The NFL was born 95 years ago today on a hot and muggy Friday night inside an automobile showroom in Canton, Ohio.
Chairs were scarce -- and there was just enough beer to go around -- when the representatives of 11 pro football teams gathered, some of them seated on cars, to create the American Professional Football Association on Sept. 17, 1920. Two years later, the name was changed to the National Football League.
Ralph E. Hay, an automobile dealer who had purchased the Canton Bulldogs in 1918 at the age of 27, didn't know what to expect when he invited the owners of 10 other teams to his showroom on the corner of Cleveland Avenue and Second Street. He just knew they all had to get under one roof and organize a league if professional football was going to survive.
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