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Born: | Elmira, New York |
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College: | Columbia University |
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Jan Van Duser is an American sports executive who worked for the National Football League from 1971 to 1997.
A native of Elmira, New York, Van Duser graduated from Columbia University in 1959. He was a sportswriter for the Tampa Times and St. Petersburg Times during the early 1960s. In 1964, he joined the staff of The Atlanta Constitution . [1]
In 1966, Van Duser was named public relations director of the expansion Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League. [1] In 1971, he was appointed assistant to the president of the National Football Conference. In 1973, he became the NFL's director of personnel. [2] In this role, Van Duser managed the National Football League draft and processed all player contracts. [3] In 1979, Van Duser was offered the position of general manager of the New York Giants after Commissioner Pete Rozelle stepped in to resolve a stalemate between the team's feuding owners – Wellington Mara and Timothy J. Mara. Van Duser declined the job, which led to the position going to a second compromise candidate, George Young. [4] Van Duser remained in the league office until his retirement in 1997. [5]
The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons were founded on June 30, 1965, and joined the NFL in 1966 as an expansion team, after the NFL offered then-owner Rankin Smith a franchise to keep him from joining the rival American Football League (AFL).
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays its home games at MetLife Stadium at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, 5 miles (8 km) west of New York City. The stadium is shared with the New York Jets. The Giants are headquartered and practice at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center, also in the Meadowlands.
Alvin Ray "Pete" Rozelle was an American businessman and executive. Rozelle served as the commissioner of the National Football League (NFL) for nearly thirty years, from January 1960 until his retirement in November 1989. He became the youngest commissioner in NFL history at just the age of 33. He is credited with making the NFL into one of the most successful sports leagues in the world.
James Edward Finks was an American football and Canadian football player, coach, and executive.
The AFL–NFL merger was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues in the United States at the time: the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL). It paved the way for the combined league, which retained the "National Football League" name and logo, to become the most popular sports league in the United States. The merger was announced on the evening of June 8, 1966. Under the merger agreement, the leagues maintained separate regular-season schedules for the next four seasons—from 1966 through 1969 with a final championship game which would become known as the Super Bowl—and then officially merged before the 1970 season to form one league with two conferences.
Norman Mack Van Brocklin, nicknamed "the Dutchman", was an American football player, coach and executive. He played as a quarterback and punter in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons. He spent his first nine seasons with the Los Angeles Rams and his final three with the Philadelphia Eagles. Following his playing career, he was the inaugural head coach of the Minnesota Vikings from 1961 to 1966 and the second head coach of the Atlanta Falcons from 1968 to 1974.
The Miracle at the Meadowlands was a fumble recovery by cornerback Herman Edwards of the Philadelphia Eagles that he returned for a touchdown at the end of a November 19, 1978, National Football League (NFL) game against the New York Giants in Giants Stadium. After quarterback Joe Pisarcik botched an attempt to hand off the football to fullback Larry Csonka, Edwards picked up the dropped ball and ran 26 yards for the winning touchdown. It is considered miraculous because the Giants were ahead 17–12 and could easily have run out the final seconds, since they had the ball and the Eagles had no timeouts left.
The 1966 NFL season was the 47th regular season of the National Football League, and the first season in which the Super Bowl was played, though it was called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The league expanded to 15 teams with the addition of the Atlanta Falcons, making a bye necessary one week for each team.
Andrew Richard Robustelli was an American professional football player who was a defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) for the Los Angeles Rams and the New York Giants. He played college football at Arnold College and was selected in the nineteenth round of the 1951 NFL draft. Robustelli was a six-time first-team All-Pro selection and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971.
George Bernard Young was an American football player, coach, and executive. He served as the general manager of the New York Giants from 1979 to 1997. He was named NFL Executive of the Year five times.
Harold Moreland Herring was an American football player and coach. He played college football at Auburn University and professionally as a center and linebacker for the Buffalo Bills in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and the Cleveland Browns in the National Football League (NFL). He later was a defensive coach at Auburn and for the NFL's Atlanta Falcons and San Diego Chargers.
The Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA), sometimes known as Pro Football Writers Association, is an organization that purports to be "[the] official voice of pro football writers, promoting and fighting for access to NFL personnel to best serve the public." Goals of the organization include improving access to practices and locker rooms, developing working relationships with all teams, and ensuring that football writers are treated in a professional manner. By the mid-2000s, the group consisted of over 300 writers, editors, and columnists who cover pro football. The PFWA also issue several awards and honors following each NFL season.
Tom Moore is an American former professional football player who was a running back for eight seasons in the National Football League (NFL) for eight seasons, the first six with the Green Bay Packers. He played college football for the Vanderbilt Commodores. He went to the Pro Bowl after Green Bay's 1962 season and later played for the Los Angeles Rams and Atlanta Falcons.
Walter Robert Yowarsky was an American football defensive end, offensive lineman, coach, and scout in the National Football League (NFL) for 50 years.
Junior Lee Coffey was an American professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League (NFL) with the Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Falcons, and New York Giants.
The New York Giants, an American football team which plays in the National Football League (NFL), have had a long, and at times turbulent financial history. The Giants were founded in 1925 by businessman and bookmaker Tim Mara with an investment of 500 US$, and became one of the first teams in the then five-year-old NFL. Mara passed ownership of the team on to his sons Wellington and Jack after the 1929 Stock Market Crash to insulate the team from creditors. At first the Mara sons owned the team in name only, but they took increasingly larger roles in the organization beginning in the mid-1930s. Tim Mara remained involved in the team's operations until his death in 1959, when his sons assumed full control of the club. After Jack's passing in 1965, his son, Tim, took over his share of the team.
The 1966 NFL expansion draft was a National Football League (NFL) draft in which a new expansion team, named the Atlanta Falcons, selected its first players. On June 30, 1965, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle awarded the first NFL franchise in the Deep South to the city of Atlanta and granted ownership to Rankin Smith Sr.
The commissioner of the National Football League is the chief executive officer of the National Football League (NFL). The position was created in 1941. The current commissioner is Roger Goodell, who assumed office on September 1, 2006.
Timothy J. Mara was an American businessman and part owner of the New York Giants football team. He, along with his mother Helen and sister Maura Concannon, owned a 50% stake in the team from 1965 until 1991. However, Tim Mara was much more involved with the team than his mother or his sister were.
The Mara family is an Irish-American family primarily known for owning the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL) since the franchise was formed in 1925. The Maras owned the team outright until 1991, when a feud led to one side of the family selling their half interest to Preston Robert Tisch.