Research Proposal

I plan to research the history of the Baltimore Colts, how the franchise affected the city of Baltimore, and how the city of Baltimore affected the franchise.
I plan to separate my research into six different sections. I will research each section's topic and at the end of that research I will submit a 500 word segment of my official research.
The first segment of my research will concentrate on the beginning of the Colts and "The Greatest Game Ever Played." The second segment will focus on the Heyday of the Baltimore Colts and Baltimore at the time. The third segment will concentrate on the decline of the Colts franchise and the decline of Baltimore at the time- including dissatisfaction with Memorial Stadium. The fourth segment will concentrate on offers received by the Colts, the Colts leaving Baltimore, and the reactions of Baltimoreans. The fifth segment will concentrate on the aftermath of the Colts leaving and feelings today. In the sixth segment I will draw conclusions from all of my research.
To research this project I will consult books on the topic, websites, online databases, DVDs, newspapers, and the Sports Legends Museum.

Hate/Love

I think it's interesting how football fans in Baltimore either hate or still love The Colts because of the history with the franchise. My father was a big Baltimore Colts fan and is still a Colts fan today and that has carried over to me. I'll enjoy researching this history to understand the hate or love relationship even more.

This week I decided to broaden my research proposal, at least for the preliminary research process, so I don't limit myself.

I also went through all of the books I found and narrowed my first choices down to:

1. The Colt's Baltimore by Michael Olesker
2. Sundays At 2:00 With the Baltimore Colts by Vince Bagli
3. When The Colts Belonged to Baltimore by William Gildea
I also found a book called Football in Baltimore: History and Memorabilia, that has a lot of interesting pictures and ads. I'll post some this week.

I was looking at the pictures in the book Football in Baltimore by Ted Patterson and discovered that the "the 1950 Colts were featured in their own 25[cent] comic book." I thought this was really interesting.

"The Band That Wouldn't Die"

I went onto espn.com to find upcoming times for the documentary "The Band That Wouldn't Die".

http://30for30.espn.com/film/the-band-that-wouldnt-die.html

This link has an interview with Levinson about the Baltimore Colts, production stills, trailers, and time slots for the upcoming showings of the documentary.

The next showing is tomorrow, October 21st, at 8pm on ESPN 2.

After doing some more research I've decided to change my research proposal slightly to make it less chronological and more analytical. I'd like to focus my research on how the popularity of the Colts changed as the state of Baltimore changed. I want to discover if there was a correlation between Baltimore football and Baltimore history and how they affected one another. I'm also really curious to research what happened after the Colts left Baltimore and the effect it had. I hope to interview my father soon as he remains a huge Colts fan today.

I work tomorrow so I plan on going to Sports Legend Museum to see if they can help me find some good information.

I am also attending the Colts/Ravens game in a couple of weeks and may try to talk to some of the older people I know about the Baltimore Colts and see if they have any insights or stories.

I've once again narrowed my research. As I went into this project I had a massive amount of information to weed through and I have finally focused my research to a place I am satisfied with.

I want to look more into if economic reasons affected the Colts leaving (aside from the general discontent over Memorial Stadium) and then focus more on how the Colts' departure affected Baltimore economically and socially.