Connecticut Gridiron: Football Minor Leaguers of the 1960s and 1970s

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This narrative history of minor league football teams in Connecticut during the 60s and 70s is based on extensive newspaper and periodical research and interviews with nearly 70 former players, broadcasters and journalists. Only a few players - such as Marv Hubbard, Lou Piccone and Bob Tucker - emerged from the minors and made it to the NFL, but many more played for as little as $25 per game in their quest to make it big, or just to have fun playing the game they loved. Wealthy men like Pete Savin and Frank D'Addario got to live their dreams by owning teams in Hartford and Bridgeport.

In the days before cable television saturated the media with live sports, small town fans turned out to support their local heroes, often men who worked on construction crews during the week, and stopped by the diner Sunday morning to talk football. Now in their 60s, 70s and 80s, these men share their stories of a simpler era; the good times, like the Hartford Knights’ 1968 ACFL championship season, and the long bus rides and missed paydays that were as much a part of minor league ball as first downs and interceptions.