Showing results for "Evolution" in Football (American)

In football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play. When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father...

In football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play. When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father...

What could lead a little fellow to set a putt-putt course on fire or host a keg party at his parents’ house during high school (when his father was a prominent pastor in town) or defy all odds and become perhaps a combination of the smallest and slowest starting wide receiver in major college football history? And how did that youngster eventually become an NFL agent by accident, meeting his future wife on a steamy asphalt parking lot with a “Hey, what’s your name?

In Mavericks, Money and Men, football historian Charles Ross chronicles the AFL's key events, including Buck Buchanan becoming the first overall draft pick in 1963, and the 1965 boycott led by black players who refused to play in the AFL All Star game after experiencing blatant racism. He also recounts how the success of the AFL forced a merger with the NFL in 1969, which arguably facilitated the evolution of modern professional football.