While Jim Thorpe helped resuscitate the pro game on the field, the loose affiliation of teams were still in desperate need of organization and legitimacy. With an ever-changing number of self-interested owners, competing for ticket sales and victory at all costs, they needed a new sheriff who could come in and impose order. The man who stepped up was too small to play the game himself, but future league President Joe Carr had a dream big enough to unite football’s early warring owners into what would one day become the NFL.

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