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Present at the Creation: My Life in the NFL and the Rise of America's Game
To understand how the NFL became the sports phenomenon it is today, you can study its history or you can live its history as an active participant. Upton Bell grew up at the knee of the NFL’s first great commissioner, his father, the legendary Bert Bell, who not only saved the game from financial ruin after World War II but was one of its greatest innovators. Coining the phrase “On any given Sunday,” Bert invented the pro football draft and proposed sudden death rules.
Present at the Creation details Bell’s firsthand experiences, which started as he watched his father draw up the league schedule each year at the kitchen table using dominoes. There he learned the importance of parity, which is a hallmark of the league’s success, and also how to create it. Over the past fifty-three years, Bell has been an owner, a general manager, a personnel executive, a scouting director for two Super Bowl teams, a television commentator and analyst, and a talk-radio host. He has seen the NFL from the inside and has experienced many of the most important moments in NFL history.
Bell was player personnel director for the Baltimore Colts when the team played in three championship games and appeared in two Super Bowls (1968 and 1970). At thirty-three, he became the youngest general manager in NFL history when he joined the Patriots in that role in 1971. He left the NFL in 1974 to compete against it, joining the upstart World Football League as owner of the Charlotte Hornets, which lasted just two years. In 1976 Bell began his forty‑year career as a radio and TV talk-show host, yet he remains a football guy who was in the middle of the game’s most significant moments and knows that half the story has never been told, until now.
Present at the Creation details Bell’s firsthand experiences, which started as he watched his father draw up the league schedule each year at the kitchen table using dominoes. There he learned the importance of parity, which is a hallmark of the league’s success, and also how to create it. Over the past fifty-three years, Bell has been an owner, a general manager, a personnel executive, a scouting director for two Super Bowl teams, a television commentator and analyst, and a talk-radio host. He has seen the NFL from the inside and has experienced many of the most important moments in NFL history.
Bell was player personnel director for the Baltimore Colts when the team played in three championship games and appeared in two Super Bowls (1968 and 1970). At thirty-three, he became the youngest general manager in NFL history when he joined the Patriots in that role in 1971. He left the NFL in 1974 to compete against it, joining the upstart World Football League as owner of the Charlotte Hornets, which lasted just two years. In 1976 Bell began his forty‑year career as a radio and TV talk-show host, yet he remains a football guy who was in the middle of the game’s most significant moments and knows that half the story has never been told, until now.
416 pages, Hardcover
Published November 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 30, 2017
To say that Upton Bell is a football lifer would be an understatement. He is the son of former NFL commissioner Bert Bell, the man many consider to be the one who ushered professional football into the modern age. He saw his father die in the stands at a football game. From that heartbreaking moment, he became a scout and general manager in the league. His stories about those times and more are captured in this wonderful memoir co-written with Ron Borges.
Upton Bell was one to let his opinions be known when he was a scout for the Baltimore Colts and he pulls no punches in this book either. The chapters on who he believes are the greatest coaches and greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL were fantastic. He is fair and bases his opinions on the eras that the men played or coached the game. He took into account how much different the game is today than it was in the 1960’s when he was scouting for the Colts or in the early 1970’s when he was the general manager of the New England Patriots. I won’t give any spoilers away for his top ten in either category, but they won’t come as a surprise and both cover a wide time frame.
The stories he shares about his scouting days are excellent as well. They not only entertain the reader, but also illustrate how different the profession was back then compared to today. There were no combines, televised college drafts or social media at the time, so scouts had to rely on their eyes and ears to find talent. Bell was considered one of the best in the game. The reader will learn much about scouting and also about running a football team. This is both as a general manager and also as an owner, as Bell was also the owner of the Charlotte Hornets of the ill-fated World Football League in 1974-75.
Of course, Bell’s life outside of football, including his post-football media career, are told in the book as well. But the knowledge of the game, his connections to so many people inside the game and his experience all make for a book that every football fan will want to read. It doesn’t matter if the reader prefers the more physical football of the 1960’s or the sport today which encourages the passing game. This book is certain to be enjoyed by fans of all stripes.
I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...
Upton Bell was one to let his opinions be known when he was a scout for the Baltimore Colts and he pulls no punches in this book either. The chapters on who he believes are the greatest coaches and greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL were fantastic. He is fair and bases his opinions on the eras that the men played or coached the game. He took into account how much different the game is today than it was in the 1960’s when he was scouting for the Colts or in the early 1970’s when he was the general manager of the New England Patriots. I won’t give any spoilers away for his top ten in either category, but they won’t come as a surprise and both cover a wide time frame.
The stories he shares about his scouting days are excellent as well. They not only entertain the reader, but also illustrate how different the profession was back then compared to today. There were no combines, televised college drafts or social media at the time, so scouts had to rely on their eyes and ears to find talent. Bell was considered one of the best in the game. The reader will learn much about scouting and also about running a football team. This is both as a general manager and also as an owner, as Bell was also the owner of the Charlotte Hornets of the ill-fated World Football League in 1974-75.
Of course, Bell’s life outside of football, including his post-football media career, are told in the book as well. But the knowledge of the game, his connections to so many people inside the game and his experience all make for a book that every football fan will want to read. It doesn’t matter if the reader prefers the more physical football of the 1960’s or the sport today which encourages the passing game. This book is certain to be enjoyed by fans of all stripes.
I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...
May 11, 2018
Son of the great Bert Bell, who once forced a team to sign a player so he could play close to his family and be with his ill wife, Upton Bell gives us a great in depth analysis of how the NFL was created and how it has evolved over the past fifty years.
Stories like the league admitting "making a tactical mistake in the 1960s by not locking up all three major networks and thus freezing out the AFL" are found in every page of this book.
Deep analysis like "four quarterbacks have won 31.3% of the 52 Super Bowls and only twelve have won 63% of them" will hook every NFL fan.
As its title says it, Bell has been involved with the league almost since inception. You will not believe some of the stories he shares.
At the end, this book remind us that "football brings us together and it transcends race, politics, religion and other agendas."
Stories like the league admitting "making a tactical mistake in the 1960s by not locking up all three major networks and thus freezing out the AFL" are found in every page of this book.
Deep analysis like "four quarterbacks have won 31.3% of the 52 Super Bowls and only twelve have won 63% of them" will hook every NFL fan.
As its title says it, Bell has been involved with the league almost since inception. You will not believe some of the stories he shares.
At the end, this book remind us that "football brings us together and it transcends race, politics, religion and other agendas."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews