PFWA's Distinguished Service Award—1968-76

By John Turney 

Prior to when the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA) began choosing NFL Most Valuable Players the New York Chapter of the PFWA had been doing it for a decade. It was in 1975 when the PFWA began choosing MVPs but the New York Chapter started voting for them in 1965. They also had additional awards they added.

One of them was added in 1968, the year of the first annual dinner, was the Arthur Daley Distinguished Service Award for "long and meritorious service to football", named to honor Arthur Daley, the noted longtime New York Times writer.

In 1975 it was renamed the Arthur Daley Memorial Award after Daley's passing the previous year. It only lasted a year after that.

The origin of the award is not known but it probably stemmed from the New York Chapter of the Baseball Writers of America who had been giving a similar award since 1930 then called the William J. Slocum Award. Now called William J. Slocum-Jack Lang Award.

The dinner took place at some of the fancier hotels in Manhattan like the Waldorf Astoria or Hotel Americana, usually in late Spring or early Summer and was purported to be an event that featured guest speakers, presenters and special guests including NFL players and coaches, and of course, ticket-purchasing members of the public. 

Here is the list of winners—

NY Chapter of PFWA  Distinguished Service Award Winners

The Arthur Daley Memorial Award

1968—George Halas, coach and owner, Chicago Bears

1969—Art Rooney, owner, Pittsburgh Pirates/Steelers

1970—Dan Reeves, owner, Cleveland and Los Angeles Rams

1971—Paul Brown, coach and owner, Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals

1972—Lamar Hunt, owner, Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs

1973—Don Shula, NFL player, three teams, and coach, Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins

1974—Weeb Ewbank, coach, Baltimore Colts and New York Jets

1975—Carroll Rosenbloom, owner Baltimore Colts and Los Angeles Rams

1976—Art Modell, owner, Cleveland Browns