America's Game Quotes

“Like the best of the arts, pro football worked on multiple levels. For the loyalists, there was the fortune of the home team. For neutral or casual fans, there was action, skill, suspense, and violence. For gamblers, the wagering proposition. For those with a deeper interest, the game could exist on a larger canvas—as a morality play; a cultural metaphor; a crucible of values in which teamwork, sacrifice, and dedication were rewarded, while selfishness, cowardice, and sloth were harshly punished. What those who were contemptuous of sports misunderstood was not merely that a middle-class sports fan might revere football to the same degree that an inveterate theatergoer revered Shakespeare, but that he might do so for many of the same reasons.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“Hunt had thought of the name while watching his children playing with one of the hot novelties of the period, the Wham-O company's high-bouncing Super Ball.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“The NFL had been eyeing New Orleans for its next franchise anyway. So a thinly veiled quid pro quo was offered—a franchise for New Orleans in exchange for the exemption”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“The principle that Veeck pointed to was a simple one. Since every major league game involved two competing clubs, and since the selling of television rights required no investment on the part of the home club, he reasoned it was only fair that those rights fees be split equally in each market between the home and visiting clubs.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“With only one proven quarterback in Baltimore, Unitas sensed his chances for success were better there. Thus would the relative fortunes of the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Colts be forever changed.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“(Brown, incidentally, had a contract with Riddell that paid him a royalty for every mask sold, bringing him millions in the decades ahead.)”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“Here's what I propose,” he said. “At the end of each football season, I suggest that we pool the names of all eligible college seniors. Then we make our selections in inverse order of the standings—that is, the lowest-ranked team picks first. We do this round after round until we have exhausted the supply of college players.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“Brown had too many quality players for the thirty-three-man roster. Rather than waive them to other teams in the AAFC, he devised a secret plan with owner McBride by which several players who had been cut would land jobs with the Zone/Yellow Cab Co., with schedules arranged so that they could report to League Park in Cleveland, where the Browns practiced. Thus was born the “taxi squad” in pro football.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“By the middle of the summer, the team was even bearing his name. An early name-the-team contest had resulted in the club announcing, in the spring of 1946, that it would be known as the Cleveland Panthers. But when the owner of a failed minor league franchise of the ’30s claimed rights to the name, Brown decided to ditch it.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“When you think of baseball, you immediately think of the New York Yankees. When you think of golf, Bobby Jones comes to mind. When you think of boxing, it's Joe Louis. One of these days when people think of football, I want them to think of the Cleveland Browns.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“What those who were contemptuous of sports misunderstood was not merely that a middle-class sports fan might revere football to the same degree that an inveterate theatergoer revered Shakespeare, but that he might do so for many of the same reasons.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“In 1961, the National Football League's owners voted to sign a national television contract with CBS, and share the revenues from that deal equally among all of its teams, regardless of market size or national appeal. This was important at the time, when the individual team television revenues were wildly disparate and made up a sizable portion of a team's income. It would become crucial in the decades ahead, when television exploded into the largest source of revenue in professional football.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game

“Old saying, 'What goes around comes around.' You could have avoided ALL this turmoil IF YOU had only played fair.”
― Michael MacCambridge, America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation