The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence. It was more successful than earlier rivals to the NFL with the same name, the 1926, 1936 and 1940 leagues, and the later All-America Football Conference.
The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be played in the autumn/winter, directly competing against the long-established National Football League (NFL). However, the USFL ceased operations before that season was scheduled to begin.
In sports, a three-peat is winning three consecutive championships or tournaments. The term, a portmanteau of the words three and repeat, originated with the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association, during their unsuccessful campaign for a third consecutive championship during the 1988–89 season, having won the previous 2 NBA finals.
The National Football League draft, also called the NFL draft or (officially) the Annual Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the most common source of player recruitment in the National Football League. Each team is given a position in the drafting order in reverse order relative to its record in the previous year, which means that the last place team is positioned first and the Super Bowl champion is last. From this position, the team can either select a player or trade its position to another team for other draft positions, a player or players, or any combination thereof. The round is complete when each team has either selected a player or traded its position in the draft. The first draft was held in 1936, and has been held every year since.
Curtis Realious McClinton Jr. is a former collegiate and professional American football player. His father, Curtis McClinton Sr., served in the Kansas Senate.
Jeffrey Aloysius Van Note is an American former professional football player who was a center for the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (NFL) during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He played college football for the Kentucky Wildcats. The Falcons selected him in the 11th round of the 1969 NFL draft.
Maxie Callaway Baughan Jr. was an American professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) for the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, and the Washington Redskins. Baughan played college football for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
Robert Harold Walston was an American professional football player who was a wide receiver and placekicker for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Georgia Bulldogs and was selected in the 14th round of the 1951 NFL Draft. From 1966 to 1967, he coached receivers and kickers for the Miami Dolphins.
During the first seven years of existence (1960–1966) of the American Football League, the AFL and the NFL held separate, competing drafts for college football talent.
Jack Maylon Simpson was an American collegiate and Professional Football linebacker He played at the University of Mississippi and professionally in the American Football League for the Denver Broncos and the Oakland Raiders. He was drafted in 1958 by the NFL Washington Redskins, but did not play. He signed as a free agent with the AFL's Broncos in 1961. He was the defensive coordinator of the Houston Oilers in 1972
Donald Clement Klosterman was a professional football executive. Regarded as one of the most accomplished in the sports’s history, he is known for building teams in three different leagues after his career as a professional quarterback was cut short by a serious accident that left his legs partially paralyzed. In the 1960s, Klosterman helped the American Football League overtake the National Football League (NFL) during the bidding wars that led the older league to seek a merger with the AFL. In the 1970s, he was a successful general manager for the NFL's Baltimore Colts and Los Angeles Rams, and in the 1980s he signed All-American quarterback Steve Young to a record contract for the Los Angeles Express in the United States Football League (USFL).
The United States Football League had two types of drafts as their main sources for player recruitment: the collegiate draft and the territorial draft. The collegiate draft resembled its NFL counterpart, in which teams were given a position in the drafting order, based on their win and loss record for the previous year.
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers have competed in the National Football League (NFL) since 1921, two years after their original founding by Curly Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) and play their home games at Lambeau Field in central Wisconsin. In 1936, the Packers took part in the first NFL draft of college football players and have participated in every NFL draft since. With the seventh pick of the first round of the 1936 draft, Russ Letlow, a guard out of the University of San Francisco, became the Packers' first draft selection.
Jack Vainisi was an American scout and personnel director for the Green Bay Packers from 1950 to 1960. At the age of 23, he was hired by Packers head coach Gene Ronzani to lead the team's player personnel department. In a time when most professional football teams relied on the media for information on college players, Vainisi enlisted college coaches to provide scouting reports on not only their own players, but also opposition players. During his time in charge of player personnel, the Packers drafted or acquired eight future Pro Football Hall of Fame players. Vainisi also was instrumental in attracting Vince Lombardi to the vacant head coaching job in Green Bay in 1959. Vainisi did not live to see the success of the teams he helped assemble though, as he died from a heart attack in 1960 at the age of 33.