Football History

Born March 12, 1880, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was legendary pro football player, and College Football Hall of Fame back, Bobby Marshall. Marshall played end for the football team of the University of Minnesota from 1904 to 1906. He was the first African American to play football in the Western Conference, later to be known as the Big Ten. Bobby graduated in 1907 and played with Minneapolis pro teams, the Deans and the Marines. From 1920 through 1924, he played in the National Football League with the Rock Island Independents, the Minneapolis Marines, and the Duluth Kelleys.

Born January 3, 1923, in Chicago, Illinois, was Hank Stram. He was an American football coach who is best known for his 15-year tenure with the Dallas Texans / Kansas City Chiefs of the AFL and National Football League.

He played college football at Purdue University, where he was a two-way player. After graduating from Purdue, Stram served in the United States Army during World War II. After the war, Stram began his coaching career as an assistant at Purdue. He then served as an assistant at Notre Dame and Miami (Florida) before being hired as the head coach of the Dallas Texans in 1960.

Born August 14, 1935, in Menlo Park, California, was John Brodie who was a quarterback that played for Stanford University. The passer's great play there earned him a place in the College Football Hall of Fame. Brodie went on to play professionally for 17 seasons at the helm of the San Francisco 49ers. There were multiple years where he led the NFL in both passing and touchdown throws and he played in two Pro Bowls and was the 1970 NFL MVP. This talented fella even had a second career as a Senior PGA Tour professional golfer and was a television broadcaster for both sports.

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The Sports History Network Podcast featuring Dan and Andrew Neumann, who speak on a variety of topics concerning American football, baseball and Basketball

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Two-Minute Warning - When does the NFL Clock Stop

Born August 5, 1940 - Roman Gabriel was a quarterback from North Carolina State that in 1989 was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. He landed in the NFL with the LA Rams where he played for 11 years before moving onto Philadelphia to play for the Eagles for another 5 seasons after that. He was the first Filipino- American in the NFL to play the quarterback position.

Born July 2, 1879, in Berlin, Germany, was Illinois Illini Hall of Fame Head Coach, Bob Zuppke. Coach served as the head coach at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1913 until 1941, compiling a career college football record of 131–81–12. Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951, Zuppke coached his teams to national titles in 1914, 1919, 1923, and 1927.

The Kirksville, Missouri School of Osteopathy and their famous coach Pat O'Dea, "the Kangaroo Kicker."

Legendary journalist and former NFL columnist for the New York Daily
News and Dallas Morning News. He was a long-time member of the cast of HBO's Inside The NFL as one of the original NFL insiders and the YES Network's This Week in Football.

Journalist Peter Oltchick is the co-author (with former New York Daily News journalist Bill Bell) of Football for Fun: The Story of Coach Stewart “Fergie” Ferguson. Learn more about his work here on his own site!