Who knew back then in the 1920s that the National Football League would take the path to become what it has? In the 1920s, a group of businessman and sports enthusiasts from the middle of America gathered in Canton, Ohio in a car showroom to discuss and strategize how they would take pro-football from a disorderly, ruthless game of disgrace to that of an organized league. It is during this meeting in Canton in the showroom where the men defined rules, traded ideas, elected a board. The new league would be called the American Professional Football Association. From the wooden, dusty arenas of the midwest including Hammond, Indiana, Akron, Ohio, and Rock Island, Illinois to the Duluth Eskimos in 1926 to Super Bowl 111 where Joe Namath and the AFLs New York Jets displaced the NFL old guard. In 1932, the first NFL championship game was played indoors on 80-yard field. While a lot about the game has evolved since the 1920s, the emotion and pain of the football game remains the same. |
