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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by GrahamColm 14:45, 27 August 2012 [1].

Otto Graham

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Otto Graham (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Batard0 (talk) 05:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because Otto Graham was one of the most dominant American football players of his era (and arguably compares favorably to the leading quarterbacks of any era), and I'd like to see his article through to FA, if possible. I've brought it up to GA status, done a peer review and made some further improvements. I believe it meets the FA criteria. Batard0 (talk) 05:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:06, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: At least two of the book sources are partially available online via Google Books (Piascik, Henkel) for checks.--Batard0 (talk) 06:57, 1 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment New York Times should be The New York Times Lemonade51 (talk) 17:28, 1 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments leaning support: I know very little about football, but I managed to follow most of this article very clearly. The technical sections are excellent, and I think this gives a really clear overview of his career, how effective he was, and what made him a good player. The prose is very good. I've a few questions about things I didn't follow as a non-fan (most just need a link, I think), a few prose questions, and a few picky points which you can feel free to ignore. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Graham is remembered as one of the most dominant players of his era": By who? May be better as "Critics regard Graham as…"
    • Changed to "Graham is regarded by critics as"; I kept it in the passive voice to avoid confusion in the latter part of the sentence. If the subject isn't Graham, readers might think "having taken his team" refers to critics. Or am I being overly technical? I'd be happy to put it in the active voice if you think that works (probably preferable to avoid the passive, anyway).--Batard0 (talk) 11:44, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the Browns posted a record of 114–20–4": Could this be linked for people like me who are never sure what this means?
  • Ditto "including a 9–3 mark".
  • "he still holds the NFL record for career average yards per pass attempt, with nine.": Again, some linking of "average yards per pass attempt"
    • Linked "pass attempt" to the appropriate section under "Forward pass". Also "yards gained" to "Yards from scrimmage".
  • "signed "Automatic Otto" to play for the Browns": Not too sure about the use of a nickname in the lead like this.
  • His career is covered in 2 main sections, but they are rather long. Could they be split into subsections to make them less intimidating?
  • "and went to Northwestern University on a basketball scholarship in 1940, when he was 19": 2 minor, picky points, but "attended" may be slightly more formal, and do we need both the year and his age? Surely one would suffice.
  • "While football became Graham's primary sport, he also played baseball and continued on the basketball team.": "Although" may work better than "while" here.
  • "He was a first-team All-American in basketball as a senior.": Sorry, lost me here.
    • I tried to make this clearer by saying "He was named by sportswriters as a first-team All-American in basketball as a senior." At the end of the season, various news outlets put together "teams" consisting of the players they judge the best in their sports at their positions. They typically come up with a first, second and third team. They're basically imaginary all-star teams that never play together in an all-star game. Is there a way to make this even clearer without getting too verbose? I linked it to "All-America", which goes into additional detail on the matter. But it would be better if readers didn't have to follow any links.--Batard0 (talk) 11:44, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The link works; if you want to make it even clearer, maybe something like "included as a first-team All-American, a team selected by journalists comprising the best player in each position in basketball", although this is a bit wordy. The other option is to include the explanation as a note. I've no real preference either way and the link is fine if you are not happy with the wordiness.
  • "when he ran back a Kansas State punt 94 yards for a touchdown and had two more scores in a 51–3 victory": Not too sure about this, either.
    • I tried to simplify this one by saying the following: "when he caught a Kansas State punt and returned it 94 yards for a touchdown. He ran for two more touchdowns in the 51–3 victory." I'm not sure if this is simple enough and I'd rather be able to cogently and concisely explain what's going on than rely too much on links. Maybe if you could say which parts are still confusing to the non-expert, I'll make more attempts to elucidate them. I'd really like this to be completely accessible to everybody.--Batard0 (talk) 11:44, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Graham threw for two touchdowns"… and while I think I get this, not sure that everyone would who was not a specialist.
    • I changed it to "Graham passed to his wide receivers for two touchdowns" in the hope that this might make it clearer. Do you think it would be useful to have a prefatory paragraph (inserted after the first paragraph of the "Early life and college career" section) that describes Graham's role on the team at Northwestern and goes into some of the football terminology? This may be useful because, first, the way people played football in the 1940s differs significantly from how it's played today. Graham, for example, played on offense and defense, and both passed and ran with the ball to try to score touchdowns. These days, a quarterback's role is strictly limited to passing. Second, having some kind of introductory paragraph may be useful for non-experts to get a feel for how the game is played and what the rules are. Then again, such a paragraph may interrupt the flow of the article a bit. I'll give it a try if you think it might be a good idea; we can always delete it if it turns out not to be.--Batard0 (talk) 11:44, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • To be honest, I'm fairly happy with the "accessibility" of this. I'm not a follower, but understand this all pretty well now. The paragraph on his role may be a good idea, though; certainly worth a try to see what happens. It won't affect my support either way. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:57, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I tried putting in a paragraph, but I had trouble making it flow with the rest of the text. It read like a digression, so I took it out. I'm beginning to think that a discussion of the evolution of the forward pass, etc., is probably best left to articles about the history of football...Graham was one of the game's first great passers, but none of the sources I have say he was a pioneer or that he changed the way the quarterback position was played, so it comes off as a bit off-topic. I'm going to leave it out for now, but of course am open to any suggestions on how to make this more contextually complete...--Batard0 (talk) 10:26, 4 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "…in an upset of an Ohio State team coached by Paul Brown, handing Ohio State its only loss of the 1941 season". Repetition of Ohio State; maybe rephrase as "in a victory over Ohio State, coached by Paul Brown, the team's only loss of the 1941 season".
  • "The Wildcats struggled in 1942, winning only one game as players joined the war effort.": May be better to slightly rephrase this to make it more explicit: "The Wildcats struggled in 1942 as their players joined the war effort, winning only one game." (If the source allows this rephrase)
  • "The following year, Graham and many of his teammates moved to the Naval Air Station Glenview in Glenview, Illinois but continued to play for Northwestern along with enlistees from other schools": Not quite sure I'm following this. Why did they move to Glenview? Had they enlisted? Why were enlistees from other schools playing for Northwestern? Or does it mean that enlistees played for their own teams?
    • The sources say they brought a bunch of enlisted men to play for Northwestern, not their own teams. They enrolled at Northwestern. I consulted the sources again and attempted to clarify it as follows: "The following year, Graham and some of his teammates enlisted in the military but continued to play for Northwestern. Enlistees from other schools also enrolled at Northwestern, where the U.S. Navy had a training station." I changed "many" to "some" since the source says Northwestern lost 30 of its players to the war.--Batard0 (talk) 11:44, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've come across the Big Ten Conference before, and I'm aware that it's linked but for the benefit of the reader and to prevent them having to follow a link, a sentence somewhere to explain what it means would be a big help.
  • "$96,821 in today's dollars": I think it would be better to give a year here.
  • "he was also "just one of the guys," tackle Mike McCormack later said. "He was not aloof, which you see a lot of times today."[25]": As the quote says "today", maybe give the year that he said it.
    • I added the year as 1999, when the book it comes from was published. I'm not entirely sure when he actually said it (it could have been from an earlier interview as the book was being compiled) but I think it's a fairly reasonable approximation and probably within the bounds of verifiability...if it appeared in print in 1999, probably fair to say he said it in 1999.--Batard0 (talk) 11:44, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Brown remembered a Northwestern game against Ohio State in which he ran to his left and flung a pass all the way to his right for a touchdown.": Is this notable enough to warrant inclusion?
  • "Graham gained 45 yards rushing on a long drive": Not too sure what this means.
  • "With Graham behind center": Ditto.
  • "second straight championship" and in next paragraph "third straight championship" A little more variety may be good.
  • "Graham is regarded as one of the greatest winners of all time": By who?
  • "When Graham retired from football, he said he was going to focus on managing…": Maybe "he planned to focus".
  • "in the five figures": This is a quote, but just checking if it should be the five figures?
  • Any indication of why he was successful coaching the Coast Guards but not the Redskins? What went right/wrong?
    • I don't have a lot of sources for his later career...I've had to draw mainly from newspaper articles, unfortunately. There don't appear to be any books in existence that discuss these things, outside of an autobiography that's not reliable (and frankly, isn't very good). Nonetheless, I'm going to see if there are any news articles that discuss why he wasn't successful, and will update with whatever I can find.--Batard0 (talk) 11:44, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I added a couple sentences about growing calls for his resignation following losing seasons in 1967 and 1968, with citations, of course. I'm trying to find some sources containing more detail about why he was unsuccessful other than just that he failed to win.--Batard0 (talk) 12:10, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Graham won a battle with colon cancer in 1977": Won a battle is a little tabloid-y.
  • "At the funeral several days later, Graham's longtime friend George Steinbrenner fainted, leading to speculation that he was in ill health, but Steinbrenner lived another seven years.": Does this really warrant inclusion in Graham's article?
  • Ref for coaching record?

Sarastro1 (talk) 21:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for all the help with this. Any further assistance or suggestions for making it accessible for non-football people (or for making it better in general) would be very much appreciated.--Batard0 (talk) 12:32, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Happy to support now, all the changes look fantastic. I've left a couple of things unstruck for further clarification, but they do not affect my support. I'm particularly impressed by the determination to make this accessible to non-fans; I know myself how difficult this can be. A pleasure to read, comment on and support. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:57, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support with a minor comment. Is there any way to expand the "Later life and death" section? For example, what did he do from the time he retired in 1984 until his death in 2003? Anything on his personal life? We know he was married, but there is minimal information on his wife and family. Great article. GregJackP Boomer! 18:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support with a couple of points. You may want to consider linking stipend for those who may be unfamiliar with the term. Additionally, is there anything else that can be said about his time at the Coast Guard Academy? Aside from their undefeated season in 1963, it seems a bit bare—I'm not overly concerned but curious. Otherwise, the article looks to be in excellent form. -- The Writer 2.0 Talk 01:38, 6 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks much - I added some information about his teams' performance at Coast Guard, plus detail about coaching offers he got during his time there. There isn't a ton of reporting on Coast Guard during that era, as far as I can tell, probably because it's a small school. I haven't been able to find good secondary book sources that discuss this period in his career. I hope this helps clarify things. I also linked stipend. Thanks for the suggestion.--Batard0 (talk) 05:57, 6 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose and comprehensiveness. Thought this was a fine article when reviewing for GA, so minor corrections were just needed. Nice job. Lemonade51 (talk) 21:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support – In the four-plus years I've been reviewing at FAC, high-quality NFL-related bios have been few and far between. This is probably the best one I can remember seeing. There were a few prose issues and such that I noticed, but I made some copy-edits to fix them. Overall, this was a smooth read and well-deserving of a star, and I hope we see more of your work at FAC in the future. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:38, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's comment: Spotchecks of sources for verification and close-paraphrasing are needed. Graham Colm (talk) 09:38, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, and FYI in case it's useful, here are links in Google Books to some of the book sources. Most are only previews, so you may not be able to pick up all the refs. I'm not sure how these things are usually done, but I'm happy to quote supporting passages where requested (I have physical copies):
There are also some snippets from Cantor on Amazon's preview here: Amazon--Batard0 (talk) 10:15, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Arcadia Publishing is a self-publishing company in which most people can contribute and write a book (providing they have the access to historical pictures and such) about their local history and I'm dubious about the reliability of many of their books. Sometimes Arcadia history books is written by noted historians and journalists and it's OK to use, but in many cases, their books are written by someone who is just interested on the subject as a hobby, sorta like this website. I don't think Arcadia has a editor to do an accurate fact check on the information written. I've seen several books riddled with the stupidest errors (like one book I stopped reading after the third page when it said Florida was first discovered by Juan Ponce de León in 1565, and I saw another one that said Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1942). Can you explain how LaTourette and Henkel are reliable sources/experts and not just regular people who got the idea to write a book about their favorite subjects. I can't find much information on either author so I can't tell. If not replace the sources if possible. Thanks Secret account 19:50, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not a problem. I think I can easily get replacements for the Henkel references; LaTourette I may have to source to newspaper articles, etc., but I'll see what I can find. Didn't know Arcadia was so suspect...--Batard0 (talk) 20:03, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ok, I've gone in there and added references anyplace where either LaTourette or Henkel were the only sources cited. LaTourette checked out well; out of 17 citations, only one raised suspicion when cross-checked with other sources: LaTourette said Graham returned a punt 94 yards for a touchdown in his first Wildcats game, while contemporary news reports say it was 90 yards. Frankly, the newspapers could be wrong here. I've seen many cases where the newspapers of this era have messed up statistics, even awarding touchdowns to the wrong player or not counting touchdowns at all. Nonetheless, I changed it to 90 yards, given that there are concerns about LaTourette's reliability. Since the refs pretty much check out, though, I left them in there alongside the new ones. Henkel's also check out; I left them in, but it's not strictly necessary because the information is duplicated in a lot of other places. Hope this helps.--Batard0 (talk) 12:52, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok Support Secret account 02:28, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks

  • Article: The AAFC's first season was not set to start until the fall of 1946, and Graham occupied the intervening months by joining the Rochester Royals of the National Basketball League (NBL), a forerunner of the National Basketball Association.
  • Source: ...Graham...played basketball as well as football at Northwestern University, and he played for the 1945-1946 Rochester Royals, champions of the National Basketball League, one of the major league predecessors of the National Basketball Association. (pp. 19-20)
  • Article: Graham was also drafted by the National Football League's Detroit Lions, but he did not sign a contract or play a game with the team as the war wore on.[24]
  • Source: He was drafted by the Detroit Lions of the NFL, but he entered the service upon graduation before signing a contract or playing a pro game.
  • Article: He never missed a game in his career.[24]
  • Source: Graham never missed a game in his ten-year pro career. (p. 20)
  • Article: The team went undefeated in 1963, earning the academy its first-ever post-season bowl appearance.[88]
  • Source: (dated Nov 19, 1963) A pair of undefeated football teams-Western Kentucky and Coast Guard Academy-meet Dec. 28 in the Tangerine Bowl. Former professional football star Otto Graham is coach of the New London, Conn., team...It is the first ever post-season football competition in in Coast Guard history.
  • Article: The college stars lost for the seventh time in a row that year, falling 24–3 to the Kansas City Chiefs.[99]
  • Source: The college All-Stars admittedly played "a lousy game", but coach Otto Graham claimed the Kansas City Chiefs were in tip-top condition in the 24-3 rout.

Image review

    • I'm happy to remove the other image if need be. I thought it had a fairly strong rationale given that it shows something that's hard to describe with just words in the body of the article: the appearance of the plastic facemask. But I defer to others' better judgment.--Batard0 (talk) 14:09, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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