First Admitted Professional Football Player
Just before the start of the season, Latrobe quarterback Eddie Blair found himself in a scheduling conflict. Blair, who also played baseball in nearby Greensburg, discovered that the team's first football game against the Jeannette Athletic Club conflicted with a prior baseball commitment. Berry was now given the task for replacing Blair, for the game. He heard of an Indiana Normal quarterback named John Brallier. Berry contacted Brallier at his home in Indiana, and offered him expenses to play for Latrobe. However Brallier was reluctant to play since he would be playing for Washington & Jefferson College within just a few weeks. This led Berry to offer Brallier $10 to play for Latrobe against Jeannette, plus expenses, with the promised several future games. Brallier, accepted the offer and became the first player to openly admit to being paid to play football player. The quarterback arrived in Latrobe the night before the game and practiced with the team.
While Brallier was considered the first professional football player and deemed a national icon for many years, it wasn't until after his death in 1960 that evidence proved John Brallier was not in fact the first professional football player, but merely the first one to openly admit that he was paid. William "Pudge" Heffelfinger of the Allegheny Athletic Association is now considered the first professional player.
Read more about this topic: Latrobe Athletic Association
Famous quotes containing the words admitted, professional, football and/or player:
“What is wanted—whether this is admitted or not—is nothing less than a fundamental remolding, indeed weakening and abolition of the individual: one never tires of enumerating and indicting all that is evil and inimical, prodigal, costly, extravagant in the form individual existence has assumed hitherto, one hopes to manage more cheaply, more safely, more equitably, more uniformly if there exist only large bodies and their members.”
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“The relationship between mother and professional has not been a partnership in which both work together on behalf of the child, in which the expert helps the mother achieve her own goals for her child. Instead, professionals often behave as if they alone are advocates for the child; as if they are the guardians of the child’s needs; as if the mother left to her own devices will surely damage the child and only the professional can rescue him.”
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“It is a fundamental characteristic of civilization that man most profoundly mistrusts those living outside his own milieu, so that not only does the Teuton regard the Jew as an incomprehensible and inferior being, but the football player likewise so regards the piano player.”
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