Hugh L. Ray, the NFL's Mr. Einstein

"The NFL's Mr. Einstein" is a ground-breaking history of American football centered on Hugh Ray, the man who created the modern game. Ray is the NFL's best-kept secret, and arguably the greatest rules genius in football history. He reinvented and re-imagined a sport battered by unsafe and confusing rules.

The story begins with football's first three fatality crises and President Theodore Roosevelt's well-known attempt to make the game safer in 1905-06. But it was Ray, not Roosevelt, who saved American football. He began by making innovative rules suggestions to the NCAA. Because of this success, the High School Federation hired Ray in 1929 to write a new set of rules for its game. At that time, the high schools were having trouble obtaining group injury insurance because of the high fracture rates suffered playing under the dangerous NCAA rules.

Around this time, George Halas, the legendary owner and coach of the Chicago Bears asked Ray to do the same for the violent, sluggish NFL game. From 1933-52 Ray rewrote the NFL rules, stressing speed, safety and excitement. In 1938 Ray was officially appointed the NFL's first Technical Advisor on the Rules, and Supervisor of Officials. He wrote rules that created the modern passing game. He also invented hashmarks that opened up the field, the 30 second rule, penalty flags, the two minute warning, free substitution, and so many other hallmarks of today's game. His rules reduced serious injuries by over 70% at the high school level, and tripled scoring in the NFL.

Ray retired from the NFL in 1952, and died in 1956. He was posthumously inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1966. But since then, some of his closest former associates and their organizations have ravaged his legacy in the name of greed, copyright issues, and some very large egos. Hugh Ray was my grandfather. The latter part of this book recounts my attempts to re-establish his proper place in football history. I encountered widespread deception at every level of the football establishment. I confronted their historical revisionism and duplicity head-on. In doing so, I aroused the anger of the NFL, which brought down its wrath on my long-dead grandfather.

For a decade after Ray's death, NFL and the Hall of Fame both acknowledged him as the author of the modern rules and the NFL Rules Book. But beginning in 1966, both organizations began deleting all references to Ray's rules work and his role as author of the rules that made the game so successful. I have repeatedly pointed out this revisionist history to both organizations, but both have refused to give Ray the credit he justly deserves.

I wrote this book to set the record straight. In doing so, I dispel some widely held notions and myths about football. I also shed some much-needed light on this unknown sports hero. This is a book for anyone who loves football and wants to learn more about its rules evolution and history. If you want to improve your football IQ or your fantasy team, read this book