Professional Football Player
Doll was drafted by the Detroit Lions in the 9th round (67th overall pick) of the 1948 NFL Draft and signed a one-year contract with the team in February 1949. He played as a defensive back for the Lions for four years from 1949 to 1952. He was selected as an All-Pro player in his first three seasons in the NFL (1949–1951). He was also selected four times to play in the Pro Bowl (1950–1953).
At 5 feet, 11 inches, and 185 pounds, Doll was small for a professional football player. In a 1954 profile on Doll, a reporter noted, "Don, who's built like a bank clerk, piano tuner, soda jerk, errand boy or -- egad -- even a sports writer doesn't look any more like a pro gridder than your cousin Joe." Doll explained how he handled the disparity in size with the players he was required to tackle:
"I just throw a shoulder into 'em and hit 'em low. If they are over two tons I aim for their shoelaces. If they're medium sized (around boxcar weight) I hit for the thighs. I'll admit I do not drive 'em back but I stop 'em where they are. ... My size is no detriment in football. I rate as the No. 1 asset the 'desire' to tackle. And I've plenty of that desire."
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Famous quotes containing the words professional, football and/or player:
“I sometimes wonder whether, in the still, sleepless hours of the night, the consciences of ... professional gossips do not stalk them. I myself believe in a final reckoning, when we shall be held accountable for our misdeeds. Do they? If so, they have cause to worry over many scoops that brought them a day’s dubious laurels and perhaps destroyed someone’s peace forever.”
—Mary Pickford (1893–1979)
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)
“The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)