ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, August 5, 1996 TAG: 9608050142
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE
SOURCE: Associated Press
Ralph Horween was a successful businessman and patent lawyer, but before that he was a professional football player, playing under an assumed name to hide his profession from his mother.
On Saturday, Horween turned 100, the first former NFL player to make the century mark, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Twenty-two family members traveled to Horween's Albemarle County home from as far away as Scotland for the celebration. They shared a cake decorated as a football field, and an NFL representative presented Horween with a plaque commemorating the occasion and an Arizona Cardinals jersey with the No. 100, said Kitty Stever, Horwell's housekeeper.
Current Cardinals coaches and players signed the jersey for Horween, who has lived in Albemarle County since the 1950s.
NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue sent a congratulatory letter that read, in part, ``Without the pioneering efforts of individuals such as you and your brother Arnold, there would be no National Football League.''
Horween and his late brother joined the Chicago Cardinals in 1921, a year after the league was founded, and played through the 1923 season. The two played under the names Ralph and Arnold McMahon because they did not want their mother to know they were playing.
Ralph Horween also was coach of the Cardinals in 1924.
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