Present at the Creation

Upton Bell grew up at the knee of the NFL's first great commissioner, his father, the legendary Bert Bell, who not only saved the game from financial ruin after World War II but was one of its greatest innovators. Present at the Creation details Bell’s firsthand experiences, which started as he watched his father draw up the league schedule each year at the kitchen table using dominoes. Over the past 53 years, Bell has been an owner, a general manager, a personnel executive, a scouting director for two Super Bowl teams, a television commentator and analyst, and a talk-radio host. He has seen the NFL from the inside and has experienced many of the most important moments in NFL history.

Bell was player personnel director for the Baltimore Colts when the team played in three championship games and appeared in two Super Bowls (1968 and 1970). At thirty-three, he became the youngest general manager in NFL history when he joined the Patriots in that role in 1971. He left the NFL in 1974 to compete against it, joining the upstart World Football League as owner of the Charlotte Hornets, which lasted just two years. In 1976 Bell began his 40-year career as a radio and TV talk-show host, yet he remains a football guy who was in the middle of the game’s most significant moments and knows that half the story has never been told, until now.

The book is published by University of Nebraska Press.

“A must-read for any fan of pro football.” (Ernie Accorsi, former general manager of the New York Giants)