Professional Career
After about a year of recuperation, Fekete's knee was strong enough for him to play football again. He was selected by the Detroit Lions in the sixth round of the 1945 NFL Draft. He signed instead with the Cleveland Browns, a team set to start play in the new All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in 1946. The Browns were coached by Paul Brown, his old coach at Ohio State.
During the 1946 season, Fekete shared time at fullback with Marion Motley. His knee injury flared up again, however, and it became clear that it could not sustain the hard knocks of a professional football season. He ended his playing career and got married after the Browns won the AAFC championship in 1946, for which Fekete received an $833 bonus.
Read more about this topic: Gene Fekete
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or career:
“Smoking ... is downright dangerous. Most people who smoke will eventually contract a fatal disease and die. But they don’t brag about it, do they? Most people who ski, play professional football or drive race cars, will not die—at least not in the act—and yet they are the ones with the glamorous images, the expensive equipment and the mythic proportions. Why this should be I cannot say, unless it is simply that the average American does not know a daredevil when he sees one.”
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