The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1933-11-15

gold, the professional football
AS soon as it was announced he
and Britton would play for the
Chicago Bears, demand for tickets
sent prices skyrocketing. All over
the league attendance increased.
nearly $4,000 seeing a game at the
Polo Grounds.
Then it was that the men be-
hind the game fully realized the
value Of a big name. And they
knew that to capitalize on such a
name they would have to save the
player as much as possible to make
him last until another big name
came along.
For that reason, the game itself
suffered. Stars were brought in,
pampered by officials and put into
games for short intervals, which
brought a storm of. protest from
the cash customers who paid good
money to see former college stars
play a full game.
Tough Going
But that wasn't the only black
eye the pro business ran into. With
the enticement of Grange from col
1ege before he completed his career
came a tempest of unfavorable
comment from pedagogic and
coaching circles. The learned men
decried the commercial practice of
promoters, and asserted that the
practice of college men going into
professional football sullied the
good name of the game.
They pointed to Jim "Swede"
Oberlander, Dartmouth's great star
who, when offered nearly the same
proposition as Grange, turned down
the offer with the dramatic words:
mo; it is not for the best in
terests of Dartmouth or of the
game"
This gesture, the educators and
Investigators pointed out, gave the
younger generation something to
action of Grange had just the OPP
posite effect.
It can be pointed out here that
Red, still with the Chicago Bears,
has tidy sum laid by while
"Swede," nearly ten years after
leaving Dartmouth, will leave a
coaching job at Middletown, Conn,
to enter Lakeside hospital, Cleve-
land, after having been presented
with a degree by the Yale Med
ical school.
An idea of the commercializa-
ton of the pro game in the early
days Of Grange can Be seen in the
game arranged. by "Cash and Car
ry" Pyle, who managed Red
Grange after his college days, and
also the Chicago Bears, between his
squad and a team assembled at
Jacksonville. Fla, by John s.
O'Brien.
Big Time Stuff
The game, of course, was to bal
1yhoo Jacksonville far and wide,
and the idea was to get Grange
and the boys to buck up against a
squad led by Ernie Nevers, the
Blond Lion of the Sierras, who
starred at Stanfords
O'Brien and his Jacksonville
friends had to PUNK down $4,000,
and guarantee s per cent of the
gate receipts and transportation to
get Nevers on the dotted line for
five games, and the Chicago Bears
had to be guaranteed $4,000 be-
fore they'd make the trip.
In those days the average wage
for professional gridder was 5000
a game. If he We're fresh from
the campus with q great reputa-
ton he could get from $500 to.
$1,000 a game. Grange, however
than that, and in addition travelled
to- x,,.txr D. wit 70 wy
and q, flock of adoring acolytes
keeping the mob away.
The payroll of the Bears at that
time ran about $4,000 a week. BY
careful playing and not trying to
hit the line too hard, the pros could
get in on an average of three
games week, each game bringing
the Bear management a guarantee
of from 10000 to $4,000 bucks.
At that time a member of the
Bears management made the fol-
lowing statement:
professional football cannot be-
come paying business until we
have something of the organiza-
ton professional baseball has at
tanned. We shall need a Judge
Lands. We, shall have to get rid
of the wildcat promoters. We
shall have to adopt league rules
rules that will make it impossible
for managers to tamper with col
lege players while they are under
graduates"
That was a big order to fill. But
in the ensuing years, pro football
has been organized on just that
basis.