Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

JohnTurney wrote:Parker and Coryell would have been great in that role. But, it's their HOF and the NFL donates a lot of money to it, and the owners do, too. and then they get on the board
and then they get elected. (DeBartolo, Jones, Bowlen)

Even when owners aren't, they find a way to attach their name to it, i.e. Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.

Seeing a lot of Flores supporter voicing their views on him not being one of the two. Even
veiled (and no so much) accusations of racial bias.

It's not new, see it every year, but seems more bitter this time, like he was a lock or something

JohnTurney wrote:Seeing a lot of Flores supporter voicing their views on him not being one of the two. Even
veiled (and no so much) accusations of racial bias.

It's not new, see it every year, but seems more bitter this time, like he was a lock or something

That’s not surprising to me at all. Not every Raider fan is this way, but there seems to be no shortage of them who think every Raider snub is a crime against humanity or something. Fact is, the team has done very well on representation in the HoF. And the racism card gets played sometimes regarding Jim Plunkett, who despite winning two titles might be the worst QB who ever had an extended career in the NFL and has no business in the HoF. And Plunkett isn’t the only ridiculous name brought up as a Raider HoF snub, as Jack Tatum and Dave Dalby demonstrate. There are unfortunate Raider HoF snubs to varying degrees, of course: Dave Grayson, Cliff Branch, Lester Hayes, Todd Christensen, maybe Art Powell if you consider him a Raider. But not the rest.

Besides, of the coaching finalists, Flores might have the weakest argument. Like George Seifert, he inherited a good team and to his credit got good mileage out of it; he didn’t build a team from scratch like Johnson or Dungy, though. He crashed and burned when he moved on to another franchise. He has two titles, but so do Parker and Seifert and Johnson, and he didn’t do that well in the playoffs besides those two years. The claim to innovation he has is being the first Latino to win a title, which is fine except that Dungy (for example) has other such possible claims as well. He was a middling level player at best, and while he was an assistant coach, I’m not aware that he was special at it. Most glaringly, his career is short and his W-L record in the regular season is not very good, IIRC the worst of all the finalists this time.

I see him as being on the wrong end of every argument here.

Poster Brian Wolf put this up over at the Zoneblitz site regarding Buddy Parker, and it may well explain why he hasn't been enshrined:

"Lot of speculation about Parker.

He was a great coach, but also a mean drunk who would challenge or even attack players after bad losses. He was also considered racist and didnt want black players on his team.

Another problem is he hated ownership and never wanted them mixing with players, which is why he left Detroit. The owners then, may not have wanted him to enter the Hall.

He deserves to be in, despite his problems or perceptions."

I had no idea this was the case, and I have no reason to doubt it's true. Given this, I think he's still deserving of enshrinement, but I'm less enthusiastic about it (then again, there is no Character Clause for the PFHoF, correct?).

Anybody corroborate?

bachslunch wrote:Poster Brian Wolf put this up over at the Zoneblitz site regarding Buddy Parker, and it may well explain why he hasn't been enshrined:

"Lot of speculation about Parker.

He was a great coach, but also a mean drunk who would challenge or even attack players after bad losses. He was also considered racist and didnt want black players on his team.

Another problem is he hated ownership and never wanted them mixing with players, which is why he left Detroit. The owners then, may not have wanted him to enter the Hall.

He deserves to be in, despite his problems or perceptions."

I had no idea this was the case, and I have no reason to doubt it's true. Given this, I think he's still deserving of enshrinement, but I'm less enthusiastic about it (then again, there is no Character Clause for the PFHoF, correct?).

Anybody corroborate?

Yeah, those are some issues with Parker. If I am not mistaken there were no blacks on his two championship Lions teams. There was one (John Henry Johnson) on the '57 team of which he had left prior to the start of the season.

bachslunch wrote:Poster Brian Wolf put this up over at the Zoneblitz site regarding Buddy Parker, and it may well explain why he hasn't been enshrined:

"Lot of speculation about Parker.

He was a great coach, but also a mean drunk who would challenge or even attack players after bad losses. He was also considered racist and didnt want black players on his team.

Another problem is he hated ownership and never wanted them mixing with players, which is why he left Detroit. The owners then, may not have wanted him to enter the Hall.

He deserves to be in, despite his problems or perceptions."

I had no idea this was the case, and I have no reason to doubt it's true. Given this, I think he's still deserving of enshrinement, but I'm less enthusiastic about it (then again, there is no Character Clause for the PFHoF, correct?).

Anybody corroborate?

I honestly don't know, though obviously racism was a huge thing and I guess this is suggesting his racism was worse than others. Again, don't know. It is interesting
if all that is true, though. Would explain a lot

Interestingly, while reading up on Abner Haynes I discovered that Buddy Parker and Bobby Layne paid a recruitment visit to the Haynes family home. Abner had been drafted by the Steelers and, like many during the NFL/AFL wars had to choose between playing in the NFL or the AFL.

The story goes that Abner's father, a man of the cloth, advised his son to play for the Dallas Texans as Layne and Parker showed up to the family gathering "after having had a few cocktails."

If Parker didn't want a black player then why did he make the trip to Texas to recruit Haynes?
Then again, he didn't seem to care enough to show up sober...

I can believe the bit about problematic relations with owners (although the Rooneys didn't seem to have that problem with him). But that was a (more-or-less) common attitude among coaches in those days. It doesn't seem to have kept Lombardi or Paul Brown out of the HoF...

The fact that Parker TWICE (57, 65) walked away from teams during the preseason probably is considered a mark against him.

BD Sullivan wrote:The fact that Parker TWICE (57, 65) walked away from teams during the preseason probably is considered a mark against him.

What should matter is that he won championships with Detroit and made previously hopeless Pittsburgh a contender.

JohnTurney wrote:

bachslunch wrote:Poster Brian Wolf put this up over at the Zoneblitz site regarding Buddy Parker, and it may well explain why he hasn't been enshrined:

"Lot of speculation about Parker.

He was a great coach, but also a mean drunk who would challenge or even attack players after bad losses. He was also considered racist and didnt want black players on his team.

Another problem is he hated ownership and never wanted them mixing with players, which is why he left Detroit. The owners then, may not have wanted him to enter the Hall.

He deserves to be in, despite his problems or perceptions."

I had no idea this was the case, and I have no reason to doubt it's true. Given this, I think he's still deserving of enshrinement, but I'm less enthusiastic about it (then again, there is no Character Clause for the PFHoF, correct?).

Anybody corroborate?

I honestly don't know, though obviously racism was a huge thing and I guess this is suggesting his racism was worse than others. Again, don't know. It is interesting
if all that is true, though. Would explain a lot

While I don't know for sure, it does explain something. In 1948 or 49, Detroit had as many black players as any team in the league, three. They then went backwards in terms of integration. Parker became the coach in 1951. His Lions were the last all white NFL champs