Florida, Death Index
Name: John S Kelly
Event Type: Death
Event Date: 17 Aug 1986
Event Place: Broward, Florida
Age: 76
Race: White
Affiliate File Name: Fdi11.txt
Affiliate Line Number: 202598
Affiliate CD Number: FDI11
Certificate Number: 76014
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Find A Grave Memorial# 6942976
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John Simms "Shipwreck" Kelly was a professional American Football player who played halfback in the National Football League; he was also an owner and banker, most prominent in New York City in the 1930s and 1940s. He played five seasons for the New York Giants (1932) and the Brooklyn Dodgers (1933-1937). Kelly became a player-coach and later a player/coach/owner with the Dodgers football club, the successor to the Dayton Triangles, a charter member of the NFL. the Dodgers, through a couple of reorganizations, became the Baltimore Colts, now the Indianapolis Colts. He gained his nickname from his ability, while at the University of Kentucky, to make a "shipwreck" of opposing defensive lines[citation needed], or from Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly, who was famous for pole-sitting in the 1920s.