Today in Sports History #1 - NFL Draft 1936
Steemians, today a new serial is taking off. I used to write on other platforms in the past about historical events. However there is already a great Steemian doing this so I take my love for Sports I am writing about since years as well and will post about historic events in Sports moving forward.
So, what happened on February 8 back in 1936? Who is Jay Berwanger? Any idea fellow steemians?
Well John Jacob "Jay" Berwanger was an American college football player, he was a good player, you will ask, so what? Valid question. Well our Jay was the first player drafted into the National Football League (NFL) which took place on February 8 back in 1936!
Strange that a German (former soccer player what we call Football in Europe) is writing his first sports post about American Football, isn't it? At least this date and the inaugural 1936 NFL Draft marks an important date for Sports in North America while it is not very common in Europe still.
The draft was instituted in an effort to equalize strength amongst the league's teams. The last place team from the previous season would get the first selection, and the process would continue in reverse order of the standings. So a very social approach to help "weaker" clubs.
Drafts are uncommon in Europe where clubs contract young players through transfers from smaller clubs or by their own youth systems. League parity is maintained via promotion and relegation, so in Europe this is a bit tougher for weaker clubs with lower financial power as they will be relegated down to a league with less money and prestige. Coming back as fast as possible is a key objective here unless they have some rich sponsors.
Coming back to the NFL draft in 1936 - unfortunately Jay Berwanger never played in the NFL as clubs and Jay did not come to agreement so finally Riley Smith, the second pick, was the first player drafted to play in the NFL.
Interesting? Watch out for more posts about Sports Events from the past.
Text sources from Wikipedia, Sports Illustrated and Kicker Sportmagazin
Photos from Alchetron and Pixabay (used as template)
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