Bibliography of Books About American Football 1891-2015 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781530857616)

Ralph Hickok grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where his father was news editor of the Press-Gazette and official scorer for the Green Bay Packers from 1947 to 1966. During his childhood and early teens, Ralph worked in the pressbox with his father at home games, helping to compile game statistics and play-by-play summaries. After majoring in English at Harvard, he resumed a newspaper career that had begun with summer stints as a reporter during high school and college years. He was a general assignment reporter and feature writer for the Gloucester (MA) Daily Times, sports editor and columnist for the Celina (OH) Daily Standard, and Sunday magazine editor for the New Bedford, MA, Standard-Times. He then became chief copywriter for the largest Massachusetts advertising agency south of Boston. Along the way, he also became a respected sports historian. His previously published books are "Who Was Who in American Sports" (Hawthorn, 1971); "New Encyclopedia of Sports" (McGraw-Hill, 1977); "A Who's Who of Sports Champions" (Houghton Mifflin, 1995); "The Pro Football Fan's Companion" (Macmillan, 1995); and "The Encyclopedia of North American Sports History" (Facts on File, 1992; rev. and upd. ed., 2002). His article about the 1927 Duluth Eskimos, "On the Road--Again and Again," which appeared in the September 9, 1987, issue of Sports Illustrated, inspired the George Clooney movie, "Leatherheads." He is a member of the Pro Football Researchers Association (PFRA) and the North American Society for Sport History. In 2008, the PFRA honored him with the Ralph E. Hay Award for "lifetime achievement in pro football research and historiography." Ralph is currently preparing his biography of Johnny Blood McNally for publication. He lives in New Bedford, Massachusetts, with his wife, Diane Bolton.