Publisher's Synopsis
Football Pioneer is a book for the casual or hard core football fan. Fans follow their favorite team each year with little thought of what their favorite players went through to make it in the great world of Professional Football. How often do fans think about the work, scouts, general managers and player personal people have to go through each year to put the best product on the field? Football Pioneer will show the fan not only the inside workings of teams but the interesting business of the people who represent those players. I was fortunate enough to be part of both of those worlds. I was also fortunate to start in the business when not all players had agents. I witnessed all the many changes not only in the NFL itself but all the vast changes that the agent business went through over a thirty year period. PFA was born out of a simple idea to offer a service that gave the college player going into Professional Football an edge in regards to knowing what teams expected of him in regards to strength, speed, flexibility and agility. Our program also made the player aware of where he was in this process. Time was limited but our players had a much better understanding of the process before they were exposed to the world of Professional Football. The idea of player preparation before the NFL Combine took a long time to catch on but today multimillion dollar businesses have grown as a result of this preparation. Football Pioneer relates many player situations, negotiations, dealings with general managers, owners and the pressure an agent has to deal with when million-dollar contracts are at stake. The book covers the recruiting process. A great many agents followed a code of ethics, some had no ethics. Every story in life has good times and tragic times. Football Pioneer has all of those in this story. The story within the story deals with how a football fan became a scout and agent with not a great deal of qualifications. Ultimately working in the business for over thirty years. Football Pioneer tells the story of several years of frustration I went through before anyone gave me the chance I needed to start my career in Professional Football. Being a part time scout for the Denver Broncos was great training for me when the opportunity to start PFA became a reality. Hard work and dedication are necessary in any venture that is successful. My situation was no different. The question that needed to be answered, was anyone going to give me that opportunity to prove myself?
