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On Any Given Sunday: A Life of Bert Bell ReviewAs one moves through On Any Given Sunday, A life of Bert Bell, it becomes clear that author Robert S. Lyons was holding back in certain areas to the extent it seems that he was "protecting" the story of a colorful, wonderful individual whose live needed no cover. It's not that Lyons did not get interesting stories. It is obvious that Bell's sons, Bert Jr and Upton did their best to convey their feelings about a father they loved. But Bell's live at home in no way covers the nuances of his professional career. It can't. It's the nature of families that children protect their parents - as they should - and they cannot know all a reader should want and get.The big problem all who ever covered or knew Bell was his lack of a filing system, any system to run a business as the NFL. It is fair to say that Bert Bell acted as a transitory figure from the league's origins to the ultra-slick machine that his successor Pete Rozelle developed from the time he took office at age 33 in 1960. Bell never was the league strongman during his time as the unsuccessful owner of money-starved Philadelphia Eagles franchise, nor even as the commissioner that led the league into the television age. That man, of course, was Chicago Bears founder, owner-coach, and league founder George Halas who carried the league on his back for the first 40 years of its existence. Bert Bell understood that and he understood that all major decisions must be cleared through Halas. That Halas, a Godfather-like figure, operated for the good of the league, not just the welfare of his Bears, is the single salient point Lyons missed.
In his narrative Lyons missed the obvious connection in the television era - Bert Bell's long, close, and loyal friendship with W. Wallace Orr whose TEL RA Productions gave the league its first national exposure in a weekly highlights program to the nascent telvision audience. As long as Bell lived, Orr and Tel Ram thrived in a relationship with the NFL that Rozelle would end when he turnede over league business in 1962 to his own "guy" Ed Sabol and his Blair Motion Pictures that became NFL Films. That was a hard and real fact of Bell's life as his struggle to stay alive in a losing battle with heart disease that ended his life at a football game in 1959. It deserved exposure, explanation, and a the biographer's interpretation that Lyons did not provide.
Let there be no doubt that Bert Bell was a great and wonderful man, but Bob Lyons did not convey it to the detriment of his book.On Any Given Sunday: A Life of Bert Bell OverviewBert Bell, a native of Philadelphia, has been called the most powerful executive figure in the history of professional football. He was responsible for helping to transform the game from a circus sideshow into what has become the most popular spectator sport in America. In "On Any Given Sunday", the first biography of this important sports figure, historian Robert Lyons recounts the remarkable story of how de Benneville 'Bert' Bell rejected the gentility of a high society lifestyle in favor of the tougher gridiron and rose to become the founder of the Philadelphia Eagles and Commissioner of the National Football League. Bell, who arguably saved the league from bankruptcy by conceiving the idea for the annual player draft, later made the historic decision to introduce 'Sudden Death' overtime o a move that propelled professional football into the national consciousness. He coined the phrase 'On Any Given Sunday' and negotiated the league's first national TV contract. Lyons also describes in fascinating detail Bell's relationships with leading figures ranging from such Philadelphia icons as Walter Annenberg and John B. Kelly to national celebrities and U.S. Presidents.He also provides insight into Bell's colorful personal life o including his hell-raising early years and his secret marriage to Frances Upton, a golden name in show business. On Any Given Sunday is being published on the 50th anniversary of Bell's death. For more than 35 years, Robert S. Lyons has covered professional and college sports for the Associated Press and has contributed articles to numerous national publications. He is the author of "Palestra Pandemonium: A History of the Big Five", and co-author (with Ray Didinger) of "The Eagles Encyclopedia" (both Temple). He is the former director of the La Salle University News Bureau, editor of the university's alumni magazine, and an instructor in the school's Communications Department.
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