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The Beginning Of Professional Football
(Pro Football Hall Of Fame)
Licensed by the National Football League, this painting celebrates the early beginnings of professional football. |
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT ! |
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| The painting features three
children playing backyard football as the original Canton Bulldogs look
on from years past. Behind the children, blended into a cloudy Ohio sky
with the dome of the Hall of Fame building, Jim Thorpe watches closely
- one of the children is his son. |
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| Jim Thorpe, the first big
name American athlete to play professional football, signed with the Canton
Bulldogs in 1915. The Thorpe-led Bulldogs not only attracted large crowds
but also won unofficial "World" Championships in 1916, 1917
and 1919. Jim Thorpe was also the first president of the NFL, then known
as the American Football Association, and won gold medals in the 1912
Olympics for decathlon and pentathlon. |
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| While the Japanese generals
were celebrating the successful attack at Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto understood
the great resources and might of the United States after studying military
strategies at both the Naval War College and Harvard University. The title
and quote reads as follows: |
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"The Beginning Of Professional Football" |
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| "If you can fill the unforgiving
minute |
| With sixty seconds' worth of
distance run - |
| Yours is the Earth and everything
that's in it, |
| And -- which is more -- you'll
be a Man, my son!" |
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- Rudyard Kipling, 1911 |
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