Six years ago, Your Loyal Blogger phoned
home from a meeting of the Professional Football Researchers Association and
said, “I have big news. It turns out I’m ignorant.”
Mrs. Leeway said, “Sure, but what’s
the big news?”
As long as the family can remember,
yours truly has made a study of the history of the professional game. I love
it all and had a very balanced plan: The off-season was time for the study of
the history of the game, the season was the time for watching the games. It
made sense to me.
But when my first PFRA meeting opened
in 2010 and everyone introduced themselves, I discovered that I was in a room
full of people who knew more about the history of pro football than I did. It
was the first time since I was a small boy that this happened. I tried to rectify
that situation by looking for people on the street who knew less about the game
than me and suggesting that they join the PFRA immediately but, alas, that ploy
failed. After all, we were in Canton, Ohio, home of the Pro Football Hall of
Fame.
Well,
it’s time to learn again. The Professional Football Researchers Association
holds a general meeting every other year and the 2016 meeting is at Lambeau
Field in Green Bay, Wisc. The meeting is scheduled for July 8-10.
The venue offers PFRA members and
other attendees the opportunity to find out what the PFRA is all about and tour
what is probably the most storied NFL stadium still standing.
You gotta love the list of speakers
scheduled for us at Lambeau: The headliners are Zeke Bratkowski, the former
Rams quarterback who backed up Bart Starr so well with the Packers during the
glory years of Vince Lombardi’s reign, and Bob Long, a wide receiver during that
same era.
Since we’ll be in Green Bay and it
will be near the start of the 50th anniversary of the 1966 Packers
championship season, we’ll also hear from Packers historian Cliff Christl,
Chuck Lane, the Packers PR man in 1966 and Bud Lea, a newspaperman who covered
the team from 1954 through 1995.
Several PFRA members will make
presentations as well. Matt Foss will talk about the photography of former
Packers photog Vernon Biever and John Maxymuk will discuss the building of the
1966 title team. I am especially interested to hear Rick Schabowski talk about
the Milwaukee Badgers and other Wisconsin teams in the early years of the NFL.
Massimo Foglio will talk about his
recently-published book, Touchdown Europe.
For Your Loyal Blogger, the best part
of the meetings is spending time with so many like-minded fans of football
history, real experts.
The 2016 meeting costs $50 for members
to attend and $100 for non-members (sneaky hint: Join for $35 and pay the $50,
saving $15). There is a hotel in Green Bay that is offering a special rate for
PFRA attendees and there is a shuttle each day from the hotel to the stadium.
The PFRA is publishing a book this
year about the 1966 Packers team that won the first Super Bowl. The book will
be available for purchase at the meeting.
You can read more about the PFRA at www.profootballresearchers.com.
Hope to see you in Green Bay.
Thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment