Bert Bell

1895-1959

American football commissioner

Although he never played football professionally, DeBenneville "Bert" Bell brought the game to unprecedented heights of popularity with his revolutionary ideas and hardball style of business. An unsuccessful coach, Bell shined as the National Football League's second commissioner in the 1950s. During his 13-year reign, he created the amateur collegiate draft, established strong anti-gambling controls, instituted television blackouts for home games, and oversaw the merger of the NFL and the All-American Football Conference. Bell rooted for the underdog, and always acted for the good of the game.

Bert Bell was born in the Main Line section of Philadelphia to a wealthy family with real estate holdings and political clout. His grandfather was a congressman, his father served as a Pennsylvania attorney general, and his brother was a state governor. Bell attended Haverford Prep high school and played football at Franklin Field.

At the University of Pennsylvania, Bell played quarterback for the Penn Quakers from 1915-19. In 1916, he helped Penn to a 7-6-1 record and its first appearance at the Rose Bowl. A four-year letterman, Bell captained the team in 1919 to a 6-2-1 record, which included an 89-0 win over Delaware.

As Coach and Unsuccessful Owner

Never having played football professionally, Bell put his interest into coaching then later owning football teams. He served as an assistant or part-time coach at Penn and at Temple Universities, at one point serving under legendary coach John Heisman .

Bell married Ziegfeld Follies stage star Frances Upton. In 1933, since his wealthy father had cut him off from the family fortune, Bell borrowed $2,500 from his wife to buy the National Football League franchise Frankford Yellow Jackets. With co-owner Lud Wray, Bell renamed the team the Philadelphia Eagles and moved them to Center City where they played at Memorial Field and Franklin Field.

During the time he was owner of the Eagles, Bell made one of his most important contributions to football. In 1935, noticing that he was not attracting top talent to his team, Bell proposed an annual draft for selecting top-ranked college players. His strategy of allowing the teams who finished last the season before to have first selection of skilled players was made to continue the survival of the teams and the league.

According to The History of the National Football League, "Bell's most notable achievement as an owner was convincing his fellow owners to adopt a draft of college players beginning in 1936. Without a doubt, it was one of the most important ideas ever adopted by the NFL because, when used intelligently, it has maintained the NFL's competitiveness throughout the last six decades."

Left with the old Yellow Jackets' debts, Bell was known to run the team out of a downtown restaurant and give the bartender tickets to sell. Bell ardently promoted the team in sports departments of the city's newspapers and by personally selling tickets. The unsuccessful team lost its first three games and never won more than five games in a season. By the end of its first three seasons, the team racked up financial losses of $80,000 and was put up for auction. Bell bought sole rights to the Eagles from Wray for $4,500, then became its coach.

In 1940, Art Rooney, a Pittsburgh native who had played professional baseball, became co-owner of the Eagles with Bell. In a franchise switch, the Steelers moved to Philadelphia to become the Eagles, and the Bell-Rooney Eagles went to Pittsburgh to become the Steelers. Bell remained head coach of the Steelers until 1941 when he resigned after two games.

The Commissioner

Bell continued to demonstrate his staunch character when he was unanimously elected on January 11, 1946 to succeed Elmer Layden to become the second NFL commissioner. In his first year as commissioner, Bell faced the problem of gambling in professional football. As the 1946 NFL title game between the New York Giants and the Chicago Bears was about to begin, Bell received word that Giants quarterback Frank Filchock and halfback Merle Hapes had been approached by gamblers to fix the score. Although neither player agreed to the fix, Bell suspended both players for not reporting the incident to authorities.

Another show of Bell's strength and determination was his negotiation of the NFL merger with the AAFC in 1949. The two organizations had been vying for a share of football's top talent and fans. The rivalry hurt the game as players' salaries rose and both sides lost millions of dollars. Bell successfully negotiated a merger of the two leagues to stop the fighting and help the game of football to prosper again. He oversaw other decisions under the merger, such as admittance of new members, divisions within the NFL, reassignment of AAFC players, and fair handling of the college draft.

The Impact of Television

In the 1950s, Bell faced the impact of the new medium of television with broad new policies. In 1952, he suggested that television coverage of home games be blacked out within 75 miles of that city's stadium. This would persuade residents to purchase stadium tickets rather than expect to watch the game at home for free. The ban was upheld by a federal court, and the blackout stayed in effect until 1973. Today, a blackout is lifted if a game is sold out 72 hours before kickoff.

In another move, so that televised games could air at least one commercial break per game's half, Bell created the automatic time out with two minutes to play in each half—the two-minute warning. He also invented suddendeath overtime and suggested televising night games. By 1958, Bell's innovative policies on television had propelled football to become America's most popular sport.

Bell left his mark on football through other achievements. He confronted angry team owners when he formally recognized the NFL Players Association as the organization's legitimate bargaining agent. Bell also created the "option" clause in a player's contract and ended the practice of stronger teams loading their schedules with weaker teams to guarantee wins. Bell also coined the phrase, "On any given Sunday, any team can beat any other team."

As befitting such a lover of football, Bell died at a game. At the age of 64, he suffered a fatal heart attack on October 11, 1959 while watching a football game at Philadelphia's Franklin Field. The two teams playing were the team he founded, the Eagles, and the team he co-owned, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In the same year of Bell's death, the Maxwell Club of Philadelphia in 1959 created the Bert Bell Trophy to recognize its most valuable players. The football community also honored Bell in 1963 by choosing him as the first person to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 1998, the Pennsylvania Museum Commission erected the Bert Bell Historic Marker in front of Mapes Store on Haverford Avenue in Narberth, Pennsylvania, and in December 2001, the cable channel HBO aired The Game of Their Lives focusing on Bert Bell and his contributions to football.

Chronology

As a team owner and the second NFL commissioner, Bert Bell dedicated his life to the game he loved so much. Many of his contributions to the development of American football have lasted through the decades. Never afraid of being unpopular and generating criticism, he always strove to make the institution of football the best it could be.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Caroll, Bob, and Michael Gershman, David Neft, John Thorn. Total Football—Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Harrington, Denis J. The Pro Football Hall of Fame. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1991

Hickock, Ralph. Encyclopedia of North American Sports History. New York: Facts on File, 1992.

Other

"Bert Bell: The Commissioner." Professional Football Researchers Association. http://www.footballresearch.com/articles/frpage.cfm?topic=bell-bert (September 27, 2002).

Get Ahead Pro Speakers Bureau. http://www.getaheadpro.com/upton.html (September 27, 2002).

"Hall of Fame Class III—Inducted November 11, 2000 Biographies." Official Web Site of the University of Pennsylvania's Athletic Department. http://pennathletics.com/hall-of-fame/penn-hof-class3-bios.html(September 27, 2002).

Philly Burbs. http://209.71.42.240/eagles/Game_History.shtml (September 27, 2002).

"Bert Bell" Wikipedia. http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Bert_Bell (September 27, 2002).

Sketch by Lorraine Savage

Awards and Accomplishments