College, pro football — down through the years…

There’s one thing about sports history — it proves that our ancestors were as nuts as we are, and in some cases, they were even crazier.

Take college football in the year 1905. Nineteen fatalities nationwide.

President Teddy Roosevelt threatened to shut down collegiate football if something wasn’t done to stop the bloodshed.

One of the biggest reasons for the carnage was the fact that the forward pass wasn’t legal, and so a team’s offense would resort to mass-formation, running plays such as the flying wedge, in which the offensive players would lock arms and “fly” as a unit against an equally assembled defense, while thin leather helmets failed at offering much protection against neurological damage.

Due to the high number of fatalities, 62 universities met in New York City in late 1905 and formed the NCAA. The new rules prohibited mass-formation plays and players linking arms to move the ball forward.

Nine years later, to show how much the game had advanced, the first roughing-the-passer penalty was called.

Over on the professional side, rich men were forming teams, and in 1920, the American Professional Football Conference was formed, which segued into the NFL two years later.

It took professional football approximately 25 years, however, until right after WWII, for it to catch on with fans nationwide, who still thought, and some still do, that college football is the ultimate in fan experience.

The professional players are obviously richer today than ever before; but you have to wonder, are they having as much fun as the earlier NFL players, all of whom had to work off-season jobs just to make ends meet? In addition, here’s another question to ponder: are the players of today as tough as the old guys?

They’re obviously richer. When Joe Namath signed with the NY Jets in 1965 and got a signing bonus worth $400,000, that was big news. Today, that’s chump change.

All of which makes me long for the old days. For me, all this cash hasn’t done well by the sport. There are more prima donnas than ever in the game. More trash talking. More players in trouble with the law. Owners flush with cash, but short on class.

Bronko the Bull

One of my all-time players from the old days was Fullback Bronko Nagurski. Real name, Bronislau.

For a fullback, can you have any better nickname than that -- Bronko?

I think not.

He played for the University of Minnesota and later with the Chicago Bears from 1930 to 1937.

There’s a story about how Bronko — 6’, 2” and 235 pounds — got his full-ride scholarship to Minnesota.

It just so happened that the head coach got lost and stopped by the Nagurski farm to ask for directions. At the time, Bronko was plowing a field without a horse, and when the coach asked how to get to his destination town, the future fullback raised the plow in one hand and used it to point out the direction. The coach signed him on the spot.

I know, hard story to swallow, but it makes for a great sports anecdote.

Small for a professional fullback today, Nagurski was one of the biggest running backs in his day.

To make financial ends meet, Nagurski worked in the off-season as a professional wrestler, winning three world heavyweight championships.

Are football players today as tough as they were in Nagurski’s days? You be the judge.

In 1928, against the University of Wisconsin Badgers, playing on both the offense and defense, Bronko bundled up in a corset to protect a cracked vertebrae, recovered a fumble on defense, and then switched to offense where he ran six straight times to score the go-ahead TD. To top it off, later in the game, he intercepted a pass to secure the win.

Maybe today’s football players — college and pro — a lot of them anyway, are as tough as those guys like Nagurski were on the old days. Hard to say; but one thing’s for sure — those old guys sure were tough as nails.

Bronko Nagurski, by the way, lived out his days hunting and fishing in cold Minnesota, where he died at the age of 81 in 1990.

RIP, big guy.