There’s another side of Ed Snider – beside the one recently eulogized in such glowing terms. So let’s take a look at that side.

R to L – Jerry Wolman, Ed Snider, & Joe Kuharich at Franklin Field

Jerry Wolman bought the Eagles for $5,505,000 in 1963 and started making bad decisions from Jump Street:

• He hired Joe Kuharich to coach the team – which would set the Eagles back more than a decade.
• He traded away Hall of Famers Sonny Jurgensen and Tommy McDonald without adequately replacing them.
• He hired Ed Snider.

That’s not a misprint. Ed Snider came to Philadelphia to work for the Eagles more than four years before the Flyers came into existence.

Jerry Wolman – from Shenandoah, PA – was a house-painter-turned-contractor who built his fortune in Washington, D.C. One of his D.C. cronies was Sol Snider – who owned a supermarket chain, invested in real estate, and founded a bank. Sol Snider was also the father of Ed Snider – and Ed Snider was down on his luck.

Ed Snider owned a record company that was losing money hand-over-fist. In trying to bridge his financial shortcomings, Ed Snider took out short-term loans from Jerry Wolman – but he couldn’t repay the loans. As his financial woes deepened, Ed Snider became distraught and depressed.

Hoping to get his son back on his feet, Sol Snider phoned Wolman.

Now, Ed Snider had neither a sports background nor a successful business résumé. But since Wolman owed Sol Snider a favor, he hired Sol’s son to become both vice president and treasurer of the Eagles. In addition, Wolman gave Ed Snider 7% of the Eagles stock – no strings attached – and fronted him $83,000 to buy a mansion on the Main Line.

At this point – to say the least – Ed Snider should have been eternally indebted to Jerry Wolman for bailing him out of his financial dilemma.

Expanding his holdings in Philadelphia some two years later, in 1966, Wolman put up $2-million to go partners with Bill Putnam, Ed Snider, and Jerome Schiff in the purchase of a new NHL franchise for Philadelphia – which became the Flyers. Part of the deal with the NHL called for the construction of a new arena – which would become the Spectrum.

Construction began on June 1, 1966 – with Wolman’s company doing the building – and was completed in 1967. After which, the Flyers and Sixers started playing their home games at the Spectrum during the fall of 1967.

On March 1, 1968 – and within six months of the grand opening – a portion of the Spectrum’s roof was blown away during a wind storm during a performance of the Ice Capades.

The Flyers were forced to play their home games at Le Colisée in Quebec City, Canada ─ home of the Quebec Aces, the Flyers top farm club. And the 76ers split their home games between Convention Hall and the Palestra.

Shoddy building materials were blamed for the misfortune.

The construction of the Spectrum wasn’t Wolman’s only building fiasco. Wolman’s company poured the concrete for the first twenty floors of the John Hancock Center in Chicago – but that foundation started sinking into the ground. Since there was no way that the top eighty floors could be completed on such shaky footing, those first twenty floors had to demolished – which cost Wolman $20-million he didn’t have.

Morgan Guaranty and Trust Company had bankrolled Wolman’s endeavor in Chicago along with his purchases of both the Eagles and the Flyers. When Morgan learned of the major setback in Chicago, the bank demanded payment on all three notes – within three days.

Over-extended and cash-strapped, Wolman found an overseas lender who agreed to finance him $43-million – enough to cover all of his indebtedness. But there was one stipulation with the promised loan – ownership of the Flyers must be included in the deal.

So Wolman went to his partners with the Flyers. If they signed over their stock, he could sell the team and escape financial ruin. He would then compensate them by giving them positions-with and shares-of the Eagles. This was a perfect time for Ed Snider to reciprocate for Wolman’s past generosity.

But on October 18, 1967, when Ed Snider met with Wolman, he refused to sign over his Flyers stock.

“I want to keep the hockey club,” Ed Snider told the man who’d rescued him from his own financial ruin just three years earlier.

Jerry Wolman soon started bankruptcy proceedings and sold the Eagles to Leonard Tose for $16.1-million. He also defaulted on his John Hancock project in Chicago – which cost him another $100-million in projected profits.

In effect, Ed Snider’s refusal to reciprocate past generosity helped lead Jerry Wolman to his financial ruin.

DISCLAIMER – I neither met nor knew Ed Snider. I have no particular ax to grind. But with all of the recent eulogies put forward in such glowing terms, I’m old enough to remember another side of Ed Snider.

In addition to being the official Eagles Outsider for BlameMyFather.com, Barry Bowe is also the author of:

• Born to Be Wild
• 1964 – The Year the Phillies Blew the Pennant
• 12 Best Eagles QBs
• Birth of the Birds
• Soon-to-be-published sexy, police procedural Caribbean Queen
• Soon-to-be-published novel Stosh Wadzinski
• Soon-to-be-published novel Polish Widow