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Download the Issue Vol. 31, No. 6 2009 PFRA-ternizing 2 Bob Carroll Tribute 3 Heidi-Ho! 6 Looking Into Locals 8 Dayton to Indianapolis 10 Semi-Pro or Pro? 16 Rating the Receivers 19 When Halas Covered The Draft 21 Twas the Night… 24 THE COFFIN CORNER: Vol. 31, No. 6 (2009) 2 PFRA Election Results: PFRA-ternizing President: Jack Clary Vice-President: Joe Plack Treasurer: Vince Popo Bob Carroll Secretary: Chris Willis 1936-2009 Ken Crippen will continue as Executive Director This issue of Coffin Corner is a tribute to Bob and Andy Piascik will continue as Assistant Carroll, co-founder of the PFRA and long-time Executive Director. Executive Director. Bob passed away August 25 after a long illness. For those of you interested in viewing his online tribute and signing the Membership guestbook, visit: As you can see from the box below, all http://www.livingtributes.com/cobr/pittsburglive/gu memberships will go through Joe Plack. As Vice- estbook.php?action=signgb&memid=100204535& President, he is the chair of the Membership ltid=1031 committee and will handle all new memberships as well as renewals. His legacy will live on with the PFRA. A tribute will be held at the PFRA Meeting in Canton on June 19, 2010. We will also toast Bob at dinner after the meeting. Some have asked about the future of the PFRA now that Bob is gone. The PFRA will continue. THE COFFIN CORNER Coffin Corner will continue to be published on Vol. 31, No. 6 (2009) schedule. The work that the PFRA is doing will continue. Steps were put in place to make sure 740 Deerfield Road that the PFRA would carry on after Bob passed Warminster, PA 18974 away. Over the next few issues, we will be announcing several new things the PFRA will be (215) 421-6994 doing going forward. [email protected] Website: www.profootballresearchers.org Bob Carroll Self-Portrait The cover image for this issue is a Bob Carroll PFRA MEMBERSHIP $25 per year self portrait. In it, you will see the following: Send memberships to: A Pittsburgh Steelers pennant. H. Joseph Plack III A Pittsburgh Pirate pencil cup. 836 Northwood Drive Deerfield, IL 60015-2233 A stick-figure drawing. (Yeah, right) His cat PFRA-D Cat (pronounced fraidy cat) Ken Crippen, Editor “My Hero” – Dr. Charles J. Gregory – Professor of Melissa Thomas, Assistant Leisure History and Comparative Phrenology – Andy Piascik, Assistant Editor Mountebank Univeristy. This is the persona that Bob wrote under in Oldtyme Baseball News. Illustrations by the late Bob Carroll THE COFFIN CORNER: Vol. 31, No. 6 (2009) 3 Bob Carroll 1936-2009 The best way to pay tribute to Bob is to show how sense of humor that added to the telling, and he impacted the lives of those around him. A few retelling, of pro football's history. long-time PFRA members weighed in on the influence that Bob had on their lives. It would be overly dramatic to describe Bob as Prometheus of the sports pages, but the The John Thorn: Coffin Corner has been the place where we It is easy to reflect back on Bob's amazing football fans got a chance to see our work in print, knowledge and, more important, sweeping getting a small measure of immortality before curiosity. Sure he knew pro football's history returning to our mundane jobs. He helped bring better than anyone, and wrote about it better than these enthusiasts together, creating a market for anyone. And his cartoons gave evidence that his publications about pro football history. Talented brain was ambidextrous. And there was his authors would have been published, even without mordant and delightfully cornball sense of humor, PFRA; but I'm not sure that their books would in evidence on his blog and in most everything he have been about football. You needed no resume' wrote. to get published in the The Coffin Corner; Bob Carroll would accept your contribution to the CC, But what sticks for me about my dear departed regardless of your background. friend of three decades is his uncommon decency. He thought the best of people unless That leads me to the other topic, Bob Carroll the and until they repeatedly gave him reason to think humorist, and he was at his best when he was otherwise. Bob was a generous man, to a fault. responding to others. Some people at the PFRA He and I worked together often, and he liked to Forum didn't like it, of course. I looked at it this say that I had done a lot for his career. And I way -- if Bob acknowledged what you were always assured him that he had done more for me saying, then it was an obvious sign that he cared than I had done for him. And he's still doing it, as about what you were saying. It was an unwritten my model friend. rule; let's wait and see how Bob deals with this guy, and it was fun to watch. As far as snappy David S. Neft: comebacks that leave you saying, "I wish I'd Bob was a talented, dedicated, professional thought of that", he was the master. In this issue, writer, researcher, artist and teacher. If you stop of course, are some of the best of Bob's Coffin for a minute and think about your friends and Corner writings, most of which are punctuated colleagues you will realize how rare it is for with humorous observations. He was one of these someone to achieve his level of proficiency in four guys who could see the funny side to just about different areas of activity. anything. I think he would have appreciated the irony of a football publication discussing "the Moreover, he was a great guy with the most passing of Bob Carroll", without a single passing tolerant disposition. In the 36 years that I was statistic. Thanks, Bob, for the ground you gained privileged to have him as a friend he was never for us. angry at another person. He only got upset at an inanimate object - his computer when it wasn't Pete Fierle: working properly. I deeply miss our frequent (Posted on Pete’s Blog on August 26, 2009) We telephone conversations about sports, theater, art announced the senior nominees for the Class of and politics. 2010 yesterday. Normally on such a day, my phone would ring shortly after the announcement. Mark L. Ford On the other end would be Bob Carroll who would I'll remember Bob for two things. He was a share his thoughts and opinions on the selections. professional writer who helped aspiring amateurs (like me), to get published; and he had a great That call never came yesterday. That’s because THE COFFIN CORNER: Vol. 31, No. 6 (2009) 4 Bob died in his sleep early yesterday morning. My most important moments, game accounts of early heartfelt sympathies go out to Bob’s family. NFL games, and pick-by-pick lists of every NFL draft. It was a rather strange feeling to read his obituary this morning. Because for many, many years he Bob, a retired school teacher, was also a talented sent the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s research staff artist. His drawings were featured in the The hundreds of obits. Coffin Corner, the newsletter of the Pro Football Researchers Association (PFFA) among other They were death notices and articles on the lives publications. In the late 1970s, Bob was one of of NFL players. You see, Bob was one of the the founders of PFRA and oversaw the most knowledgeable pro football historians that organization until his death. PFRA members have ever lived. His devotion to researching the sport, worked to continually tell the story of the NFL’s while not known to the general public, was past in an accurate and thorough manner. It has legendary in the circles of those of us who delve been an incredibly valuable asset for the research deep into the game’s past. Bob is responsible for team in Canton. much of the accurate information we now have on the NFL’s history, especially the early years. Bob will certainly be missed by all of us at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 1997, one of the most comprehensive publications on the NFL’s history was published. It This originally appeared in Pete’s blog on the Pro was called Total Football and it was edited by a Football Hall of Fame website. It is reprinted with team led by Bob. Inside the 1,652-page book was his permission. a voluminous player register. It included details on more than 17,000 NFL players. Thanks to the Vince Popo: work of Bob (and many others), it included for the I first met Bob back in 1978 or so. We were first time full names, birthdates, places of birth, brought together as a group of people interested and death dates on players. Bob had spent years in football research. I was working at the Football and years digging to uncover these facts on Hall of Fame in Canton and was a friend of Joe players. Making the task so monumental was that Horrigan (but that is another story for another it was common in the early 1920s for NFL players time) when Joe twisted my arm to help with this to play under assumed names to avoid problems new organization called the Pro Football with college eligibility rules of the time. It was a Researchers Association (PFRA). No one in this painstaking process to find this personal data.
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