Case of the Forgotten NFL Team

By: Larry Merchant

achievements of its owner and should be honestly
presented to the public.
     "Inasmuch as it represents the National Football
League championship to Pottsville, the Queen City of
the Anthracite, that's how it should be represented."
     Zacko was one of the originators of the Maroons
as well as official outfitter.  The team folded in 1929.
"Money has always been tough here," he said.  "We
could have been the Green Bay of the east."
     Since then Zacko has been a one-man crusade.
Until McCann came along in 1960, though, nobody
was listening.  Not even the hard-coal people.
                        Costly Obsession
     "Over the years I've been called nuts, a liar,
fabricator, you name it," Zacko said.  "There are
people in Pottsville who actually thought I made up
the whole story.  They didn't believe we had a team."
     Zacko said he didn't know how much money
his obsession has cost him.  Last year he organized
the Maroons' first reunion.  He's had 1,000 pictures
of the team printed and distributed.  "Every nickel
that's been spent has been mine," he said, I won't
tell you how much.  Just call it civic pride."
     Berry, from Phillipsburg, N.J., had some vivid
recollections of his two-year Pottsville career.  He said
linemen got about $100 a game and backs $150 to
$200, but he got more and led the league in scoring
(108 points) as an end and kicker to earn it.
                  "Unstoppable" Screen Pass
    "Two things stand out in mind," he said.  "The
first was our screen pass, which would be illegal
today because we used to send all the linemen down-
field to block.  We worked it 17 straight times against
Providence in one game.  It was unstoppable."
     Either that or Providence was the Eagles of its
day.
     "The other thing is a game we lost to the Bears,"
Berry said.  "All teams used to call signals on the
line of scrimmage by coded numbers in those days.
But the Bears huddled during a time out and when
play was resumed they came to the line of scrim-
mage and shot right out.  We weren't ready; we were
just lolling around.  So Paddy Dricsoll ran for a
touchdown.  As captain, I protested because I thought
it was illegal, but I was overruled."
     That's one protest Pottsville won't ever win.

    Don't tell Joe Zacko that Lil Reis called the
signals for the Pottsville Heist.  And don't tell Charlie
Berry that Ralph Staino carried the ball either.
     The villain was Joe Carr, president of the infant
National Football League in the 20's.  Carr didn't get
away with $400,00 or $40.  He took something from
Pottsville in 1925 that money can't buy- an NFL
championship.  Pottsville wants it back.
     There being no statute of limitations on righting
historical wrongs, there's an excellent chance that
Pottsville's claim will indeed be upheld.  An NFL
committee has been formed to reasearch the matter.
Right now the league could use a little good publicity.
     Back in the dawn of pro football, there were
other teams in such metropolises as Frankford, PA.,
Hammond, Ind., New York, Akron, Rock Island,
Green Bay, Providence, Canton, Cleveland, Kansas
City, Buffalo, Duluth, Rochester, Milwaukee, Dayton,
Columbus and Chicago.  Pottsville beat the Cardinals,
21-7, for the championship, but Carr forfeited it to
the losers several weeks later.
     "The way I remember it," said Charlie Berry,
the old Lafayette All-American, Athletic's catcher
and American League umpire, "is that Carr gave us
permission to play an all-star team from Notre Dame
at Shibe Park.  Notre Dame had the Four Horsemen
and the Seven Mules, and it was supposed to settle
the World Championship.  But about a week before the
game the Frankford Yellowjackets complained
that we were violating their territorial rights and
Carr ordered us not to play.  By that time it was too
late to call it off, so we went ahead with it."
     The Maroons won 9-7, on Berry's 30-yard field
goal in the last minute before a howling mob of
6,000.  It was a fortuitous boot because without it
there would be no gold shoe and Joe Zacko's neigh-
bors would still think he's balmy.
     Berry gave his cleats to Zacko, who had the
right one embossed and put on display in his sporting
good shop.  It has been there for 37 years but Zacko
won't be happy until its gone.
     "I want to see it in the Hall of Fame in Canton,"
he said, long distance.  "Dick McCann, the director,
asked me for it, and that's how we're getting all these
stories.  I told him he could have it if we got our
championship back.  I believe that any inanimate
object in the Hall of Fame should represent the

Philadelphia Daily News- February 1, 1963