David Rosenthal

Into this dynamic environment, in 1920, enters the American Professional Football Conference, soon in a few years to be renamed the National Football League.

And started on August 20th, 1920, when the heads of several of these barnstorming quasi-professional football teams meet at the Jordan and Hupmobile Auto Showroom in Canton, Ohio.

Now, the driving force behind this meeting being called is one George Hallis.

And he is currently in Decatur, Illinois, where he is an employee of the A.E.

Staley Starch Company.

And his main duty is to organize and coach and be the star player for the company football team.

It was the employees of the company who played for the team.

Now, Hallis sort of had a mandate to go out and recruit employees who happened to be good football players.

So these folks that come together at George Hallis' instigation, they have a goal.

They want to legitimize professional football in the eyes of Americans, and they develop a plan for doing so.

They think they can really separate the pro game from the college game, make it a legitimate thing, and they have three parts to the plan.

One, they are not going to sign any current college players.

There's going to be a strict, strict demarcation between the college game and the pro game.

They will not try and get any current college players to come play for a pro team, which would happen under assumed names.

You know, you could imagine these college kids, they want to make money.

So, point one, they're not going to raid the college game.

Point two, they're going to endeavor to play the game at a high ethical and rules-based standard.

Yep, standardize what the game is.

Yes.

And then number three, perhaps the most important, they're going to make Jim Thorpe the president of the league.