Arnold A. Shockley (August 31, 1903 – April 27, 1988) was a professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player who spent one season in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) with the Boston Bulldogs, in

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

. Shockley was an all-conference tackle at

Southwestern Oklahoma State University Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) is a public university in Weatherford and Sayre, Oklahoma. It is one of six Regional University System of Oklahoma members. History SWOSU was first established through an act of the Oklahoma Ter ...

in 1926 and 1927. He then went on to be a coach and administrator working for more than 30 years in schools at

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Qu ...

, Greer and

Kiowa Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and eve ...

counties. He spent his last 13 years working at Mountain View High School before retiring in 1965. He was inducted into the Southwestern Oklahoma State University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1965.

Right name, wrong player?

According to an article by the

Professional Football Researchers Association The Professional Football Researchers Association (PFRA) is an organization of researchers whose mission is to preserve and, in some cases, reconstruct professional football history. It was founded on June 22, 1979 in Canton, Ohio by writer/hist ...

, however, Shockley never played for the Bulldogs in 1929. The player listed on the field as Arnold Shockley was really Perry Jackson, a teammate of Arnie's from Southwestern Oklahoma State University. According to Jackson, he was disappointed when he didn't receive an invitation to tryout for any professional team after playing college football. However Arnold Shockley, received an invitation to try out for the Bulldogs. Shockley decided not to go to the try out and Jackson saw this as an opportunity to tryout for a pro team. He went to the camp, assuming the name of his teammate, Shockley. He made the team and played that year as Arnold Shockley. The only problem with his story is that Jackson was playing for the

Providence Steam Roller The Providence Steam Rollers (also referred to as the Providence Steam Roller, the Providence Steamroller and the Providence Steamrollers) were a professional American football team based in Providence, Rhode Island in the National Football Leagu ...

in 1928–1930. However his write up for the SWOSU Hall of Fame states that he played for Providence for four seasons. This sets up a controversy over which teams Shockley and Perry played for. Also the stats for Perry and Shockley appear to be same according to profootballreference.com and databasefootball.com In trying to clear up the mistake in identity of the players, Bob Carroll, also of PFRA stated that the real Jackson, under the alias Shockley, played for Providence, while Shockley, using Jackson's name, played for Boston.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shockley, Arnie 1903 births 1988 deaths American football tackles Boston Bulldogs (NFL) players National Football League controversies Southwestern Oklahoma State Bulldogs football players High school football coaches in Oklahoma People from Delaware County, Oklahoma People from Kiowa County, Oklahoma Players of American football from Oklahoma