignments, it received a congratulatory letter for bravery from General John J. Pershing
John J. Pershing
John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, GCB , was a general officer in the United States Army who led the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I...
. He was promoted to top sergeant
First Sergeant
First sergeant is the name of a military rank used in many countries, typically a senior non-commissioned officer.-Singapore:First Sergeant is a Specialist in the Singapore Armed Forces. First Sergeants are the most senior of the junior Specialists, ranking above Second Sergeants, and below Staff...
and, after the war ended, arrived back in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in March 1919 with a discharge soon to be. He returned to Penn as captain of the football team in the fall and again played erratically. The Quakers finished 1919 with a 6–2–1 record. His collegiate playing days were over, and he was viewed as having been, depending on sources, an above-average player to a borderline All-America
All-America
An All-America team is an honorary sports team composed of outstanding amateur players—those considered the best players of a specific season for each team position—who in turn are given the honorific "All-America" and typically referred to as "All-American athletes", or simply...
n candidate. Off the field, Bell's aversion to attending academic classes caught up with him, and in February 1920 he left Penn without a degree.
Early career
Bell became a backfield coach for Penn's coach John HeismanJohn Heisman
John William Heisman was an American player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College , Buchtel College, now known as the University of Akron , Auburn University , Clemson University , Georgia Tech , the...
from 1920 to 1922. Under Heisman, he became well regarded as an assistant coach. After Penn's declaration as collegiate champions in 1924, Bell received offers for head-coaching positions, which he declined. In 1928, Bell and assistant coach Lud Wray
Lud Wray
James R. Ludlow "Lud" Wray was a professional American football player, coach, and co-founder, with college teammate Bert Bell, of the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League. He was the first coach of the Boston Braves in 1932 and of the Eagles, 1933-1935...
had a dispute regarding Quaker football strategy. Bell felt Young and Wray overemphasized scrimmages in practices during the season. Consequently, in November, Bell tendered his resignation, which was not accepted. Bell preferred to stay on at Penn, but his resignation was accepted prior to the start of the 1929 season.
Late in Bell's career at Penn, his father set Bert up with at least one job, as a manager of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Around 1929, Bell become a stock broker and managed to lose approximately $50,000 during the Wall Street Crash of 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
. His father bailed him out of his losses, and Bell continued to work, or returned to working, at the Ritz for an unspecified period. In December 1929, Bell announced he would become an assistant coach for Temple University
Temple Owls football
The Temple Owls football team participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the East Division of the Mid-American Conference...
for the next season. He was a backfield coach at Temple under head coach and former Penn teammate Heinie Miller for the 1930 through the 1932 season. When Pop Warner
Glenn Scobey Warner
Glenn Scobey Warner , most commonly known as Pop Warner, was an American football player and coach...
was hired to coach Temple for the 1933 season, he chose to hire his own assistants, and Bell was let go.
During his coaching tenure at Penn and Temple, Bell spent most of his off time out drinking, socializing, and gambling. One of his favorite places was the Saratoga Race Course
Saratoga Race Course
Saratoga Race Course is a Thoroughbred horse racing track in Saratoga Springs, New York, United States. It opened on August 3, 1863, and is the oldest organized sporting venue of any kind in the United States. It is typically open for racing from late July through early September.-History:John...
. He visited Saratoga every August as late as 1926, and there he counted among his friends and companions the Vanderbilts
Vanderbilt family
The Vanderbilt family is an American family of Dutch origin prominent during the Gilded Age. It started off with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthropy...
, the Whitneys
Whitney family
The Whitney family is an American family notable for their social prominence, wealth, business enterprises and philanthropy, founded by John Whitney who came from London, England to Watertown, Massachusetts in 1635.-Rise to prominence:...
, Tim Mara
Tim Mara
Timothy James "Tim" Mara was the founder and administrator for the New York Giants of the National Football League. The Giants', under Mara, would win NFL championships in 1934, 1938, and 1956 and divisional titles in 1933, 1939, 1941, 1944, 1946, 1958, 1959.-Early life:Mara was born into poverty...
, Art Rooney
Art Rooney
Arthur Joseph "Art" Rooney, Sr. , often referred to as "The Chief", was the founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers American football franchise in the National Football League.-Family history:...
, and George Preston Marshall
George Preston Marshall
George Preston Marshall was the owner and president of the Washington Redskins of the National Football League from 1932 until his death in 1969.-Contributions:...
, among others. Marshall met Bell in Atlantic City in 1932 and tried to coax him into buying the rights for a new NFL franchise, but Bell promptly disparaged the NFL and ridiculed the suggestion.
Philadelphia Eagles
By about February 1933, Bell's opinion on the NFL had changed, and he wanted to become an owner. At the time, college football, played on Saturday, was vastly more popular than the NFL, so Bell was told a prerequisite to a franchise being granted to him was the Pennsylvania Blue LawsBlue law
A blue law is a type of law, typically found in the United States and, formerly, in Canada, designed to enforce religious standards, particularly the observance of Sunday as a day of worship or rest, and a restriction on Sunday shopping...
would have to be changed to permit NFL games to be played on Sunday. Bell then played the primary role in getting the Blue laws deprecated. Bell then needed money to purchase entry into the NFL but his father would not lend him any because he disapproved of football as a career. So Bell borrowed money from Frances Upton
Frances Upton
Frances Upton was a Broadway actress and comedienne. She starred with Eddie Cantor in Whoopee! and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1928. She also had a featured role in the early talkie Night Work...
, his future wife, which he used to partner with Wray, among others, and buy the rights to play in Philadelphia that the Frankford Yellow Jackets
Frankford Yellow Jackets
The Frankford Yellow Jackets were a professional American football team, part of the National Football League from 1924 to 1931, though its origin dates back to as early as 1899 with the Frankford Athletic Association. The Yellow Jackets won the NFL championship in 1926...
once held. Bell named the franchise the Philadelphia Eagles
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
, the partners paid the league entrance fee of $2,500 (presently, $) and agreed to guarantee the outstanding debt of the Yellow Jackets. The Eagles, Pittsburgh Pirates
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...
, and the Cincinnati Reds
Cincinnati Reds (NFL)
The Cincinnati Reds were a National Football League team that played the 1933 season and the first eight games of the 1934 season. The football Reds played most of their home games at Crosley Field...
entered the NFL for the start of the 1933 NFL season
1933 NFL season
The 1933 NFL season was the 14th regular season of the National Football League. Because of the success of the 1932 NFL Playoff Game, the league divided its teams into two divisions for the first time, with the winners of each division playing in a championship game to determine the NFL champion...
.
Wray became head coach of the Eagles, and Bell became president. After the Eagles inaugural 3–5–1 season, a de facto segregation occurred in the NFL and African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s would not return to the NFL until the 1946 NFL season
1946 NFL season
The 1946 NFL season was the 27th regular season of the National Football League. Before the season, Elmer Layden resigned as NFL Commissioner and Bert Bell, co-founder of the Philadelphia Eagles, replaced him...
as the two remaining African Americans players would not return for the 1934 NFL season
1934 NFL season
The 1934 NFL season was the 15th regular season of the National Football League. Before the season, the Portsmouth Spartans moved to Detroit, Michigan and were renamed the Detroit Lions....
. Bell's proposal to have the winner of the annual NFL championship game be awarded the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy
Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy
The Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy was the trophy awarded to the Champions of the National Football League from 1934 until 1969. The trophy was named after Ed Thorp, a noted referee, rules expert, and sporting goods dealer...
was accepted at the NFL owners meeting. The Reds went bankrupt amid the 1934 season, and the Eagles finished with a 4–7 record. The lack of the Eagles' success on the field made it difficult to sell tickets and to be profitable. Bell's inability to sign a college player to a contract eventually led him to believe the only way to bring competitive parity and financial stability to the NFL was for all teams to have an equal opportunity to sign eligible players by instituting a draft. In 1935, his proposal for a draft was accepted, and on February 8, 1936, the first NFL draft began, at which Bell acted as master of the ceremony.
Sometime after his father's death in 1935, Bell and his family moved into his father's estate in Radnor, Pennsylvania
Radnor, Pennsylvania
Radnor is a wealthy Main Line township. It is an unincorporated community in Radnor Township of Delaware County and Tredyffrin Township of Chester County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It lies near the communities of Villanova and St...
, which had been bequeathed equally to Bert and his brother. Bell's desire to maintain ownership of the Eagles amidst its financial losses from 1936 to 1938 eventually led him to convince his brother to sell their father's estate sometime around 1938. Bell and his family moved into a hotel, which was either previously owned by his father or presently owned by his father's estate, in Center City, Philadelphia
Center City, Philadelphia
Center City, or Downtown Philadelphia includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. As of 2005, its population of over 88,000 made it the third most populous downtown in the United States, after New York City's and Chicago's...
.
In their first three years, the Eagles lost about $85,000 (presently, $). In the spring of 1936, the franchise was put up for public auction
Public auction
A public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government, or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a government agency with similar authority....
. Bell became sole owner with a winning bid of about $4,500 (presently, $). Austerity measures forced Wray to be let go, and Bell became head coach. Bell made the 102,000-capacity Municipal Stadium
John F. Kennedy Stadium
John F. Kennedy Stadium was an open-air stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that stood from 1925 to 1992. The South Philadelphia stadium was situated on the east side of the far southern end of Broad Street at a location that is now part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex...
the team's home field for the 1936 NFL season
1936 NFL season
The 1936 NFL season was the 17th regular season of the National Football League. For the first time since the league was founded, there were no team transactions; neither a club folded nor did a new one join the NFL. 1936 was also the first year in which all league teams played the same number of...
and coached them to a 1–11 finish, still their worst record ever. In December, an application for an NFL franchise in Los Angeles was denied because Bell and Rooney argued it was too far of a distance to travel for games, but the Cleveland Rams
St. Louis Rams
The St. Louis Rams are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are currently members of the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Rams have won three NFL Championships .The Rams began playing in 1936 in Cleveland,...
were accepted for the 1937 NFL season
1937 NFL season
The 1937 NFL season was the 18th regular season of the National Football League. The Cleveland Rams joined the league as an expansion team. Meanwhile, the Redskins relocated from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C....
.
The Eagles finished with a 2–8–1 record. With a 5–6 record in 1938
1938 NFL season
The 1938 NFL season was the 19th regular season of the National Football League. The season ended when the New York Giants defeated the Green Bay Packers in the NFL Championship Game.-Major rule changes:...
, the franchise made its first profit, $7,000 (presently, $). The Eagles finished 1–9–1 in 1939
1939 NFL season
The 1939 NFL season was the 20th regular season of the National Football League. Before the season, NFL president Joseph Carr died, and Carl Storck was named to replace him....
and 1–10 in 1940
1940 NFL season
The 1940 NFL season was the 21st regular season of the National Football League. The season ended when the Chicago Bears defeated the Washington Redskins in the NFL Championship Game, 73–0. This game still stands as the most one-sided victory in NFL history...
.
Pittsburgh Steelers
In December of 1940, Bell negotiated a sale of the Rooney's Steelers to Alexis Thompson. In a series of events, eventually known as the Pennsylvania Polka, Rooney and Bell ending up becoming equal partners in the Steelers after Rooney bought half of Bell's interest in the Eagles for $50,000 (presently, $) and then Bell and Rooney swapping franchise with Thompson. Ostensibly, Rooney had provided financial assistance to Bell by granting him a 20% commission ($30,000 (presently, $)) on the sale of the Steelers.Bell and Rooney apportioned $7,500 annual salaries for each of themselves, pursuant to the Steelers being profitable, at the opening of training camp, Rooney was the general manager and Bell was the head coach. In their inaugural season, Bell was resigned to the Steelers having a dreadful season after Rooney denigrated the team during training camp in a phrase that would soon morph into the "Same old Steelers"−(SOS). After losing the first two games of the 1941 season
1941 NFL season
The 1941 NFL season was the 22nd regular season of the National Football League. Before the season, Elmer Layden was named the first Commissioner of the NFL, while Carl Storck resigned as league president....
, Rooney pressured Bell into resigning as head coach. Bell's coaching career ended with a 10–46–2 record. For coaches with at least five years in the NFL, it was the worst record in NFL history.
By 1943, 40% of NFL players had been drafted into the United States Armed Forces
United States armed forces
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
because of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. This shortage of players could have been eradicated if African Americans had been integrated into the teams. Some owners wanted to shut down the league until the war ended, but Bell was one of the owners arguing against it because the league might not be able to jump start itself after the war, it was their duty as patriots to continue the league, and Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
was continuing its schedule.
Consequently, the Steelers and Eagles were forced to pool their players to field a team and temporarily merge for the 1943 season
1943 NFL season
The 1943 NFL season was the 24th regular season of the National Football League. As more players left to serve in World War II, three teams were affected by the depleted rosters. The Cleveland Rams were granted permission to suspend operations for this season. The Philadelphia Eagles and the...
, into a team referred to as the Steagles
Steagles
The Steagles is the popular nickname for the team created by the temporary merger of two National Football League teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles, during the 1943 season...
. The following season, the Steelers merged with the Cardinals in a team referred to as Card-Pitt
Card-Pitt
Card-Pitt was the name for the team created by the temporary merger of two National Football League teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Chicago Cardinals, during the 1944 season. The teams were forced to merge, because both had lost many players to World War II military service...
.
Throughout Bell's partnership in the Steelers, he suffered financially and Rooney bought an increasing share of the Steelers from Bell. Compounding Bell's financial problems, in 1944, Arch Ward
Arch Ward
Arch Ward was the sports editor for the Chicago Tribune and personal friend of the owner, Robert R. McCormick. He created the MLB All-Star Game, the All-America Football Conference , the Golden Gloves amateur boxing tournament and the College All-Star Game. Ward was twice offered the job as...
organized a group of investors to create the AAFC for the purpose of competing against the NFL. Although the AAFC would not start its first season until the autumn of 1946, it immediately began battling the NFL to get the best players. Consequently player salaries were immediately driven up drastically. The NFL responded by creating a rule to ban players for five years from NFL-associated employment if they left the NFL to join the AAFC. "Bullet" Bill Dudley
Bill Dudley
William McGarvey "Bullet Bill" Dudley was a professional American football player in the National Football League for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Detroit Lions, and Washington Redskins. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1966.-Early life:Dudley was born in Bluefield, Virginia and...
attributed Bell's nervous nature, during his contract negotiations with the Steelers, a consequence of the AAFC's competition. Furthermore at the end of the 1945 season, the Steelers franchise was in the most financially perilous position since it had entered the NFL.
AAFC-NFL competition (1946-1949)
When Elmer LaydenElmer Layden
Elmer Francis Layden was an American football player, coach, college athletics administrator, and professional sports executive. He played college football at the University of Notre Dame where he starred at fullback as a member of the legendary "Four Horsemen" backfield...
was hired as NFL commissioner in 1941, Ward was viewed as dictating the hiring of Layden. Consequently, some of the owners believed Layden had a conflict of interest in dealing with the AAFC because Ward was seen as his benefactor. Also, throughout 1945, Dan Topping
Dan Topping
Daniel Reid Topping was a part owner and president of the New York Yankees baseball team from 1945 to 1964. Daniel Reid Topping was the son of Rhea Reid and Henry J. Topping. Rhea Reid, the daughter of Daniel G. Reid, known as the "Tinplate King" for his vast wealth in the tin industry, was the...
, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers
Brooklyn Dodgers (NFL)
The Brooklyn Dodgers were an American football team that played in the National Football League from 1930 to 1943, and in 1944 as the Brooklyn Tigers. The team played its home games at Ebbets Field. In 1945, because of financial difficulties, the team was merged with the Boston Yanks...
, and Mara, had been feuding because Mara would not permit Topping to use Yankee Stadium as his home field, due to the stadium's proximity to the Giants home field, the Polo Grounds
Polo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...
. As a result of this feud, Topping took his Dodgers from the NFL to the AAFC. The rise in player's salaries as a result of the competition from the AAFC, Layden's perceived unconcerned attitude about the threat of the AAFC, and Topping's departure contributed to Layden getting fired on January 11, 1946. Bell, who was not well respected in the Pittsburgh at the time, was selected to replace Layden.
On January 12, 1946, Bell's selection to commissioner became official; Bell had become the second commissioner of the NFL. Bell was given a three-year contract by the NFL at $20,000 (presently, $) per year and consequently sold his stake in the Steelers to Rooney, albeit for a price Bell did not believe was full-value. Bell was then immediately placed at the center of a dispute wherein the owners refused to permit Dan Reeves
Dan Reeves (NFL owner)
Daniel "Dan" Reeves was the owner of the Cleveland/Los Angeles Rams from 1941 to his death in 1971.In addition to the controversial move of the Rams from Cleveland to Los Angeles, Reeves is remembered for being the first NFL owner to sign an African-American player in the post World War II era...
to transfer the Cleveland Rams to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Bell help negotiate a settlement and, as a result, the Los Angeles Rams were created. and the NFL had become the first professional coast-to-coast sports enterprise. The Rams subsequently signed Kenny Washington
Kenny Washington (American football)
Kenneth S. "Kingfish" Washington was a professional football player who was the first African-American to sign a contract with a National Football League team in the modern era.-UCLA Bruins:...
, an African American, to the team, as a precondition to leasing the Los Angeles Coliseum, and thereby ending racial segregation in the NFL. The signing of Washington caused "'all hell to break loose...'" among the owners, although no details are provided what that entailed.
The drawing up of the NFL schedule had been a perennial source of contention in the NFL. Developing a season schedule meant dealing with, depending on sources, either teams wanting to play only teams that drew the best crowds at home and when visiting, or stronger teams wanting to play the weaker ones early in the season to pad their win-loss records. The owners, consequently in 1946, granted Bell the sole discretion in developing the NFL playing schedule. Bell created the schedules so that, at the start of the season, the weaker teams would play against each other and the stronger teams would play each other. Bell's goal was to augment game attendances by keeping the disparity in team standings to a minimum for as long as possible.
Filchock-Hapes scandal
The day before the 1946 Championship game, Bell became aware that Merle Hapes
Merle Hapes
Merle Alison Hapes was a professional American football fullback in the National Football League. He played two seasons for the New York Giants .-External links:...
of the Giants had admitted he was offered a bribe to fix the game and Frank Filchock
Frank Filchock
Frank Joseph Filchock was an American and Canadian football tailback/quarterback and coach. As a consequence of a famous scandal regarding the 1946 NFL Championship game, he was suspended by the National Football League from 1947 to 1950 for associating with gamblers.-Early career:Born in 1916 in...
of the Giants had denied being offered one. Hapes was suspended by Bell, but Filchock was permitted to play in the game. At the NFL meeting the day after the game, Bell became worried he was about to be fired when when the owner's asked him to step outside. When he returned, he was advised his contract was changed to a five-year pact at $30,000 per year. At the same meeting with the purpose of adding excitement to the NFL, Bell persuaded the owners to approve a sudden-death overtime for playoff games only. Also, although there was only about 60,000 sets in the country, he was given the task of approving each TV announcer, before they could be employed to announce a game. However, each NFL franchise was empowered to market its own games with television broadcasting companies.
Bell announced plans to get as much legislation written across the country to make it illegal to fix games. He then lobbied to do so and also wrote the anti-gambling resolution to the league constitution, which was immediately approved As a result, the commissioner's office could permanently ban any player for betting on a game or for withholding information on a game being possibly fixed. Under oath weeks later, Filchock testified to being offered a bribe. Subsequently, Filchock and Hapes were suspended indefinitely by Bell. Bert put employees on retainer to investigate potential betting scams. To prevent gamblers from getting any inside information, he mandated that each team had to publish an injury report, 48 hours prior to each game, listing the players who may not, or could not, play, and Bell did not reveal the names of officials he would assign to games. Not long after, Pennsylvania became the last state with an NFL franchise to pass a law making it a crime to bribe an athlete.
Although Bert hated to fly, as late as the mid 1950s, Bell visited the training camps of every team, each year, and made it a point to discuss with the danger gamblers posed to the league.
AAFC-NFL merger and initial foray into television
The competition between the NFL and the AAFC to hire players, and the simultaneous raising of the NFL team roster limit from 28 to the prewar level of 33, caused the NFL payrolls to increase by 250% by the end of the 1946 NFL season
1946 NFL season
The 1946 NFL season was the 27th regular season of the National Football League. Before the season, Elmer Layden resigned as NFL Commissioner and Bert Bell, co-founder of the Philadelphia Eagles, replaced him...
.
The average attendance per game reported by the NFL had been larger than the AAFC in 1946, but the AAFC would surpass the NFL in 1947, and 1948. However after the end of 1948 NFL season
1948 NFL season
The 1948 NFL season was the 29th regular season of the National Football League. During the season, Halfback Fred Gehrke painted horns on the Los Angeles Rams' helmets, making the first modern helmet emblem in pro football. The season ended when the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Chicago...
, the NFL had not shown a league wide profit for three years in a row, and neither had the AAFC. After having introducing a 75 mile blackout radius around Chicago, wherein regular season home games would not be televised, Halas sold the rights for the Western Conference title game in 1948 for about the same amount as he received for the entire 1947 season. Bell and representatives from both leagues met in Philadelphia at the end of the 1948 NFL season and were unsuccessful to coming to terms on a merger, but they had come close. At an ensuing league meeting, Bell informed the owners that attendance records had clearly shown televising games locally had a negative impact on the sale of home tickets.
Bell negotiated the first television contract for the NFL in 1949, when ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
broadcast, on the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
only, the 1949 championship game.
Bill Radovich played for the Detroit Lions in and then left the NFL and played for the Los Angeles Dons
Los Angeles Dons
The Los Angeles Dons were an American football team in the now defunct All-America Football Conference from 1946 to 1949 that played in the Los Angeles Coliseum....
in the AAFC. Subsequently, Radovich was blacklisted by the NFL and was prevented from gaining employment with a team from the Pacific Coast League
Pacific Coast Professional Football League
The Pacific Coast Professional Football League , also known as the Pacific Coast Football League and Pacific Coast League was a professional American football league based in California, USA, and competed from 1940 through 1948 in sports...
. Unable to land a job in the NFL or the Pacific Coast League, Radovich filed suit against the NFL seeking damages. The case weighed very heavily on Bell as it worked its way through the judicial system. Bert and the owners were advised in the fall of 1949 by John C. that a colleague of his thought the case was not winnable, albeit he personally thought it was "'50-50'".
During this time, the AAFC was still signing as many good players as the NFL. The average attendance in the NFL dropped again in the 1949 season to 23,196 and the league again did not show a profit. The primary obstacle in a merger was in making the requests of Paul Brown
Paul Brown
Paul Eugene Brown was a coach in American football and a major figure in the development of the National Football League...
, coach of the perennial AAFC champion Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
requests amenable to the NFL owners. Bell finally gathered enough support from the NFL owners to override objections, and on December 9, 1949, the leagues merged. Bell would stay on in his role as commissioner. Three AAFC teams (the Cleveland Browns, the San Francisco 49ers
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...
, and Baltimore Colts) would be incorporated into the NFL. Throughout the entire process, Brown had felt that Bell treated the AAFC, and the Browns in particular, very fairly.
Bell, seeking to capitalize on the residual rivalry between the AAFC and the NFL, Bell then "exquisite dramatic" and business sense by scheduling the 1949 NFL champion Eagles against the former perennial AAFC champion Browns in the 1950 season opener.
However, Bell's handling of the NFL's conflict with the AAFC was viewed as a personal triumph, and contract was changed again from a five-year to a 10-year pact at the same salary. Bell then bought his first house and moved his family into Narberth, Pennsylvania
Narberth, Pennsylvania
Narberth is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 4,282 at the 2010 census.-History:Narberth is located on a parcel of land originally deeded to Edward Rees , who arrived from Wales in 1682. A portion of this original tract became the farm of Edward R...
.
Blackout policy solidified
By the beginning of 1950, depending on sources, four or eight million TV sets existed in America, but revenue from radio broadcasts still far outpaced that from television. The NFL mandated home games had to be locally blacked out for the 1950 NFL season
1950 NFL season
The 1950 NFL season was the 31st regular season of the National Football League. The merger with the All-America Football Conference expanded the league to 13 teams. Meanwhile, television brought a new era to the game. The Los Angeles Rams became the first NFL team to have all of its games – both...
, with the exception of the Los Angeles Rams. As a result of this blackout policy, the U.S. Justice Department
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
opened an investigation into the NFL's possible violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act requires the United States federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of violating the Act. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by...
. The Rams attendance dropped off by almost 50%. The only explanation was televising home games was detrimental to attendance. A league-wide drop in attendance from broadcasting home games would be a financial disaster for the NFL. Nevertheless, at league meetings in early 1951, Bell pushed through a motion that teams could still televise their home games if they and the visiting team both agreed. Also, Bell's salary was increased to $40,000 (presently, $) a year for the remainder of his contract. However, prior to the start of the 1951 NFL season
1951 NFL season
The 1951 NFL season was the 32nd regular season of the National Football League. Prior to the season, Baltimore Colts owner Abraham Watner faced financial difficulties, and thus gave his team and its player contracts back to the league for $50,000. However, many Baltimore fans started to protest...
, Bell reimposed the blackout rule. In the spring, Bell negotiated a TV contract with Dumont to televise the NFL championship game for $95,000 for each of the next five years.
In October, the Justice Department filed suit against the NFL over its blackout rules. Bell told the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, "You can't give fans a game for free on TV and also expect them to go to the ballpark". Nevertheless, the suit was ordered to trial for January 1952. After the season concluded, Bell gained control over the setting of television policy for all teams in the NFL. In May 1953, Bell negotiated a deal with DuMont Television Network
DuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...
granting them the rights to nationally broadcast certain regular season games. The revenue from this contract was split equally amongst all the teams and amounted to about $50,000 (presently, $) for each team. In November, the Justice Department's case against the NFL's television policy was decided. The judge's decision permitted the blackout policy but forbid Bell, or the NFL franchises collectively, from negotiating a TV contract; The judge wrote not allowing the blackout policy could result in all the teams in the NFL becoming bankrupt. This decision, however, was subject to a possible reversal by a superior court; nevertheless, Bell was ecstatic.
In 1953, Bell forced one of the owners of the Cleveland Browns to sell all of his shares in the team because he was found to have been betting on Browns' football games.
Marketing of the NFL
Bell's focus, with respect to television, was to showcase the NFL's best assets—the players. As a result, Bell mandated an all-star game, the Pro Bowl
Pro Bowl
In professional American football, the Pro Bowl is the all-star game of the National Football League . Since the merger with the rival American Football League in 1970, it has been officially called the AFC–NFC Pro Bowl, matching the top players in the American Football Conference against those...
, be played at the end of each season. But in the early 1950s, play sometimes denigrated to borderline assault and battery with players trying to take out opposing teams star players. Bell responded in an interview to charges the NFL had dirty players by saying, "'... I have never seen a maliciously dirty football player in my life and I don't believe there are any maliciously dirty players in the National Football League.'" Nevertheless, Bell mandated broadcasts would have to follow a strict rule of conduct. TV announcers would not be permitted to criticize the game, and neither fights, nor injuries, could be televised. Bell said announcers were "'salesman for professional football'" and "'we are selling football'" and "'we do not want kids believing that engaging in fights is the way to play football.'" Bell was criticized frequently for censoring TV broadcasts, a charge he dismissed as not pertinent because he was advertising a product on TV and was not impeding the print media. When CBS and NBC took over the rights to broadcast NFL games in 1956, Bell made it a point to advise the franchises to avoid denigrating the games or the officials of the games—on, or off the field. He wrote that the new relationship with CBS and NBC would give "'...us our greatest opportunity to sell the National Football League and professional football. Everyone must do all in his power to present to the public the greatest games in football combined with the finest sportsmanship.'"
NFLPA
In Radovich v. National Football League
Radovich v. National Football League
Radovich v. National Football League , , is a 1957 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that professional football, unlike professional baseball, was subject to antitrust laws...
, the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
ruled in 1957 in favor of Radovich. Furthermore, the court declared the NFL was subject to antitrust laws. The implications from the Court's ruling were that the legality of the draft and of the NFL's reserve clause
Reserve clause
The reserve clause is a term formerly employed in North American professional sports contracts. The reserve clause, contained in all standard player contracts, stated that, upon the contract's expiration the rights to the player were to be retained by the team to which he had been signed...
was dubious. Furthermore, the Court delineated a disparity in American professional sports which the Court said was "unrealistic, inconsistent, or illogical"; professional baseball was exempt from antitrust laws, but other professional sports were not. The Court suggested it was Congress's responsibility to legislate uniformity across all of professional sports. Congress immediately scheduled hearings on the ramifications of the ruling. Bell pressed a case in the media for the NFL being legislatively granted an exemption from antitrust regulations. Bell registered himself as a Congressional lobbyist and then claimed to the media that the NFL was a sport and not a business.
The House Judiciary subcommittee met in July 1957. The chairman of the subcommittee, Representative Emanuel Celler
Emanuel Celler
Emanuel Celler was an American politician from New York who served in the United States House of Representatives for almost 50 years, from March 1923 to January 1973. He was a member of the Democratic Party.-Early life:...
of New York, argued that the NFL draft was illegal and should be abolished. Red Grange
Red Grange
Harold Edward "Red" Grange, nicknamed "The Galloping Ghost", was a college and professional American football halfback for the University of Illinois, the Chicago Bears, and for the short-lived New York Yankees. His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League...
testified before the committee and rejected Celler's assertions and said that the draft was essential and attested to having never heard of any college football players complain about the draft system. Representatives of the NFLPA appeared before Congress and explained that the draft and the reserve clause were anti-labor. At the time, a large portion of the American population was in unions. Members of Congress were unmoved by Bell's arguments, and it appeared as if Congress was going to revoke the NFL's implementation of the draft. Faced with Congress becoming more intimately involved with the running of the NFL, Bell formally recognized the NFLPA and declared he would negotiate with the NFLPA. His decision was heralded in the media as a "master stroke" in thwarting Congressional legal maneuvers. However, Bell was speaking only for himself, with no formal consent from the owners. At an ensuing NFL meeting, Rooney explained that the owners had to recognize the NFLPA or else Bell would have to be removed as commissioner. In order for the owners to formally recognize the NFLPA, they had to agree in a vote that required a supermajority. Finally, Bell was able to take Carroll Rosenbloom
Carroll Rosenbloom
Carroll Rosenbloom was an American entrepreneur and former owner of two professional football teams, the Baltimore Colts and the Los Angeles Rams....
, owner of the Baltimore Colts
Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League ....
, privately aside and persuaded him to vote for recognizing the NFLPA. The ensuing vote passed and the owners agreed to the requests from the NFLPA.
The Greatest Game ever played
For the 1958 season, the durations of timeouts was increased from 60 to 90 seconds and Bell created a new rule which instructed referees to call a few TV timeouts during a game—a change which brought criticism from sportswriters. The 1958 NFL Championship Game became the first NFL championship game decided in overtime. The game was believed to be the greatest football ever played by some contemporaries in the media. The game further increased football's marketability to television advertising, that had begun after the Giants had won the 1956 NFL Championship Game, and the drama associated with the sudden-death overtime was the catalyst. Years later, after witnessing Bell openly crying after the game, Raymond Berry
Raymond Berry
Raymond Emmett Berry is a former football wide receiver. He played for the Baltimore Colts during their two NFL championship wins. He later had a career in coaching, highlighted by his trip to Super Bowl XX as head coach of the New England Patriots...
attributed it Bell's immediate understanding of the impact the game would have on the popularity of the sport.
Last Days (1959)
The death of Tim Mara in February 1959 unsettled Bell, who suffered a heart attack that month. Bell converted to Catholicism in the summer of 1959 because of the lifelong urging of his wife, Mara's death, and his enduring friendship with Rooney, a practicing Catholic. Bell had been advised by his doctor to avoid going to football games, to which he responded, "I'd rather die watching football than in my bed with my boots off." In the fall, Bell and his children attended an Eagles game at Franklin Field on October 11. The Eagles held complimentary box seats for Bell and guests to watch the game. But Bell preferred to buy his own tickets and sit among the other fans. Sitting behind the endzone during the fourth quarter of the game, Bell suffered a heart attackMyocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
and died later that day at age sixty-four. Bell's funeral, on October 14, 1959, was held at Narberth's St. Margaret Roman Catholic Church. Monsignor Cornelius P. Brennan delivered the eulogy. Dignitaries, close friends, and hundreds of admirers attended the mass. Among the many floral arrangements placed at Bell's funeral ceremony was one presented by members of the NFLPA.Dominic Olejniczak
Dominic Olejniczak
Dominic Olejniczak was the mayor of Green Bay, Wisconsin and was president and chairman of the Board of the Green Bay Packers.Mr. Olejniczak was born on August 18, 1908 to John A. and Victoria Olejniczak in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He was a lifelong resident of the city and on November 24, 1938,...
, president of the Packers, and the 11 owners of the NFL were honorary pallbearers. Bell was interred at Cavalry Cemetery in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania
West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania
West Conshohocken is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,462 in 1880; 2,482 in 1950; 1,516 in 1980; 1,294 in 1990; and 1,320 at the 2010 census....
.
Family
Broadway actress Frances UptonFrances Upton
Frances Upton was a Broadway actress and comedienne. She starred with Eddie Cantor in Whoopee! and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1928. She also had a featured role in the early talkie Night Work...
, a devout Roman Catholic
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
, and Bell secretly married on January 4, 1934, and publicly married on May 6, 1934, at St. Madeleine Sophie Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia. They had three children, sons Bert, Jr. (born February 19, 1936), John "Upton"
Upton Bell
Upton Bell is a former American football executive. Upton is currently a talk show host and commentator at WCRN Talk AM 830 in Worcester, Massachusetts...
, (born October 13, 1937), and daughter Jane Upton (born February 1, 1942).
Legacy and honors
On September 7, 1963, Bell was in the first enshrinement class for the Professional Football Hall of FamePro Football Hall of Fame
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame of professional football in the United States with an emphasis on the National Football League . It opened in Canton, Ohio, on September 7, 1963, with 17 charter inductees...
. He was inducted into the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame in 2000, the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame
Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame
The Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame is a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., that was established in May 2002, to honor individuals and groups who are either area natives who became prominent in the field of sports or who became prominent in the field of sports in the...
charter class of 2004, and Haverford's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010. The Maxwell Football Club
Maxwell Football Club
The Maxwell Football Club was established in 1935 to promote safety in the game of American football. Named in honor of the late Robert W...
, which Bell founded in 1937, has presented the best NFL player of the year with the Bert Bell Award since 1959. The Bert Bell Benefit Bowl
Playoff Bowl
The Playoff Bowl was a post-season game for third place in the NFL, played ten times following the -69 seasons. Bell was a co-founder of the Philadelphia Eagles as well as a co-owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers during much of the 1940s...
was played annually from 1960
1960 NFL season
The 1960 NFL season was the 41st regular season of the National Football League. Before the season, Pete Rozelle was elected NFL commissioner as a compromise choice on the twenty-third ballot. Meanwhile, the league expanded to 13 teams with the addition of the Dallas Cowboys. Also, the Cardinals...
through 1969
1969 NFL season
The 1969 NFL season was the 50th regular season of the National Football League, and the last one before the AFL-NFL Merger. To honor the NFL's 50th season, a special anniversary logo was designed and each player wore a patch on their jerseys with this logo throughout the season.As per the...
.
Commissioners of sports were, idealistically, designed to be completely neutral in mediating disputes between players and owners, but in reality they tended to back the owners over the players. Bell, however, was contemporaneously seen as ensuring the owners treated the players fairly. As part-owner, or owner, of an NFL team, Bell never had an African American player on any of his teams. His son, Bert Jr., believed the mere discussion of whether his father was a racist was not warranted and believed his father's support of Emlen Tunnell
Emlen Tunnell
Emlen Lewis Tunnell was an American football player. He was the first African American to play for the New York Giants, and was inducted into the Professional Football Hall of Fame in 1967. He played in the National Football League for the Giants and Green Bay Packers...
in becoming an NFL player was sufficient evidence. Bell's ability to mediate disputes between owners, such as with the schedule, was unequaled in the history of the NFL. Years later, Rooney believed one of the best things the owners ever did was to let Bell make up the schedule.
After negotiating a pension plan in 1959, little progress was made between the NFLPA and the NFL. Rozelle was not as willing a participant as entering into negotiations with the NFLPA as Bell had willing to be when Bell recognized the NFLPA before Congress in 1958. The first NFL players' pension plan, the Bert Bell National Football League Retirement Plan, was approved on May 24, 1962.
Bell was contemporaneously criticized as being too strict with his blackout policy when he refused to let sold-out games to be televised locally. Nevertheless, Bell's balancing of television broadcast against protecting game attendance during the 1950s had left professional football as the "healthiest professional sport in America" at the time of his passing. and he was the "...leading protagonist in pro football's evolution into America's major sport." Bell had understood that the NFL needed a cooperative television contract with revenue-sharing but he was never able to overcome the obstacles to achieve it.
Bell was not completely successful in preventing players or owners from betting on games. However, Bell's proactive measures in ensuring games were not tampered with by gamblers created the foundation of an NFL policy that continues to this day.
Bell's implementation of the draft did not show immediate results as perennial losers, such as the Eagles and Cardinals, standings' did not improve until 1947. However, Bell's rationale for creating the NFL draft, to make the league more competitive, was "hailed by contemporaries and sports historians as a move that made the NFL more" popular and was "the single greatest contributor to the NFL's prosperity." in the NFL's first eighty-four years. Bell had often said, "On any given Sunday, any team in our league can beat any other team."
Published works
- Bell, Bert, "The Money Game." Liberty Magazine, XIII (November 28, 1936), pp. 59–60.
- Bell, Bert, "Offensive Football." Popular Football, (Winter 1941), p. 111.
- Bell, Bert, "This is Commissioner Bell Speaking." Pro Football Illustrated, XII (1952), pp. 60–63.
- Bell, Bert; with Martin, Paul, "Do the Gamblers Make a Sucker Out of You?." Saturday Evening Post, CCXXI (November 6, 1948), p. 28.
- Bell, Bert; with Pollock, Ed, "Let's Throw Out the Extra Point." Sport, XV (October 1953), p. 24–25.
- Bell, Bert (1957). The Story of Professional Football in Summary. Bala Cynwyd, PA: National Football League.
See also
- Golden Age of TelevisionGolden Age of TelevisionThe Golden Age of Television in the United States began sometime in the late 1940s and extended to the late 1950s or early 1960s.-Evolutions of drama on television:...
- History of American footballHistory of American footballAmerican football can be traced to early versions of rugby football and association football. Both games have their origin in varieties of football played in Britain in the mid-19th century, in which a football is kicked at a goal and/or run over a line....
- History of African Americans in the NFLBlack players in American professional footballDetails of the history of black players in American professional football depend on the professional football league considered: the National Football League , which evolved from the first professional league, the American Professional Football Association, or the American Football League, , a...
Primary materials
The most exhaustive account of Bell is Robert Lyon's On Any Given Sunday.- Coenen, Craig R. (2005). From Sandlots to the Super Bowl: The National Football League, 1920–1967. Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 1-57233-447-9
- Lyons, Robert S. (2010). On Any Given Sunday, A Life of Bert Bell. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1-59213-731-2
- MacCambridge, Michael (2005). America's Game. New York: Anchor Books ISBN 978-0-307-48143-6
- Peterson, Robert W. (1997). Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507607-9
- Ruck, Rob; with Patterson, Maggie Jones and Weber, Michael P. (2010). Rooney: A Sporting Life. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-2283-0
- Willis, Chris (2010). The Man Who Built the National Football League: Joe F. Carr. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc. ISBN 978-0-8108-7669-9
Secondary materials
- Organized Professional Team Sports: Part 3. (password protected except at participating U.S. library) by United States House Committee on the Judiciary III, Subcommittee on Antitrust (1957).
- Algeo, Matthew (2006). Last Team Standing. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press. ISBNInternational Standard Book NumberThe International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering code created by Gordon Foster, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H...
ISBN 978-0-306-81472-3 - Brown, Paul; with Clary, Jack (1979). PB, the Paul Brown Story. New York: Atheneum.
- Davis, Jeff (2005). Papa Bear, The Life and Legacy of George Halas. New York: McGraw-Hill ISBN 0-07-146054-3
- Hibner, John Charles (1993). The Rose Bowl, 1902–1929. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers. ISBN 0-89950-775-1 pp. 22–30.
- Littlewood, Thomas B. (1990). Arch: A Promoter, not a Poet: The Story of Arch Ward. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. ISBN 0-8138-0277-6
- Patton, Phil (1984). Razzle-Dazzle: The Curious Marriage of Television and Professional Football. Garden City, NY: The Dial Press. ISBN 0-385-27879-9
- Piascik, Andy (2007). The Best Show in Football: The 1946–1955 Cleveland Browns. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing. ISBN 978-1-58979-360-6
- Powers, Ron (1984). Supertube: The Rise of Television Sports. New York: Coward-McCann. ISBN 0-698-11253-9
- Rader, Benjamin G. (1984). In its Own Image: How Television Has Transformed Sports. New York: The Free Press. ISBN 0-02-925700-X pp. 83–99.
- Staudohar, Paul D. (1986). The Sports Industry and Collective Bargaining. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press. ISBN 0-87546-117-4
Tertiary materials
- When Pride Still Mattered, A Life of Vince Lombardi, by David Maraniss, 1999, (ISBN 0-684-84418-4) ISBN 978-0-618-90499-0
- Organized Professional Team Sports: Part 1. (password protected except at participating U.S. library) by United States House Committee on the Judiciary I, Subcommittee on Antitrust (1957).
- Bayoff, Frederic G.; with Morgan, Brad (1986). Lexis Press: Complete Index to Sports Illustrated, Volume I, 1954–1969. Ann Arbor, MI: Lexis Press. ISBN 0-317-47454-5
- Berry, Robert C.; with Gould, William B. and Staudohar, Paul D. (1986). Labor Relations in Professional Sports. Dover, MA: Auburn House Pub. Co. ISBN 0-86569-137-1
- Claassen, Harold (Spike) (1963). The History of Professional Football. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
- Carroll, Bob; with Gershman, Michael, Neft, David, and Thorn, John (1999). Total Football:The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-270174-6
- Carroll, John M. (1999). Red Grange and the Rise of Modern Football. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02384-6
- Crippen, Kenneth R. (2010). "The War was Over" in The Original Buffalo Bills: A History of the All-American Conference Team, 1946–1949. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-4619-3 p. 102–112.
- Daley, Arthur (1963). Pro Football's Hall of Fame. New York: Grosset and Dunlap pp. 183–194.
- Danzig, Allison (1956). The History of American Football: Its Great Teams, Players, and Coaches. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
- Davis, Jeff (2008). Rozelle: Czar of the NFL. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-159352-7
- Demas, Lane (2010). Integrating the Gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American College Football. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-4741-1
- DeVito, Carlo (2006). Wellington: the Maras, the Giants, and the City of New York. Chicago: Triumph Books. ISBN 978-1-57243-872-9
- Didinger, Ray; with Lyons, Robert S. (2005). The Eagles Encyclopedia. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 1-59213-449-1
- Gifford, Frank; with Richmond, Peter (2008). The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-171659-1
- Herskowitz, Mickey (1990). The Golden Age of Pro Football. Dallas: Taylor Publishing Company. ISBN 0-87833-751-2
- Hession, Joseph (1987). The Rams: Five Decades of Football. San Francisco: Foghorn Press.
- King, Joe (1958). Inside Pro Football. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
- Layden, Elmer; with Snyder, Ed (1969). It Was a Different Game: The Elmer Layden Story. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, Inc.
- LaBlanc, Michael L.; with Ruby, Mary K. (1994). Professional Sports Team Histories: Football. Detroit: Gale Research Inc. ISBN 0-8103-8861-8
- Levy, Alan H. (2003). Tackling Jim Crow, Racial Segregation in Professional Football. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., Inc. ISBN 0-7864-1597-5
- MacCambridge, Michael (2009). ESPN College Football Encyclopedia: The Complete History of the Game. New York: ESPN Books, Inc. ISBN 1-4013-3703-1
- McDonough, Will (1994). 75 Seasons: The Complete Story of the National Football League. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc. ISBN 1-57036-056-1
- Marquis, Albert Nelson (1934). Who's Who in America: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Men and Women of the United States, Vol., 18, 1934-1935, Two Years. Chicago: The A. N. Marquis Company. p. 286.
- Maule, Tex (1964). The Game; The Official Picture History of the National Football League. New York: Random House
- Mendelson, Abby (1996). Pittsburgh Steelers: The Official Team History. Dallas: Taylor Publishing Company. ISBN 0-87833-957-4 p. 1.
- Paul, William Henry (1974). The Gray-Flannel Pigskin: Movers and Shakers of Pro Football. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
- Pervin, Lawrence A. (2009). Football's New York Giants. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-4268-3
- Piascik, Andy (2009). Gridiron Gauntlet. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing. ISBN 978-1-58979-443-6
- Rathet, Mike; with Smith, Don R. (1984). Their Deeds and Dogged Faith. New York: Balsam Press. ISBN 0-917439-02-3
- Ratterman, George; with Deindorfer, Robert G. (1962). Confessions of a Gypsy Quarterback; Inside the Wacky World of Pro Football. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc.
- Riger, Robert; with Maule, Tex (1960). The Pros. New York: Simon and Schuster.
- Roberts, Howard (1953). The Story of Pro Football. New York: Rand McNally & Company.
- Rooney, Dan; with Halaas, David F. and Masich, Andrew E. (2007). My 75 Years with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the NFL. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-786-72603-5
- Ross, Charles K. (1999). Outside the Lines: African Americans and the Integration of the National Football League. New York: New York Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8147-7495-4
- Rothe, Anna; with Prodrick, Elizabeth (1951). "Bert Bell" in Current Biography: Who's News and Why 1950. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company. p. 33–35.
- Smith, Myron J. Jr. (1993). Professional Football: The Official Pro Football Hall of Fame Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-28928-X
- Strode, Woody; with Young, Sam (1990). Goal Dust. Lanham, MD: Madison Books. ISBN 0-8191-7680-X
- Sullivan, George (1968). Pro Football's All Time Greats. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 23–28.
- Summerall, Pat; with Levin, Michael (2010). Giants: What I Learned about Life from Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (ebk)ISBN 978-0-470-90908-9 p. 36–37.
- Umphlett, Wiley Lee (1992). Creating the Big Game: John W. Heisman and the Invention of American Football. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313284040
- Westcott, Rich (2001). A Century of Philadelphia Sports. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-861-4
- Whittingham, Richard (2002). What a Game They Played: An Inside Look at the Golden Era of Pro Football. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, Inc. ISBN 978-0-80329-8194
- Williams, Pete (2006). The Draft: A Year Inside the NFL's Search for Talent. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-35438-1
- Yost, Mark (2006). Tailgating, Sacks and Salary Caps. Chicago: Kaplan Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4195-2600-8
Further reading
- Bert Bell, Jr. quits Colts, blasts NFL
- Pay-off for the Pros by Piers Anderton
- Events & Discoveries
- Time to Take Stock by Tex Maule
- The Unhappiest Millionaire by Jack Olsen
- The Man who Saved the Packers by Robert S. Lyons
- Conflict and Compromise: The Evolution of American Professional Football’s Labour Relations 1957-1966 by Michael E. Lomax
- The Man Who Modernized Pro Football
- Herskowitz: Spreading the wealth rings a Bell