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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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."
The Nelson Ross Award is presented annually by the PFRA for "outstanding achievement in pro football research and historiography."
Past winners are:
2022 – Lee Elder, Coach George Allen: A Football Life
2021 – Jeffrey J. Miller and Greg Tranter, Relics: The History of the Buffalo Bills in Objects and Memorabilia
2020 – Richard Bak, for his book When Lions Were Kings: The Detroit Lions and the Fabulous Fifties
2019 – Chris Serb, for his book War Football: World War I and the Birth of the NFL
2018 – Doug Farrar, for his book The Genius of Desperation: The Schematic Innovations that Made the Modern NFL
2017 – Ralph Hickok, for his book, Vagabond Halfback: The Saga of Johnny Blood McNally
2016 – James C. Sulecki, for his book, The Cleveland Rams: The NFL Champs Who Left Too Soon, 1936-1945
2015 – Ted Kluck, for his book Three-Week Professionals: Inside the 1987 NFL Players’ Strike
2014 – William J. Ryczek, for his book, Connecticut Gridiron: Football Minor Leaguers of the 1960s and 1970s
2013 – Ivan Urena, for his book, Pro Football Schedules: A Complete Historical Guide 1933 to the Present
2012 – Dan Daly, for his book, The National Forgotten League
2011 – Mark Speck, for his book, ...and a Dollar Short: The Empty Promises, Broken Dreams and Somewhat-Less-Than-Comic Misadventures of the 1974 Florida Blazers
