Harvey Frommer on Sports (From the Vault)
Football Names and How They Got That Way
The words and phrases are spoken and written
day after day, year after year, decade after decade - generally without any
wonderment as to how they became part of the language. All have a history,
a story. With another Super Bowl fast approaching, here’s the scoop
on how that name can to be and the origins behind a few others.
SUPER
BOWL The merger of the American Football League and the National Football
League led to the need for a championship game. The first contest was played
on January 15, 1967, and although officially it was known as the National
Football League championship game, its unofficial name, the Super Bowl, was
used in the media, by the fans, and by the players-and the name has stuck.
One
theory for how the high-sounding name came about is that at an owner's
meeting centering on a discussion of what to call the game, one of the moguls
had in his pocket a super ball that he had taken away from his youngster
earlier that day. The owner was not too taken with the long and ordinary-sounding
suggestion for what would become pro football's ultimate game. Squeezing
the ball, he suggested the name Super Bowl, but the name was not received
with much enthusiasm. Nevertheless, he mentioned the name to a reporter and
as they say in sporting circles, "The rest is history."
The
first Super Bowl saw the first dual-network color-coverage simulcast of a
sports event in history, and attracted the largest viewership ever to witness
a sporting event up to that time. The Nielsen rating indicated that 73 million
fans watched all or part of that game on one of the two networks, CBS or
NBC. In actuality, the game was a contest between the two leagues and the
two networks, for the CBS allegiance was to the NFL, and the NBC allegiance
was to the American Football League, which it had virtually created with
its network dollars.
The Super Bowl from the start has been designated with a Roman numeral
rather than by year-a move on the part of NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle to
give the contest a sense of class, and at the same time, of continuity.
NEW
ENGLAND PATRIOTS
A
group of New England sportswriters picked Patriots as a tribute to Patriot
Day, which celebrates Paul Revere's ride. The team originally located
in Boston, was named the Patriots because of the area's heritage as the
birthplace of the American Revolution.
PHILADELPHIA
EAGLES Bert Bell established his NFL franchise in Philadelphia in
1933 at a time the United States was suffering through the Great
Depression. New president Franklin D. Roosevelt had introduced his "New Deal"
program through the National Recovery Administration, which had the Blue
Eagle as its symbol. Since Bell hoped his franchise also was headed for a
new deal, he picked Eagles as the team name.
STEEL
CURTAIN
The
term "Steel Curtain" was used to describe the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive
unit for almost a decade, starting in the mid 1970s. Four players from those
teams are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: "Mean" Joe Greene, Jack Ham ,
Jack Lambert and Mel Blount. Others linked in the public
eye associated with the "Steel Curtain"include: L.C. Greenwood , Dwight White
, and Ernie Holmes .
ROCKY Footbal star Robert Patrick Bleier was always better known
as Rocky. The son of an Appleton, Wisconsin bar owner, Bleier explained how
he got his nickname: "Our living quarters were in the back section of the
ground floor, just off the dining room ... In my first few weeks, Dad would
bring some of his customers back to the bedroom to take a peek at his son
...
"' ... Son of a bitch looks like a little rock,' my dad would whisper proudly.
"So I was Rocky before I ever departed the crib."
Bleier
was the 417th player drafted in the 1968 draft out of Notre Dame and went
on to become Pittsburgh's inspirational leader and their "rock."
TAXI SQUAD Art McBride, original owner of the Cleveland Browns,
owned several Cleveland-area taxicab companies in the 1940s, a time NFL rosters
were set at 33 players. Players cut by the Browns drove McBride taxis
allowing him to replace injured players immediately with well-skilled taxi
drivers. The term has become interchangeable for players on a
reserve list.
TERRIBLE TOWELS Fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers wave the golden "schmatas"
celebrating their team and taunting opponents.
Harvey Frommer is his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 40 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was published in 2008 as well as a reprint version of his classic "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball." Frommer's newest work an oral and narrative history of Fenway Park will be published in 2010.
Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.
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