Imagine a league where coal miners toiled on the field with the same intensity they brought to the mineshaft. A league where innovation and improvisation ruled, and the line between player and coach was often blurred. The Anthracite League was a breeding ground for future stars, a proving ground where legends were born.

Join us as we unearth the stories of these forgotten heroes. We'll explore the league's rough-and-tumble origins, the fierce rivalries that burned brighter than any stadium lights, and the iconic figures who left their mark on the game. We'll also dissect the strategies and tactics that defined Anthracite League football, a style of play as unique and rugged as the landscape it called home.

So, put on your virtual hard hat and grab a pickaxe – we're heading into the coal mines of history for a podcast episode unlike any other. Get ready for the forgotten battles, the audacious plays, and the unfiltered passion that made the Anthracite League a grimy, glorious chapter in the story of professional football!

Transcription on the Anthracite Football with Joe Zagorski

Darin Hayes
Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes at www .pixieanddispatch .com. Welcome once again to the Pigpen, your portal to positive football history. And we have a really special evening tonight planned because we're going to be talking to a great football historian and author of multiple books and a podcast host here on Sports History Network, Joseph Gorsky. You've heard him here before, and tonight, we're going to talk about something special. Joseph Gorsky, welcome back to the Pigpen.

Joe Zagorski
Hey, thanks for welcoming me. I appreciate being here.

Darin Hayes
Well, we're sure glad to have you, Joe. And just a little bit of a side note. I know I told you before we came on, but just so the audience knows, a few weeks ago, I was doing some research on some football from the pro leagues of the coal mining region of Pennsylvania. And I came across an article from the PFRA from 1987's Coffin Corner, and it was authored by one Joe Zegorsky. And I said, oh my goodness, what an honor. I can talk to Joe again about the article that he wrote a few decades ago.

Joe Zagorski
Yeah, it's hard to believe that I've been at this in one way, shape, or form for that many years. It certainly hasn't been a full-time job or anything, but I've enjoyed exploring the history of pro football. And a lot of people don't realize that, you know, just because you're in a separate section of the country, the coal regions of Pennsylvania, it had its own flavor. And the NFL at that time in the mid-1920s was basically still a brand new league. And not a whole lot of thought was given to, hey, this league has been the last 50 or 60 years. Nobody thought about that at the time. So, nobody really had any preconceived notions about the coal region league, either. And so, you know, these guys would go, and they would play for whoever would pay them more money. Yeah, it's not uncommon to see that there are people who played in the coal region that would play for up to three or four different teams in one season. They'd be hopping around the league. Whoever paid them more money, that's who they would play for on any given weekend.

Darin Hayes
Well, that is, I mean, that's incredible. And what is the geographic area? Now, I know it's Eastern Pennsylvania, but what do they sort of call that the coal mining region?

Joe Zagorski
Schuylkill County is the main county with a lot of people; the main town in Schuylkill County is Pottsville. And it gets a lot of notoriety because Pottsville had an NFL team for three years, no, four years, 25 through 28, the Pottsville Maroons. And a lot of other teams in that era still played, but they weren't on the Pottsville level. And a lot of people confuse Pottsville. I grew up, and I was born and raised in a town called Potts Town. And a lot of people think they're right next to each other, but they're not. Potts Town is about an hour and 20 minutes southeast of Pottsville, and as far as, you know, driving time. But they might have been. I know Potts Town was named after John Potts, and he may have been the same guy who named Pottsville. I'm not sure; maybe it's a relative of his or not. However, the Pottsville Maroons had a very strong pro football team, and they had some players on them who not only played in the other teams in the NFL but also were in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Wilbur Fat Henry comes to mind. John Blood McNally, those guys are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and they played for those Pottsville teams. So it was a, they had no variety. The theory was that the whole region's teams really played a tough, rough, tough brand of football, and I'm sure they did. But a lot of people believe that it was just filled with guys who worked in the coal mines and then came out and played football. Well, that's not completely true. There were some who did. One famous guy was Tony Latone, and he played; he worked in the coal mines and then played for the Pottsville Maroons. But most of the guys actually were college, college-educated, and they played for college teams before they went pro. So, you know, they didn't just come on out and beat the crap out of each other. There was some sophistication to their stories.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, you've mentioned Tony LaTone. We wrote an article about him probably about a month ago. One thing that amazed me was that I didn't really know much about him until I was doing that podcast. One thing that I read is that George Halas said something to the effect that if Tony LaTone had played college ball, he might have been one of the best pro players ever. And there were a lot of comparisons made to the yardage that LaTone did when he played for Pottsville compared to what Red Grange did in the same era. And it was actually their statistics were kind of comparable if you look at it from some of the things that I saw. But, of course, he didn't play much college ball. He went right into the semi-pros and played for the teams of his coal mining company, I guess.

Joe Zagorski
I heard the same story. I guess it was in the early 1990s. I drove from Pennsylvania down to Florida, and I got a chance to spend a couple of days with Tony's son, who was living in Florida at the time and was originally from Michigan. I got a chance to talk to him about his father, you know, his father long since passed, but he was an interesting character, Tony LaTone. I lost touch with Tony's son. I think he moved back to Michigan because he got tired of the Pelicans landing on his roof at night in Florida. Very few pelicans in Michigan. Very few.

Darin Hayes
They don't like the cold of Lake Michigan, do they?

Joe Zagorski
No, no. If you see a pelican in Michigan, it's probably a plastic one in somebody's yard or something like that. He gave me some really good stories about Tony LaTona. I think I wrote an article about him for the PFRA prior to the article that you were talking about with the suicide football league. He was an interesting character, but they were all interesting characters. I got a chance to meet a couple of them, but sadly, most of them were so old that their memories were shot. You really couldn't get too much out of them, which is a shame, but that's what happens, unfortunately.

Darin Hayes
That's sad. It happens to all of us from all walks of life all around the world. It's one of those things, you know, death and taxes and old age sort of deteriorates. It's uh, they say that What the youth is spoiled on the young or something that fact, you know, well.

Joe Zagorski
I got a chance to interview another guy who was a child at the time, and he had good memories of it. He was actually in a program that NFL Films did about the 1920s in the NFL. I got a chance to meet him, and I interviewed him. He was a very interesting fellow, a guy by the name of Bill Dimmerling. He gave me some really good information that I didn't know at the time, but it served as some information for my eventual screenplay that I wrote about Cold Region football.

Darin Hayes
Are you able to talk about your screenplay at all, about what the basic premise is of it, or would you rather not discuss that?

Joe Zagorski
Well, I'll just briefly talk about it. It's set in the year 1924, and it's about a rivalry between two teams. It basically covers the week before the game, then the game, and then the aftermath of the game, and it's based on a true story. So most of it is true, and it really happened, and I have corroboration from a lot of different newspaper articles that I was able to find in the Potsdale Historical Society. You know, I think I better stop with that. When I get more information as far as if I'm able to sell it to a producer or a film company, I'll definitely post that information, and once I know that it's being made into a film, then I can talk more freely about it, I think.

Darin Hayes
Okay, well, in the meantime, are there any producers out there or directors looking for a good film? We know how to get in contact with a guy who has a great screenplay for you. So, you know, you can contact the Sports History Network, and we'll get in touch with Joe or Pixie and Dispatch, and we'll get Joe on the line and get you hooked up. So it sounds like a great film to watch, something I'd want to watch, that's for sure.

Joe Zagorski
Well, you know, it's funny because when I tell people about it, they say the same thing. They say, well, yeah, that sounds really good, but, you know, if you're, if you don't have like solicitation, if you don't have a manager, nobody in Hollywood wants to give you the time of day. So it's just being lucky enough to get one person to look at it. That's the key. And it has to be the right person, you know. There's somebody with contacts.

Darin Hayes
That seems to be the case in a lot of things in life to succeed, isn't it? Yeah, you're not kidding. Well, going back to the Anthracite League, so was it an official league of teams, or was it one of those that was sort of like a mythological or an idea or just a bunch of teams that commonly played each other?

Joe Zagorski
It's a good question. In name only, really, in the newspaper in 1924, it was listed as the Anthracite Football League, but that was only one year, and in 1925, nobody mentioned it anymore. So, really, it was a one-year league, and not every team played every week. That's one thing I wanted to mention is that some teams didn't know if they were gonna play that weekend until about two days before the game. We're just a few weeks away from the NFL schedule being broadcast on television for 2022. Well, in 1924 and 1925, I mean, those guys didn't know from one week to the next who they would be playing, some of them. That just goes to show how disorganized that league and region were in getting teams to be played. Pottsville, in 1924, played 14 games. Wilkes -Ferry played one game. Gilberton played eight games, as did Shenandoah, and Coaldale played ten games. So, you know, and some of the teams that they played weren't even a part of the league. Gilberton beat a town called Palmerton, a team. You know, I mean, it's like some of these teams you'd never heard of, Hobart Athletic Club, lost to Shenandoah, you know. Now, Reading had a team. They were a bigger town, but they weren't part of the Anthracite League. Atlantic City, New Jersey, was considered a team that was not in the Anthracite League, but they beat Coldale. So they would play whoever they could find, and they would count it as a league game, even though it's not.

Darin Hayes
Now, did they have a postseason, a championship, or a champion from that region declared?

Joe Zagorski
They did, and it wasn't a championship game. It was just whoever had the most wins, and that was Poxville. They finished with a record of 12, 1, and 1. So. That's pretty good. Yeah, I mean, and the next closest team percentage-wise was Gilbertin, and they finished with a record of 4, 3, and 1. So, you know, you get eight more wins. Yeah, you're going to be declared a champion. That 24 season was a springboard for Poxville because they kind of said, okay, we won 12 games this year. Let us join this National Football League that just started a few years ago. And they put up the money, and they, you know, George Hollis let them in, and they played in 1925, and that was a whole different story in regards to Poxville. And if you ever do any research on them, you'll hear about the stolen championship.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, we've talked about that a couple of times with a few of our guests have come on and Potsville is kind of an interesting thing, especially 1925 when they came in and along with the Frankfurter played, I believe in that same era, there's two Pennsylvania teams that played during Pennsylvania's Blue Laws that weren't supposed to play on Sundays. I think one of the teams did. I forget which one did.

Joe Zagorski
Well, Frankfurt got upset because Poxville went down to Philadelphia to play these Notre Dame all-stars who were well past their prime. And it was just more or less an exhibition game, but Frankfurt got upset because they figured you're in our territory, you're taking spectators away from our gate receipts, and that's not fair. And the commissioner at the time, I think it was Burke Bell.

Darin Hayes
Joe Carr at the time.

Joe Zagorski
That was Joe Carr, okay, my mistake. Joe Carr, and he said, you know, Franklin's got a case here. And so he penalized Pottsville and made them; he took away their championship. And he kind of made the Chicago Cardinals play two extra games to give them a better record. And, you know, that gave them the championship, the Chicago Cardinals. Even though those two extra games were against, I think one of them was against high school kids. You know, it wasn't really always on the up and up. And I know over the years, Pottsville has tried to get the NFL to change their minds and give them back the championship, but the Cardinal organization is never gonna surrender that championship. They're just not. So that's, and the league doesn't want, I mean, nobody's alive from 1925 that really remembers that. I don't.

Darin Hayes
It's interesting because I've heard you're probably about the fourth guest, so we've talked about that game and that whole situation. And we've talked, of course, Joe Ziemba's been talked up from the Cardinal's perspective. Chris Willis has been talking about it from the sort of the NFL's person, the Joe Carr, and Columbus Panhandle's approach or that whole situation. That's how I knew it was Joe Carr. It wasn't because I was smart. It was just because I remember Chris talking about it. We've also talked about some guests who support Pottsville. She gets the championship awarded to them and everything. It's an interesting concept. I don't know if we'll ever be resolved. I know it was just a few years ago; I think they petitioned the NFL and lost the case, too. So it's been pretty recent, almost a hundred years.

Joe Zagorski
If you ever get a chance to go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, they have a pretty neat display on it that explains it all. You know, and I, every now and then, I mean, I'm going up there in a couple of weeks to do some more research, but it's, you know, they try to address everything that happened back in that era, and although I have to admit, I think the Hall of Fame that the Green Bay Packers have is a little bit better. So, I think so. Mr. Roy, I've never.

Darin Hayes
I've never been to Green Bay. Yeah, I've never been up in Canton, but I was in Canton twice last year. Well, the PFRA convention was there last year, so I was there for that. I went to the Hall of Fame weekend and had the opportunity to go down; of course, there were five Steelers going in between the two classes, so it definitely was a great one to attend there. And the Steelers played that weekend, too. Yeah. But yeah, you're right; that display is awesome. The whole museum has really, really improved over the last six to seven years.

Joe Zagorski
If you ever get to Lambeau Field, check out their museum and their Hall of Fame. It's really neat. I mean, it's not as big as the Pro Football Hall of Fame because you're only dealing with one team, but the displays are really neat. Yeah, it's definitely worth it. I mean, there isn't much around Green Bay. There's a casino. You know, there's a walking tour through town and stuff like that, but Lambeau Field is the main attraction in Green Bay, and it always has been, I think. If it wasn't for the Packers, I don't know what kind of tourism that town would have. I shudder to think that it would have any, but they get visitors all the time, and their gift shop is like two stories tall.

Darin Hayes
Wow. I bet you really know that the population spikes about eight times a year there, right? Yeah, yeah.

Joe Zagorski
With preseason games, yeah.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, that's what's really interesting. So I want to talk about you. You've had a recent podcast on your pro football in the 1970s podcast, which is very well done. And one that I just talked about in your most recent podcast is on the 1974 Steelers draft class and rookie class; I guess it was a better term for it. And great job on that. And I was talking, I was talking last Saturday, I do every Saturday; I have a release on some Northwestern Pennsylvania football history. So I was talking about the 69 drafts with Joe Green and John Cole, but Elsie Greenwood and Terry Hanratty and a few other, you know, minor players. And, you know, sort of comparing those two drafts, but I referenced quite a bit of what you said in your 74 Steelers draft. But I think I agree with you. I don't know if there will ever be any team that, before or after that, will have a rookie class like that with five Hall of Famers.

Joe Zagorski
I highly doubt it. I really do. You know, when you consider the fact that, you know, today in this day and age, what are there like seven or eight rounds? Maybe, I think, you know, to think that five selections that your team made are in the Hall of Fame, and they equated to, at that time, four World Championships. That's really just astounding. Just really incredible that one team was able to do that well in the draft. And I'm good friends with Terry Hanretty and Rockie Bleier today. So, yeah. Yeah. Rocky wrote the foreword to my first book about the NFL in the 1970s. And I've been friends with Terry for several years, and I've interviewed him quite a few times.

Darin Hayes
Wow, you have a great circle of friends, I'll tell you.

Joe Zagorski
Well, you know, I mean, I'm not married, so that's, you know, you've got to have a friend somewhere, you know, and I was telling another podcast last night that if I was married, I probably wouldn't be able to do all the writing that I've been doing, because there's just not enough time, you know, and then you get 24 hours in a day, how do you use it, you know?

Darin Hayes
Yeah, that's that's very true. Very try. I'm very blessed. I have a very understanding wife, and she knows my football addiction, So I get away with some things. Yeah

Joe Zagorski
Well, you got to mention that upfront before you, you know, you get serious. That's for sure, you know. That's for sure. You know, it's like anything else, though. I mean, I would prefer that you get all the information out before you make any decision. It's the same thing with buying a car, you know.

Darin Hayes
You've got to have all those skeletons out of the closet up front, right? That's right. Now, you talk about writing as a good segue. I know that you were telling me before we came on the air that you have a book that is about ready to go into print. And I don't know if maybe you want to talk about that a little bit and give us a little tease on the horizon in the Joe Zegorski writing role.

Joe Zagorski
Well, I just finished writing a book on the 1973 Buffalo Bills. I guess you can sense that I've got a lot of love for the '70s, and I do because that's when I grew up watching pro football. And I knew that nobody had ever written about the 73 Bills before. And I thought, you know, this is the 50-year anniversary of that team. They were a very historic team. They finished 9 and 5. They almost made the playoffs. They didn't, but they came within a wister of making the playoffs. So what was really great about them was all the different records that they set. They set the team rushing record that had only been set the year before by the Dolphins. Well, they broke that largely because O.J. Simpson became the first man ever, in fact, the first man only, to rush for 2,000 yards in one 14-game season. It's since been equipped by several people, but they all did it in a 16-game season. And it'll get broken again because now we're at 17 games of a regular season. So, you know, I kind of think that it'll get broken again. But O .J. Simpson's the only man who has ever rushed for over 2,000 yards in a 14-game season. And that'll never change. I got a chance to interview him a few weeks ago. And I've been trying to interview him for many years. And I finally struck gold and got a chance to interview him. So I was very fortunate and got a lot of good quotes from him for the book.

Darin Hayes
Well, gosh, that sounds very intriguing. I can't wait. You'll have to let us know when that gets ready to come out and hits the print so we can all get it in our hands and read up on what you have to say about that.

Joe Zagorski
Sure will. Yeah. It's, you know, I had to address certain things about it. I wasn't allowed to ask Mr. Simpson any questions about what happened to him in the 1990s. I couldn't even, you know, vaguely address that, which I agreed to. I wasn't going to go there, and I promised both him and his manager that I wouldn't. I gave him a list of questions ahead of time, and he signed off on them. He was okay with them, so that was important, and I got some good information from him. Two of his most of teammates that I interviewed for the book didn't want to talk about him after football, but two of them did. One of them said that he felt that he was innocent, and the other one said he felt he was guilty. So that was, and they said a little bit more than that, but, you know, that was the extent of it. All the other ones wouldn't go on the record, and that's to be expected. I don't think a publisher is going to really fault me for that because it's such a taboo subject.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, that's walking on eggshells, that's for sure.

Joe Zagorski
But the book is finished, and I'm trying to get a publishing company to, you know, say yes and publish it.

Darin Hayes
Well hopefully you'll be hearing from a publisher real soon and a movie producer or a movie house or something whoever does that kind of work and get your works out there because they both sound extremely exciting and speaking of that are you able to tell us what we can look forward to on the next Pro Football in the 1970s podcast?

Joe Zagorski
No, I can't because I don't know what it's going to be. You see, Arnie, I gave Arnie about three of them, and I don't know which ones or what order they're in. So, you know, I wrote them, I put them together. I guess it was over a month ago, and I can't remember. So, you know, I'm 59 now, so I'm not able to remember like I used to think. So, you'll just have to wait with everybody else, including me.

Darin Hayes
So, somewhere up in Michigan. Mr. Chapman has a hat with three pieces of paper in it, along with your podcast. He's gonna draw one out here one of these days, and that's right. We'll see what's going on there. Yeah, All right, well Joe, I really appreciate you spending the time and sharing. You know, information from this article you wrote, you know, 30, some years ago, and all the other great conversations We had in this short time. We appreciate you taking the time to visit us here in the Pigpen once again

Joe Zagorski
Well, I'm very thankful for the opportunity, Darin. You take care of yourself and have a great NFL draft coming up.