Professional Football Researchers Association

Last updated
Professional Football
Researchers Association
Formation1979;45 years ago (1979)
Type Nonprofit
Location
Region served
U.S.
Services American football research
Executive Director
Lee Elder
President
George Bozeka
Website profootballresearchers.org

The Professional Football Researchers Association (PFRA) is an organization of researchers whose mission is to preserve and, in some cases, reconstruct professional American football history. It was founded on June 22, 1979 in Canton, Ohio by writer/historian Bob Carroll and six other football researchers and is currently headed by an executive committee led by its president, George Bozeka, and executive director Leon Elder. Membership in the organization includes some of professional football's foremost historians and authors. The organization is based in Guilford, New York.

Contents

The PFRA publishes books and a bimonthly magazine, The Coffin Corner, devoted to topics in professional football history. The organization also gives out awards each year for outstanding achievement in the field of football research. [1]

The Coffin Corner

The Coffin Corner is a semimonthly magazine devoted to topics in professional football history. PFRA members publish their research findings in the articles, regardless of prior writing experience. In the case of newer authors and first-time contributors, the magazine's editors assist, anonymously, in helping develop the narratives for publication. The $35.00 annual membership in the organization includes a subscription to six issues of The Coffin Corner, as well as access to the "Members Only" section of their website, which contains detailed research on a variety of pro football subjects.

PFRA Books

In cooperation with McFarland & Company, the PFRA is now working on the third installment in its "Great Teams in Pro Football History" series, edited by George Bozeka. Individual members of the association volunteer to author the different chapters, profiling in detail the players, the coaching staff, the preseason, regular season and postseason, and other elements of a team's season. The 1966 Green Bay Packers: Profiles of Vince Lombardi's Super Bowl I Champions was released in 2016, and The 1958 Baltimore Colts: Profiles of the NFL's First Sudden Death Champions followed in 2018. Writing is underway for the chapters of a book about the 1951 Los Angeles Rams season, was released in 2022. The fourth book, about the 1964 Buffalo Bills season, will follow in 2024.

Committees and Research Projects

The PFRA maintains ongoing database projects, with committees of members who update the record as information develops, or as it is discovered in the course of research. Select committees may be disbanded as their work is completed.

All-America Football Conference
(chair: Ken Crippen)
Hall of Very Good Committee
The Hall of Very Good highlights outstanding players not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. (chair: Andy Piascik)
Biography Committee
Responsible for writing biographies of every NFL player. (chairs: Greg Tranter, Jeffrey J. Miller, George Bozeka)
Education Committee
Collects and develops educational problems involving football for use in schools. (chair: Neal Golden)
Linescore Committee
Responsible for compiling linescores for all professional games played since 1920. (chair: Gary Selby)
Gamebooks Committee
The goal of the PFRA Gamebooks Committee is to collect gamebooks and play-by-play accounts for all of the games in NFL history. These can be a valuable tool for researchers, but acquiring them can be an arduous task. The goal is to share the collective efforts of a number of researchers and pool the results in one location, hopefully to foster future research. (chairs: Giovanni Malaty and Rupert Patrick)
Membership Committee
For the PFRA's internal purposes.
Pre-NFL Pro Football Committee
Researches all professional football prior to 1920, such as the Ohio League, Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit, the Chicago and Philadelphia circuits, and the New York Pro Football League. (chair: Roy Sye)
Uniforms
Compiles all information on NFL, AFL and AAFC uniforms from 1933 to the present. (chair: Tim Brulia)
Oral History
Chronicles PFRA interviews with former NFL players. (chair: Ken Crippen)
NFL Officials
Compiles a list of all NFL officials, their positions and their uniform numbers. (chair: Gary Najman-Vainer)

Hall of Very Good

The "Hall of Very Good" is a project done to highlight the best players, coaches and contributors not yet inducted into the Hall of Fame. The * indicates that person was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame afterwards.

Ralph Hay Award

The Ralph Hay Award, named after the Canton Bulldogs owner whose Hupmobile Automobile showroom was the site of the NFL's first organizational meeting, is awarded for "lifetime achievement in pro football research and historiography."

Past winners have been:

Nelson Ross Award

The Nelson Ross Award is presented annually by the PFRA for "outstanding achievement in pro football research and historiography."

Past winners are:

See also

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