By Chris Willis, NFL Films
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| Bert Bell, Philadelphia Eagles Owner Credit: PFJ |
On May 18, 1935 NFL
President Joe F. Carr and eight NFL owners (Cardinals owner Charlie Bidwill
missed because of sickness) gathered at the Fort Pitt Hotel in Pittsburgh to
discuss some pressing matters. Starting at 12:15 p.m. Carr and the owners got
down to the most important business of the meeting. Taking the floor Philadelphia
Eagles owner Bert Bell raised a motion that changed the NFL forever.
“Gentlemen, I’ve
always had the theory that pro football is like a chain. The league is no
stronger than its weakest link and I’ve been a weak link for so long that I
should know. Every year the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Four teams
control the championships, the Giants and Redskins in the East, and the Bears
and Packers in the West. Because they are successful, they keep attracting the
best college players in the open market—which makes them successful. Here’s
what I propose. At the end of every college football season, I suggest that we
pool the names of eligible seniors. Then we make our selections in inverse
order of the standings, with the lowest team picking first until we reach the
top-ranking team, which pick lasts. We do this for round after round until
we’ve exhausted the supply.”
Bell proposed a
smarter and more balanced way of distributing college stars within the league- instead
of the first come, free-for-all, where owners just offered the most money to
the best college players leaving school. Bell and the owners then laid down
five key points in the selection of players that would “for the first time become operative beginning with the 1936 season.”
1. At the annual
meeting in February [1936], and each succeeding year thereafter, a list of
first year eligible players to be presented to each club, and their names
placed upon a board in the meeting room for selection by the various clubs. The
priority of selection by each club shall follow the reverse order of the
championship standing of the clubs of the preceding season; for instance, the
club which finished last in either division, to be determined by percentage
rating, shall have first choice, the club which finished next to last, second
choice, and this inverse order shall be followed until each club has had one selection
or has declined to select a player, after which the selection shall continue as
indicated above until all players names appear on the board have been selected
or rejected.
2. Any first year
player who is not so chosen, or whose name does not appear on the list referred
to above, is eligible to sign with any club in the League.
3. If for any valid
reason it would be impossible for a player to play in the city by which he has
been selected, of the player can show reasonable cause why he should be
permitted to play in a city other than that designated for his , then through
such arrangements as can be made by sale or trade with another club, he shall
be permitted to play in the city he prefers, if the President of the League
approves his reasons as valid.
4. In the event of
controversy between a selected player and a club, the matter shall be referred
to the President, and his decision shall be accepted by all parties as final.
5. In the event a
player is selected by a club and fails to sign a contract or report, he shall
be placed on the reserve list of the club by which he was selected.
The motion was
carried unanimously. President Carr and the other owners realized this was an
idea that was best for the league. The NFL could maintain what has now been
labeled as “competitive balance.” Back then it was just a way of not killing
off the weaker franchises to stock pile the strong teams. “I thought the proposal [was] sound. It made sense. Tim Mara also
approved. He and I had more to lose than any other team. With our support the
proposal was adopted,” recalled Chicago Bears owner George Halas.
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| George Halas with Curly Lambeau |
“People come to see competition. We could give them competition
only if the teams had some sort of equality, if the teams went up and down with
the fortunes of life. Of course, that meant that no team would in the future
win a championship every third year and people would start saying, ‘What’s
happened to the Giants? They aren’t the team they used to be.’ That was a
hazard we had to accept for the benefit of the League, of professional football
and of everyone in it,” commented New York Giants owner Tim
Mara about the new arrangement.
Carr and the NFL
owners seem to be on the same page with this issue and it would eventually be
one of the biggest foundation blocks of the big-city League.
First
NFL Draft, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Philadelphia
After the 1935 season
the next NFL owners meeting would take place on February 8-9, 1936 in
Philadelphia. Based on the motion brought up by Eagles owner Bert Bell in 1935,
this meeting would mark another big milestone in NFL history. The league would
conduct the first ever NFL draft. But in 1936 Carr and the owners did not call
it the draft. In the league minutes they called it the “selection of players,” while the press usually referred to it as
the “selection of college prospects.” In
1937 the league would start to call it the “Draft”
in league minutes.
The other fresh face,
literally, was that of twenty-year-old Wellington Mara, who joined his father,
Tim, and older brother, Jack, at the gathering. Young Wellington had now been
around the NFL for eleven years and knew mostly everyone involved- including
President Carr. “Joe Carr was such a good
man. He was a great listener. I can remember him sitting at meetings with his
glasses down at the end of his nose listening intently,” recalled
Wellington Mara. This first meeting and the NFL draft was an eye-opener for
Wellington. Soon he would make the league’s biggest contribution on draft days.
At 1:30 p.m. in the
Ritz-Carlton conference room the whole NFL gathered to discuss league matters
and, of course, the first order of business was to select players from the
college ranks. Carr announced that each team would make the selection of “5
players” from a list of “approximately 90
names that are to be listed on the blackboard in the room and [each] selection
of players by each club proceeded with the inverse order of the standings at the
close of the season of 1935.” As the ninety names appeared on the
blackboard, the owners amended the bylaws to allow each club to have “nine
picks.”
The NFL’s first draft
would consist of nine rounds and who knows where the roughly ninety names came
from. Most early owners claim that they just read a few of the college football
magazines- such as Street &Smith’s- or cut out of the newspaper the
most current All-American team to make their selections. No team had a scouting
department to help them choose. Based on the standings, the draft order went
like this:
1. Philadelphia
Eagles (2–9–0)
2. Boston Redskins
(2–8–1)
3. Pittsburgh Pirates
(4–8–0)
4. Brooklyn Dodgers
(5–6–1)
5. Chicago Cardinals
(6–4–2)
6. Chicago Bears
(6–4–2)
7. Green Bay Packers
(8–4–0)
8. Detroit Lions
(7–3–2)
9. New York Giants
(9–3–0)
Although the Lions were NFL champions, the order went by winning percentage, thus giving the Giants last pick in each round. But that didn’t hamper them at all because they had a secret weapon at the selection meeting- Wellington Mara. In the next hour or two, the nine NFL teams selected eighty-one college stars from a variety of backgrounds and schools. With the number one overall pick, Bert Bell selected the best player in the country. Heisman Trophy winner Jay Berwanger, a halfback from the University of Chicago, went down in history as the NFL’s first ever draft pick. But he didn’t belong to the Eagles very long. George Halas wanted Berwanger really bad and offered veteran tackle Art Buss to obtain the rights to get him. Bell couldn’t pass up the offer,
 |
| Jay Berwanger, University of Chicago Credit: PFJ |
In the end Berwanger
didn’t sign, choosing to work for a private business, and never played
pro football. The second overall pick Riley Smith, a halfback from
Alabama, did and spent three productive seasons with the Boston-Washington Redskins.
Probably the most famous name to be drafted that first year was another Alabama
star, end Paul “Bear” Bryant, who was selected in the fourth round (number
thirty-one overall) by the Brooklyn Dodgers. Bryant didn’t sign either, but, of
course, went on to be one of the greatest coaches in college football history
at his alma mater.
Out of the eighty-one
players drafted in the first NFL Draft, only twenty-four signed and played in
the league in 1936 (four more would play in 1937) with several having Hall of
Fame careers.
The Bears (behind the drafting of George Halas) took two future Hall of Famers in the first draft. First rounder Joe Stydahar, a tackle from West Virginia, and ninth round selection DanFortmann , a guard from Colgate. The Redskins drafted end Wayne
Millner in the eighth round, who would have an early impact for the Skins in
1936 by finishing fourth in the league in receptions. The fourth and last Hall
of Famer to be drafted in 1936 was second rounder Alphonse “Tuffy” Leemans, a
halfback from George Washington University, by the New York Giants.
The Bears (behind the drafting of George Halas) took two future Hall of Famers in the first draft. First rounder Joe Stydahar, a tackle from West Virginia, and ninth round selection Dan
 |
| Wellington Mara, New York Giants Credit: NFL |
Selected by the New York Giants, Phil Flanagan a guard
from Holy Cross, was Mr. Irrelevant as the 81st and last pick of the
1936 NFL Draft. He did not play a down in the NFL.
 |
| Altoona Tribune, Feb. 10, 1936 |
The NFL’s first draft
was a complete success (just the fact that it was now in place) and eventually
it would give the NFL another building block to lean on. Over time franchises
would use the draft to build their teams and create dynasties. In 1936 it would
establish a more balanced league, as the NFL would see two new franchises win
division titles that first season- Boston and Green Bay.
The Draft would be held in late November-December-January most years until
the NFL finally moved it to the spring permanently in 1976.
1936
NFL Draft Notes
Total Picks: 81
Rounds: 9
Most Picks One School: Stanford with 7
Backs: 34
Ends: 15
Tackles: 15
Guards: 11
Centers: 6
Besides Jay Berwanger and “Bear” Bryant (or a few Hall
of Famers) the first NFL Draft also had a few nuggets and stories from some of
the players drafted.
Ed
Smith: “Heisman Pose”
Ed Smith was a star halfback at
New York University. He was selected in the third round, number 20
In 1935 New York sculptor Frank
Eliscu was asked by the Downtown Athletic Club to come up with a suitable
trophy for an award they were planning- an award for the best college football
player in the country. It was to be called the Heisman Trophy after long-time
coach John Hesiman. The club would pay Eliscu $500 for the project.
 |
| Ed Smith, New York University Credit: PFJ |
As Eliscu began sculpting wax
images of the trophy, one was a player making a tackle, another was a player
carrying the ball with his arm out. Eliscu liked the ball carrying but wanted
the statue to look more life-like so he called an old friend. So he contacted
Ed Smith, a former high school classmate at George Washington High School in New
York City's Washington Heights neighborhood, to pose for him. Smith did not
realize that the sculpture, for which he posed, became the fabled Heisman
Trophy until 1982. “He never told me what
it was for, and I never asked,” said Ed Smith to Sports Illustrated in 1988.
Smith did not find out what the
project was until 1982 when Bud Greenspan, the producer of the Heisman telecast
that year, contacted him. “At first I
thought it was a crank call. Then what he was saying sank in. I couldn’t
believe it. It almost threw me off my feet,” recalled Smith.
It was true, Ed Smith was the
player’s image who made up the Heisman Trophy pose. Every year since 1935 the
best player in college football gets a 13/5 inch tall, 25 pound bronze statue
for life. The Downtown Athletic Club subsequently presented Smith with a
Heisman Trophy of his own in 1985. Before the 1986 presentation, he was
even introduced to the candidates before the presentation and quipped, "Whoever wins the award, I feel sorry
for you, because you're going to be looking at my ugly face for a long
time."
Smith died on January 29, 1998 at
the age of 84.
Bob Reynolds: Radio and the Los Angles
Angeles
Bob Reynolds was a
two-time All-American tackle at Stanford and was selected in the 6th
round , number fifty-two overall by the Green Bay Packers, in the NFL’s first
Draft. His teammates nicknamed him the “Horse.”
After graduating from Stanford
and "deciding he'd had enough
football," Reynolds moved back to his native Oklahoma and worked in
the oil business in 1936 and 1937. Reynolds had been drafted by the Packers,
but decided not to play professional football. In 1937, G.A. Richards, a
millionaire radio station owner who also owned the Detroit Lions, invited
Reynolds to come to Detroit to talk things over. Reynolds told Richards he had
no interest in playing for the Lions, but noted that he did have an interest in
working at Richards' Los Angeles radio station KMPC. Richards proposed a coin
toss. If Richards called it right, Reynolds would play two years for the Lions
and work at KMPC in the off-seasons. If Reynolds called it right, he would have
the radio job without any obligation to play for the Lions. Richards won the
coin toss, and Reynolds signed a double contract- to play football for the
Lions in the fall and to work for KMPC in the off-seasons.
 |
| Bob Reynolds, Detroit Lions, 1938 |
Reynolds played 20 games as a
tackle for the Lions in 1937 and 1938. During the offseason in 1938 Reynolds
joined the sales staff of Richards' Los Angeles radio station KMPC. In 1942,
Reynolds was named Vice President and General Manager. When Reynolds joined
KMPC, it was a small 5,000-watt station. In 1947, KMPC received approval from
the FCC to increase its broadcasting power to 50,000 watts making it Southern
California's most powerful independent radio station.
In May of 1951, Richards died,
leaving the station under the management of Reynolds and Loyd Sigmon. Reynolds
contacted Gene Autry, the famous Cowboy and Hollywood actor, and advised that
he had the inside track to acquire the station and its valuable real estate
holdings from Richards' widow. Autry and Reynolds acquired the station together
and founded Golden West Broadcasting. Golden West eventually owned and operated
KMPC radio and KTLA television in Los Angeles and KSFO in San Francisco.
Reynolds served for many years as the president of the company.
In 1960, Reynolds and Autry
founded the Major League Baseball expansion team the Los Angeles Angels. At the
time that he and Autry received the franchise Reynolds described his transition
to a "baseball man”:
"My transformation into the
town's No. 1 baseball fan occurred the minute we were given the franchise, and
I found out I had a little personal investment at stake… I'd known Gene for at
least 15 years, and we always hoped to own a radio station together. We
satisfied that ambition with the acquisition of KMPC in 1952. Now we have a
baseball team, and we're out to make it the best.”
Reynolds served as president and
co-owner of the Angels from the team's first season in 1961 until 1975.
Reynolds stepped down as president of the Angels in 1975 and also sold his
ownership interest in the team at that time. In August of 1966, Reynolds was
honored with a night in his honor at a California Angels ballgame. At the time,
Los Angeles Times columnist John Hall wrote:
"The contributions and the
accomplishments of the large man with the large smile have too long been taken
for granted… As a partner of Gene Autry, it is natural perhaps that his role
would be overshadowed by the glamor of a movie box office king. … But those
closest to the scene will tell you it is Reynolds who is the dynamo of the gang
... "
Reynolds was also a co-owner,
vice president and a director of the Los Angeles Rams football team from 1963
until 1972. In 1966, Reynolds led a group of five Rams owners, each representing
8% of the shares, in advocating the establishment of an NFL franchise playing
at Anaheim Stadium in Orange County, California. The Rams would eventually move
to Anaheim for the 1980 season.
Reynolds died on February 8, 1994
in San Rafael, California at age 79.
The Big Game
(1936 movie)
 |
| The Big Game Movie Poster (1936) |
Six months after being drafted several draft picks
from the NFL’s first Draft made an appearance in the football movie titled “The Big Game.”
Jay Berwanger (University of Chicago)
Bobby Wilson (SMU)
William Shakespeare (Notre Dame)
Gomer Jones (Ohio State)
Jim “Monk” Moscrip (Stanford)
Bob Hamilton (Stanford)
The Big Game was directed by George Nicholls, Jr.
The simple plot
of the story revolved around Clark Jenkins the star quarterback of Atlantic's
college football team . He falls in love with classmate Margaret Anthony, whose
father, Brad, is a newspaper sports columnist who disapproves of their romance.
A gambler and
school booster, George Scott, has been discreetly giving money to Clark, as he
has in the past for players like Pop, who couldn't have afforded to go to
college otherwise. Clark's roommate and teammate, Cal Calhoun, snitches on him and
falsely concludes that Clark intends to deliberately lose a game for a payoff
from gambling kingpin Blackie Dawson.
No such
arrangement exists. But with the big game against Erie coming up, Blackie
kidnaps Clark to make sure Atlantic can't win. Pop creates a distraction on the
field to delay the proceedings while Margaret, George and an apologetic Cal
rush to rescue Clark in time to play in the game.
The group of college All-Americans, that included
Heisman Trophy winner Jay Berwanger, shot football scenes for several weeks in
late July and early August of 1936. Several of the movies football scenes were
clips from the 1935 Rose Bowl game. But Berwanger was not excited about the
process of movie-making, “They are always
stalling around,” said Berwanger to the Chicago Tribune. He did like the
money though, as he pocked $600 for the six weeks of work.
Reviews were just lukewarm for the movie. B.R. Crisler of the New
York Times wrote:
“Burdened with a
strictly supplementary cast of eight all-American players, Mr. Shaw could
hardly have been expected to figure, in his maiden screen effort, as a second
George Bernard, and RKO deserves at least half the blame for so flagrant a
misuse of talent. An indeterminate film, the beginning of which easily be
mistaken by latecomers for a seasonal newsreel. ‘The Big Game’ is neither a successful
expose ’ of the college football racket nor
a good conventional campus romance, of which it carefully preserves all
the ingredients in this case Phillip Huston and June Travis.”
While the United Press wrote, “One of the best football pictures
in many a day, although filled with that same old hokum.”
Enjoy the 81st version of the NFL Draft in 2016.
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