Upton Bell is a former National Football League executive. He is the son of former NFL Commissioner Bert Bell and Broadway actress Frances Upton. In 1971, at the age of 33, Bell became the youngest General Manager in the NFL when he was hired to lead (then known as) the Boston Patriots. One of Bell’s first moves was recommending to the Patriots’ Board of Directors that they change the name to the New England Patriots.…
On the July 28th episode of A Mick A Mook and A Mic, former New England Patriots’ General Manager, Upton Bell, gives us a behind the scene look at the National Football League. Son of former NFL Commissioner, Bert Bell, Upton discusses how his dad developed the NFL schedule on their kitchen table. He also divulges information regarding the feud between former Oakland Raiders principal owner and general manager Al Davis and then commissioner Pete…
Beneath sparkling brown eyes, and salt and pepper hair, he flashed a wry smile before pausing and uttering one deliberate sentence about a Sean O Casey play. “It reads good.” Author and movie star, Stephen Lang, had deliberately used bad grammar to make his point. The classically trained actor knew that my partner Frank Pace and I would get it. After all, we were writers of sorts too. Stephen was referring to Sean O Casey’s,…
My assistant said, “Carl Thomas is on the line.” Carl Thomas was the Vice President of Marketing for Speedo, the country’s leading swimwear manufacturer. Armen Keteyian and I were working as a two-man P.R. group for a small San Diego based marketing firm called The Phillips Organisation, Ltd. (That is the correct spelling). Speedo was our client. “Put Carl through,” I said. It was early 1982. Carl had just gotten off a plane from Kona, Hawaii. He…