1940
The fifth NFL Draft was held Dec. 9, 1939, at the Schroeder Hotel, now the Hilton City Center, in downtown Milwaukee. The meeting was conducted in the Empire Ballroom, started at 2 p.m. and was over “within a few hours,” according to one newspaper account.
Again, a rule adopted by owners before the 1938 draft and slightly altered since was in effect. This was how it worked: After the first round, the five teams with the worst records were the only ones to participate in the second round. Then all 10 teams drafted again in the third round. In the fourth round, the five best teams were skipped again.
Starting in 1939, the draft was expanded to 20 rounds, and the five best teams were given two additional picks at the end of the last round to make up for the missed rounds. The same rules applied to the 1940 draft. Thus, in all, there were 200 players selected, or the equivalent of 10 per round.
Milwaukee was host to the draft because State Fair Park was going to be the site of the NFL Championship Game, to be played the next day between the host Green Bay Packers and New York Giants.
The list of those in attendance read like a Who’s Who of early NFL legends.
Twelve of the participants would be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. They included Bert Bell, owner and coach of the Philadelphia Eagles; Charles Bidwill, owner, and Ernie Nevers, coach, of the Chicago Cardinals; George Halas, owner and coach of the Chicago Bears; Tim Mara, founder, and Wellington Mara, secretary, of the Giants; George Preston Marshall, president, and Ray Flaherty, coach, of Washington; Art Rooney, owner, and Walt Kiesling, coach, of the Pittsburgh Steelers; Dutch Clark, coach of the Cleveland Rams; and Curly Lambeau, coach of the Packers.
Carl Storck presided over the meeting. Joe Carr, who had served as league president since 1921, had died on May 20, 1939. Storck was named acting president five days later.
The minutes of the meeting stated that Storck submitted the names of players listed on the blackboard, and that the teams unanimously agreed, “Only players who are on the list shall be picked.” Following that vote, teams were then allowed to add names to the list and asked to specify if there were any players on the list who were juniors and ineligible for the draft so their names could be removed.
Joe Sullivan, then a high school freshman living in Milwaukee who later became director of operations of the St. Louis Cardinals, on the glitzy Empire Ballroom (Christl interview, April 2002): “I had seen the room. They only used part of it. It was on the mezzanine above the lobby. There was a bandstand and that’s where the league office people were. And there was a dance floor and that’s where the tables were set up for each of the teams.”
Sullivan, on visiting the Schroeder the night before the draft with his brother, Jack: (Christl interview, April 2002): “We thought we might be able to talk somebody into getting us in on Saturday. All of them stayed at the hotel. We were too young to go to the bar, but we’d catch them when they’d come out. We were like the mingle-type people. But there weren’t many others around. There weren’t many people interested in it. And there was no publicity about it.”
When the draft ended, club officials and sportswriters feasted on tenderloin steaks at a dinner hosted by the Packers. Afterward, most of the group headed to the Schlitz Brown Bottle, located on W. Galena Street, a little more than a mile north of the hotel, for beers and snacks. The party started at 9 p.m. and was an all-the-beer-you-can-drink and all-the-lunch-you-can-eat affair put on by the brewery.
Stoney McGlynn, Milwaukee Sentinel sportswriter and former college football player, on the dinner (Milwaukee Sentinel, Dec. 10, 1939): “The press was invited and enjoyed the extra touch, especially after an afternoon of conversation – and refreshments – in an adjoining room. The Packers really put the pre-game festivities on in big-league style and actually opened the eyes of some of the visitors.”
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