48 Facts About Bert Bell

De Benneville "Bert" Bell was the National Football League commissioner from 1946 until his death in 1959.

Whereas Bell had become the chief executive in a sport that was largely seen as second-rate and heading a league still plagued by franchise instability, by his death the NFL was a financially sound sports enterprise and seriously challenging Major League Baseball for preeminence among sports attractions in the United States.

Bert Bell was posthumously inducted into the charter class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Bert Bell played football at the University of Pennsylvania, where as quarterback, he led his team to an appearance in the 1917 Rose Bowl.

Bert Bell subsequently became sole proprietor of the Eagles, but the franchise suffered financially.

Bert Bell survived to oversee the "Greatest Game Ever Played" and to envision what the league would become in the future.

Bert Bell's father was an attorney who served a term as the Pennsylvania Attorney General.

Bert Bell's parents were very wealthy, and his mother's lineage predated the American Revolutionary War.

Thereafter, Bert Bell regularly engaged in football games with childhood friends.

In 1904, Bert Bell matriculated at the Episcopal Academy, the Delancey School from 1909 to 1911 and then the Haverford School until 1914.

Bert Bell entered Penn in the fall of 1914 as an English major and joined Phi Kappa Sigma.

Bert Bell returned to Penn as captain of the team in the fall and again performed erratically.

Bert Bell assembled the Stanley Professionals in Chicago in 1920, but he disbanded it prior to playing any games because of negative publicity received by Chicago due to the Black Sox Scandal.

Bert Bell joined John Heisman's staff at Penn as an assistant coach in 1920, where he remained for several years.

In 1928, Bert Bell tendered his resignation at Penn in protest over the emphasis on in-season scrimmages during practices by Lud Wray, a fellow assistant coach.

Bert Bell's resignation was accommodated prior to the start of the 1929 season.

Bert Bell was then an employee of the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia.

Bert Bell's father bailed him out of his deprivation, and he returned to working at the Ritz.

In 1932, Marshall tried to coax Bert Bell into buying the rights to an NFL franchise, but Bert Bell disparaged the league and ridiculed the idea.

When Pop Warner was hired to coach Temple for the 1933 season, he chose to hire his own assistants and Bert Bell was let go.

Bert Bell borrowed funds from Frances Upton, partnered with Wray, and he procured the rights to a franchise in Philadelphia which he christened as the Philadelphia Eagles.

In December 1940, Bert Bell conciliated the sale of Rooney's Steelers to Alexis Thompson, and then Rooney acquired half of Bert Bell's interest in the Eagles.

Bert Bell became the Steelers head coach and Rooney became the general manager.

Bert Bell's first daughter and last child, Jane Upton, was born several months after the season's conclusion.

Bert Bell auspiciously argued against this as he feared they might not be able to resume operations easily after the war, and since Major League Baseball was continuing unabated, then they should.

Bert Bell, who was not well respected in Pittsburgh, was elected to replace him.

Bert Bell received a three-year contract at $20,000 per year, and transacted a sale of his stake in the Steelers to Rooney, albeit for a price Bell did not construe was full-value.

Bert Bell was then immediately placed at the center of a controversy wherein the owners denied Dan Reeves permission to relocate the Cleveland Rams to Los Angeles.

Bert Bell moderated a settlement, and, as a result, the Los Angeles Rams were formed.

Bert Bell utilized this responsibility to, early in the season, pit the weaker teams against other weak teams, and the strong teams against other strong teams.

Bert Bell's goal was to augment game attendances by keeping the difference in team standings to a minimum as deep into the season as possible.

At the next NFL owners' meeting, Bert Bell was worried the repercussions from this event would lead to his firing.

The DOJ filed suit over this and Bert Bell publicly retorted, "You can't give fans a game for free on TV and expect them to go to the ballpark"; nevertheless, the suit was ordered to trial for January 1952.

Bert Bell negotiated a deal with DuMont, which granted it the rights to nationally broadcast one regular-season game every week, and he directed that the income from this contract was to be shared equally between all the teams.

Later that year, Bert Bell forced one of the owners of the Cleveland Browns to sell all of his shares in the team after Bert Bell determined the owner had bet on Browns' football games.

Bert Bell authorized a Pro Bowl to be held at the end of each season in order to showcase the talents of the best players.

Bert Bell was criticized for censoring TV broadcasts, a charge he dismissed as not pertinent because he believed he was not impeding the print media but only advertising a product.

Bert Bell pressed a case in the media that the NFL should be exempted from antitrust regulations and proffered the league was a sport and not a business.

Bert Bell invited an investigation from Congress with respect to the court's ruling.

Red Grange and Bert Bell testified at the committee's solicitation and argued the draft was essential to the sport's success.

However, Bert Bell was speaking only for himself and without the auspices of the owners.

Bert Bell unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the owners to permit the NFLPA to act as a bargaining agent for the players.

Years later, after witnessing Bert Bell openly crying after the game, Raymond Berry attributed it to Bert Bell's realization of the impact the game would have on the prevalence of the sport.

Bert Bell converted to Catholicism that summer because of the lifelong urging of his wife, Mara's death, and his enduring friendship with Rooney, a practicing Catholic.

Bert Bell was interred at Calvary Cemetery in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, northwest of Philadelphia.

Bert Bell was inducted into the Professional Football Hall of Fame, the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame, the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame, and Haverford's Athletic Hall of Fame.

Bert Bell was criticized as being too strict with his refusal to let sold-out games to be televised locally.

Bert Bell was portrayed by sportswriters as ensuring the owners treated the players fairly, and his decision to recognize the NFLPA in the face of adversity from owners was a "master stroke" in thwarting Congressional intervention.