Within the next decade, the clubs would abandon the pretense of playing "just for funsies," and the game was professionalized -- but that didn't mean players could live from it. Jay Berwanger, the top pick in the first NFL draft in 1936, turned down $125-$150 per game and decided it would be more profitable to become a foam rubber salesman. Player turned coach John Heisman (of "Heisman Trophy" fame) made his living as a Shakespearean actor, and if anyone doubted that, all they had to do was listen to his pep talks. Instead of shouting, "Go git 'em, boys!" he'd pick up a football and ponder:Â
"What is this? It is a prolate spheroid, an elongated sphere in which the outer leather casing is drawn tightly over a somewhat smaller rubber tubing. Better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football."Â
Even by the 1960s, pro players still had to get jobs like math teacher, insurance salesman, or dairy farmer to make ends meet during the off-season. Today, players keep in shape during those months through intense conditioning programs; back in the '50s, Browns running back Maurice Bassett did it by walking five miles a day to deliver mail.Â
By now, the NFL starts looking after talent when they're in the Pee Wee leagues, and they can go their entire lives working no other job than "football player" (and maybe "Hollywood actor" or "guy famous for totally not killing his wife"). This only became possible after the '70s and '80s, when TV networks noticed people liked watching football at home and began showering players with money. It was also in the '70s that companies realized the half-hour break in the middle of the Super Bowl was the perfect opportunity to expose people to their best and/or dumbest ads. Â
Now, the first Super Bowl may not have had Snoop Dogg or Emimem, but it did have ...Â