BleedGopher
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2008
- Messages
- 60,728
- Reaction score
- 16,021
- Points
- 113
The Associated Press with an interesting story on the origination of the NFL Draft and how former Gopher Stanley “King Kong” Kostka played a role in it.
Per the AP:
Bert Bell had been burned and sought a way to get even.
His creation, the NFL draft, has become an industry unto itself and the league’s third-most popular annual event behind the Super Bowl and opening weekend.
Bell owned the Philadelphia Eagles in 1933 and was hot to sign Stanley “King Kong” Kostka of the Minnesota Gophers. All collegians were free agents back then — college football was far more popular than the pros — and Bell saw the bruising fullback/linebacker as a building block for his team.
But Kostka signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers; yes, that was a football franchise back then. Never mind that Kostka lasted one season in the NFL. Bell had a calling.
“I made up my mind that this league would never survive unless we had some system whereby each team had an even chance to bid for talent against each other,” he later told The Associated Press.
With some negotiating and arm-twisting — Bell was so good at that he soon would become NFL commissioner — he persuaded owners of the other eight clubs to try a draft. The team with the league’s worst record would pick first and the rest would go in reverse order of their success in the standings.
On Feb 8-9, 1936, in a Philadelphia hotel owned by the Bell family, the draft was born. And guess who had the first selection: the 2-9 Eagles.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a01ffa9b5c7d
Go Gophers!!
Per the AP:
Bert Bell had been burned and sought a way to get even.
His creation, the NFL draft, has become an industry unto itself and the league’s third-most popular annual event behind the Super Bowl and opening weekend.
Bell owned the Philadelphia Eagles in 1933 and was hot to sign Stanley “King Kong” Kostka of the Minnesota Gophers. All collegians were free agents back then — college football was far more popular than the pros — and Bell saw the bruising fullback/linebacker as a building block for his team.
But Kostka signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers; yes, that was a football franchise back then. Never mind that Kostka lasted one season in the NFL. Bell had a calling.
“I made up my mind that this league would never survive unless we had some system whereby each team had an even chance to bid for talent against each other,” he later told The Associated Press.
With some negotiating and arm-twisting — Bell was so good at that he soon would become NFL commissioner — he persuaded owners of the other eight clubs to try a draft. The team with the league’s worst record would pick first and the rest would go in reverse order of their success in the standings.
On Feb 8-9, 1936, in a Philadelphia hotel owned by the Bell family, the draft was born. And guess who had the first selection: the 2-9 Eagles.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a01ffa9b5c7d
Go Gophers!!
