Joe Carr

Author Chris Willis visits the Pigpen once again to tell us about another one of the great men that shaped the NFL early on, Joe Carr. From a team manager in Columbus, Ohio to a League founding father and eventually the President of the NFL.

Chris Willis of NFL Films wrote a fantastic book, Joe F. Carr, The Man Who Built the National Football League. We are honored to have Chris help us celebrate this important figure in football history on Carr's birthday October 23, 1879 by giving us some details of his life in commemoration. 

Joe grew up in Columbus, Ohio and though he loved sports he was on the small side and not a very good athlete. What he was good at was organization and leadership. Carr organized and multiple teams in football and baseball growing up on the sandlots of Central Ohio. He even had th e opportunity to manage a minor league baseball squad. Eventually he grew up and worked on the railroad in the Panhandle division that repaired locomotives. His co-workers were a rough and rowdy group made up predominantly from one family the Nessers. William Butler organized the group into a football team caalling themselves the Columbus Panhandles and even scheduled some other teams for them to play. Joe Carr sat back and saw that they could be so much more than the rag tag bunch they were at the time and he became the promoter and manager of the squad. The Panhandles were pretty good too prior to World War I.

After the War, rumblings were going through out the professional teams of Ohio to organize a Pro circuit for football. Chris tells us that in his research he found an article where Carr in January of 1920 met with some baseball officials suggesting that they look into forming a Pro Football League that could develope like baseball did. This was a full seven months before either of the famous meting that took place in Ralph Hay's Automobile Showroom in August and September of that year.

Though he was not present at the two organizational meetings of the American Professional Football Association, Joe and his Panhandles team were invited into the new League and played in its inaugural season. The APFA chose Jim Thorpe as its Presidnet for name and recognition only. Thorpe was not expereinced in running an organization, but his name sure gave the League some credability. At the Spring 1921 meetings the APFA selected the Akron Pros as thier inagural Champion. Joe Carr attended this meeting and had some brilliant idas to help the organization grow, and the other owners realized the value of his organizational skills. They soon voted him in as President of the League.

Carr helped lead a group that soon changed its name to the National Football League. Carr had a charter written up filled with rules for the group that teams must abide by to stay in good standing. Eventually he helped the NFL expand into larger cities even getting together with his friend Dr. Harry March in New York to persuade a young businesman Tim Mara to start the New York Giants. Other premier franchises were established under his watch, including the Pittsburgh Steelers, Philadelphia Eagles, Detroit Lions and Washington Redskins.

Other accomplishments of Joe during his 18 years as th leader of Pro Football were that he moved the APFA's headquarters to Columbus, drafted a league constitution and by-laws, gave teams territorial rights, developed membership criteria for the franchises, and issued standings for the first time, so that the APFA would have a clear champion. Joe also eventually helped establish two divisions in the NFL and put together a Championship Game to crown the top team. Carr also began cleaning up other problems. By 1925, he introduced a standard player's contract so that players couldn't jump from one team to another. 

He took the young League through some treacherous times such as cracking down on teams taking players directly out of college early, the 1925 Pottsville Maroons and Chicago Cardinals championship controversies and helped to organize and establish the NFL Draft.

Some referred to Joe Carr as the "Father of Professional Football", Carr was one of the 17 inaugural inductees into Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963.

He was also a contributor to baseball and was the organizer of the American Basketball League.