Ben Deihl & Naomi Girson | sports editor & opinions editor

Stan Kostka was the man on every team’s mind in 1935 as the Heisman Trophy winner hailing from the national champion Minnesota Golden Gophers. Every franchise wanted Kostka on their roster, but there was no official way to choose who got him.

“There was a bidding war for Kostka,” said Pro Football Hall of Fame communications coordinator Nick Licata. “Burt Bell called [Kostka] and asked if he offered him a contract more than anyone else, would he come sign with Philadelphia? He said yes, but it went back and forth. Bell was really upset and thought, ‘we’ve got to have a way to evenly distribute the talent.’”

The NFL Draft has a rich history, earning its modest start in a hotel room before becoming the star of the NFL’s offseason every year, drawing crowds of 500,000-plus fans to each host city. But to understand how the draft got to its superstar status, its foundations need to be explored.

In 1936, the first NFL Draft took place inside the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia. It was far from the glamorous production that fans know today. The first draft was a room of franchise owners and coaches sitting around a table in a rented room deciding which players they wanted to take a chance on.

“If a guy getting out of college could get a job as a high school football coach that would probably pay more and be more secure than going into the NFL, where it’s paycheck to paycheck, game to game, with no benefits, no pension, no health care,” said sports historian Rob Ruck.

Art Rooney Sr., the founder of the Steelers, along with Bell, co-founder of the Eagles and later the NFL commissioner, first launched the draft as a way to bring more competitive balance to the sport.

They knew it would help with competitive spirit, which would bring in more fans, and therefore more revenue, keeping the sport alive.

“What that does over time is, it gives teams a chance to get the best talent. So over time, that’s going to allow teams to go from the bottom to the top, if they draft intelligently,” Ruck said.

With the first pick in NFL history, the Philadelphia Eagles selected Jay Berwanger, a Heisman Trophy-winning halfback out of the University of Chicago. But during contract negotiations after the selection, Berwanger and the Eagles had a disconnect.

Berwanger was seeking roughly $1,000 per game, while Philadelphia’s offer stood around $150 per game. Unable to reach an agreement, the Eagles traded Berwanger’s negotiations to the Chicago Bears, who were also unable to reach a compromise.  

Despite being the first ever selection in the NFL, Berwanger never played a down in the league.

As the NFL and its draft grew in popularity, the demands and media for the draft expanded. Eventually, the draft started to move locations to accommodate for the larger crowds it was drawing and to expand the league’s reach.

“It hasn’t been [in Pittsburgh] since 1948,” Duquesne sports marketing professor Ronald Dick said. “The Radio City Music Hall dominated it for many years. Just by chance, the draft was there in 2014. After, the NFL called to schedule again, but organizers said they can’t give that date again, so they started to move cities.”

As franchises got in the practice of scouting college players in preparation for the draft, classes started to increase in size and talent. The Pittsburgh Steelers had one of the earliest and best selections with their 1974 draft class, becoming one of the all-time greats.

Pittsburgh was able to grab four Hall-of-Famers in 1974, the most ever drafted in a single year by a single team. Lynn Swann headlined the Steelers’ draft as their first round pick, followed by Jack Lambert, John Stallworth and Mike Webster.

Throughout the 1980s, the NFL saw one of the largest talent booms in professional sports history as the league transitioned to the premiere American pastime. The 1983 draft class was one of the first elite ones, featuring numerous franchise quarterbacks with Jim Kelly, John Elway and Dan Marino, while Hall-of-Famers Erick Dickerson and Bruce Matthews also heard their name called.

Two of the best drafts happened in 1988 and 1989, lining up in back-to-back years. The drafts included some of the best players in their respective positions like Deion Sanders, Barry Sanders, Steve Atwater, Michael Irvin and Randall McDaniel.

“In 1989, Troy Aikman and his agent Leigh Steinberg go to the draft,” Licata said. “He was really the first guy to go to the draft. From that point on, it was normalized.”

As the NFL shifts to its high-production events fit for modern times, Ruck said Pittsburgh is not going to get a chance to hold the Super Bowl with climate conditions. So bringing the draft here is a treat for the owners as well as Pittsburgh as a whole.

“If you’ve got a stadium without a dome in a cold climate, you’re not going to get the Super Bowl,” Ruck said. “So the draft, it’s a nice thing to get, in terms of what it does to the economy of the city, or at least ostensibly does. We’ll see when they add up the numbers to what degree it’ll really help. I suspect it will.”

Ben Deihl can be reached at deihlb1@duq.edu

Naomi Girson can be reached at girsonn@duq.edu