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FOOTBALL: THE FIELDS OF FRIENDLY STRIFE

Professional Football's Increasing Popularity

During the 1950s college football was surpassed in popularity by professional football. With the increased number of games on television and the growing efficiency of air transportation, regionalism became less of a factor in attracting fans. Pro teams could play throughout the country and fans could follow the fortunes of their favorite teams on television; like most pro sports, football promoted individual sports heroes. College athletes had a maximum of four years' exposure to a team's fans. Pro athletes could attract the fans' attention for their entire careers.

Symbolic Battles

Colleges had always been able to maintain the interest of alumni, but they had to rely on other, largely symbolic attractions for other fans. Colleges often battled for prestige and superiority, based on team rivalries between states and regions, and among ethnic groups, religious and political beliefs, and ways of life. Of all the teams in college football, it was the "Fighting Irish" of Notre Dame that during the 1920s and 1930s built a fame based on winning football and a spirit of Roman Catholicism that transcended even ethnicity. This small, midwestern, Catholic liberal-arts college became the focal point of the lives of sports fans who had never left the city or even graduated from high school. Notre Dame was truly the first collegiate team with a national following, traveling all over the country on its football crusade. For the most part, all challengers fell by the wayside until there arose from the Southwest a team and a coach of unparalleled quality.

The Dominance of the Coach

The only source of continuity from which the morality plays on the football field could draw their spirit was the coach. Knute Rockne (1918-1930; 105 wins, 12 losses, 5 ties) was the legendary Notre Dame coach who laid the foundation for the team's extraordinary winning reputation, and he was followed by Elmer Layden (1934-1940; 47 wins, 13 losses, 3 ties) and Frank Leahy (1941-1943, 1946-1953; 87 wins, 11 losses, 9 ties). As the 1950s opened, Leahy was already legendary and would go on to have the second-best winning percentage of all time (.864, behind only Rockne at .881); but in 1950 one coach surpassed all others—Bud Wilkinson of Oklahoma. Immersed as he was in a game often brutal and always violent and emotional, Wilkinson remained a paragon of virtue. For all the suspicion (perhaps born of envy) that surrounded Oklahoma during the 1950s, none of it ever made its way to the coach. Wilkinson's Oklahoma teams blended superb physical conditioning with clean play and a commitment to enthusiastic play. As a result they often won games in which they seemed, on paper, outclassed. In 1948 the Sooners lost their season opening game to Santa Clara, but they did not lose another game for three years. When they finally lost to Kentucky, 13-7, in the Sugar Bowl to end the 1950 season, Oklahoma had won 31 straight games.

Streaks are Forever. In

1951 Oklahoma had a record of 8-2; in 1952, 8-1-1—certainly not a significant drop in quality from the previous three season. Still, as 1953 started, Oklahoma was predicted to be beatable and Notre Dame proved the point; but that was the end of the losses in 1953. Oklahoma finished 1953 at 9-1-1 (the tie was with Pittsburgh) and fourth in the country (Notre Dame was second to Maryland). In 1954 Oklahoma did not lose, finishing 10-0 but third in the polls behind Ohio State and UCLA, also undefeated. Ohio State got the edge in the final results because it won the Rose Bowl and the others did not play. In the 1950s a variety of rules prevented teams from appearing in bowls in consecutive years. In 1955 Oklahoma went 10-0 again and beat number three Maryland 20-6 in the Orange Bowl to finish number one in the country; and in 1956 the Sooners went 10-0, undefeated for the third straight year. The winning streak was now more than 40, the longest in NCAA history. In 1957 the Sooners finally lost a game, the only game they would lose all year, and it was to a mediocre Notre Dame team that went 6-3. The score was 7-0, Oklahoma's first loss in 47 games. In a span of eleven years, from 1948 to 1958, the Oklahoma Sooners won 107 games, lost 8, and tied 2.

From Moral Wars to Making Money

In the 1950s collegiate football was a game for the fans run by the coaches. The players were pawns who found little market for their talents after four years. In the early part of the century college football came close to being outlawed by President Theodore Roosevelt. The game was violent, deaths occurred, and the players often were not even college students but paid, blue-collar workers looking to make some easy money. Under Roosevelt's threat, the colleges formed the National Collegiate Athletic association and began to regulate the college game. Still, when he played football, Knute Rockne played for six different teams in one season. In 1920, however, with the formation of the American Professional Football Association (named the National Football League [NFL] in 1922), the "student" professionals could now make their money above the table. Throughout the next three decades professional football struggled in midsize cities in the East and Midwest, constantly shifting franchises and enduring challenges from new leagues.

Television Saves the Day

In 1939 the NFL began to telecast some of its games on an experimental basis. Soon it became clear that the game was remarkably well suited to the medium. After every play, football would allow for twenty to thirty seconds in which to review the previous play and plot the strategy for the next. Unlike baseball, which could go on for an hour with little happening, football was a game of constant planning punctuated by bursts of energy twice in every minute. In a typical foot-ball game that lasted two and a half hours there would be only about twelve minutes of actual play—all the better to sell commercials—and since no organized collegiate sports were played on Sundays in the fall, and since the college games on Saturday had whetted fans' appetites, all the NFL had to do was wait for television technology to develop and to reach America's homes.

An Transcontinental Game

After World War II the NFL immediately geared its product for all of the country. In 1946 Cleveland's team moved to Los Angeles, became the Rams, and led the league in attendance. In 1949 the rival All-America Conference (AAC) disbanded, and the NFL assumed three franchises—Balti-more, San Francisco, and the league champion Cleveland Browns. Also in 1949 the NFL had established its draft well enough to be able to tap into the proven talent pool in the colleges. The best part of this arrangement was that even rookies in the NFL were already well known, and the NFL could market them as stars from their very fìrst game.

Blackouts

Bert Bell, former owner-coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, was appointed NFL commissioner in 1946 and successfully destroyed the AAC. He also directed the league toward its fìrst television contracts that assured regular transcontinental broadcasts. Having two franchises located in California's largest cities guaranteed that fans in New York could watch the Giants play the Rams or the 49ers, but it also presented significant problems. In 1950 the Rams telecast all their home games, and attendance dropped by 50 percent; in 1951 the Rams blacked out their home games and attendance doubled. This convinced Bell that the league had to adopt a television policy different from baseball and act as a single negotiating unit. In 1952 Bell convinced the owners to make him the director of NFL television, and he promptly instituted the "blackout of home games" rule leaguewide.

The Courts Decide

Bell's tactic caused the Department of Justice to invoke the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to stop the NFL plan, and the NFL fought the injunction in court. The courts decided that football was a "unique kind of business" and that anything other than allowing an exception to antitrust law would mean financial ruin for the sport. During the rest of the decade Bell worked behind the scenes with Congress so that in 1961 the Sports Broadcasting Act became the law of the land.