Today we’d like to introduce you to Todd Tobias.
Hi Todd, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was given my first box of baseball cards at the age of five. My dad bought my cousin and I each a box of 1978 Topps cards to keep us entertained on a motorhome trip from San Diego to visit family in Montana. We opened packs, chewed the bubble gum, and looked over our cards. To this day, I cannot adequately describe why I enjoyed the cards so much, but I was simply fascinated. No one realized it at the time, but receiving those cards was a pivotal moment in my life.
I collected cards all through my youth, high school, college, and into adulthood. In fact, though the types of cards I collected changed over the years, I never left the hobby. But as it turned out, trading cards are just one of the ways I have celebrated my interest in sports.
All through school, I tried to inject sports into my classwork. I often wrote about sports-related themes through high school and college, and in graduate school at the University of San Diego, I wrote my master’s thesis on Sid Gillman, the Chargers first head coach.
One of my first jobs out of college was working for the San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum, a local organization that celebrated teams and athletes with local ties. I became the museum’s curator after completing graduate school and eventually designed exhibits that focused on San Diego’s teams and athletes that had participated in prep, college, or professional sports in America’s Finest City. I left the museum shortly after the birth of our first child but have continued to work in an area I have loved for my entire life.
My Sid Gillman thesis sparked a new interest in the American Football League, a subject that I have now studied for more than 25 years. I eventually wrote two books about different periods in San Diego Chargers history. Those efforts made me something of a team historian, and I was asked to participate in several projects for the Chargers, such as decorating the team business offices, organizing their archives, and helping the marketing department prepare for the AFL’s 50th Anniversary Celebration in 2009. I later designed a blog and website dedicated to the AFL, through which I came into contact with former players, coaches, family members, and fans from across the country. The blog was also the home base for a campaign I started that was the impetus for former Chiefs’ safety Johnny Robinson being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2019.
In addition to AFL and Chargers work, I have bought and sold cards and memorabilia, decorated trophy rooms in the homes of MLB players, contributed to books, articles, and other football research projects, and generally lived my life as a Jack-of-all-Sports Trades. Most recently, I spent seven years working for PSA, the trading card hobby’s premier third-party grader. I worked in the marketing department, where I provided written content for the company magazine, blog, and website, as well as social media platforms. The company recently went through a large layoff, so I am now looking for the next step in my professional life.
Lastly, I fell in love with lacrosse when I was first introduced to the sport as a high school senior in 1991. All three of my children have since played; I ran a youth lacrosse club in East County and served several years on the San Diego Youth Lacrosse Association Board of Directors. Our family are San Diego Seals season ticket holders and passionate fans. And guess what? There are lacrosse cards that date back to 1878, although that area of the hobby is really still in its infancy. So much so that I put together a website (www.laxcardarchive.com) with which myself and another collector attempt to document all lacrosse cards ever produced.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Though I have spent my professional life in an area I really enjoy and have participated in a lot of interesting projects, the sailing hasn’t always been as smooth as it may seem. In fact, I have encountered several challenges and obstacles in my journey.
The first was probably when I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma when I was 29 years old. My wife and I had been married for just about 18 months, and our first child was only nine months old. I’d been having terrible fevers, non-stop coughing, and several other symptoms. After going through several different tests, we all expected the doctors to report back that I had some sort of odd flu or virus, but that was not the case. I went through eight months of pretty rough chemotherapy, but with the support of my family and friends, I made it out on the other side. I’m thrilled to be able to say that I am now 20 years cancer-free.
The economic downturn of 2009 was a challenging time for me as well. I had been quite busy leading into the recession, simultaneously doing contract work for the Hall of Champions and the Chargers while also working on a trophy room for a local baseball player and selling sports cards. But then the economy shifted. The museum let go of all contract employees, my trophy room project came to a natural end, and the trading card market went flat. I picked up a three-month contract with the Chargers, but we really struggled after that ended. I tried to find work in my area of expertise but couldn’t drum anything up. I eventually took a job as a stagehand, setting up for concerts, corporate events, and large parties. It was physically demanding work, with long and late hours. I sometimes got home at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, only to be out on a job again several hours later. It was tough, but there was also a wonderful camaraderie amongst my co-workers. I still look back on that time fondly, even though it was very difficult for us financially.
The other challenge that I deal with anytime I am looking for a job is that my professional experience cannot be neatly described by a single title like doctor, accountant, or plumber. The area in which I work is already rather niche, and not having a specific title makes it difficult to apply for certain positions. I have done a lot of different things. I have an M.A. in history, have authored two books and countless articles. I can research, write, edit, buy, sell, theme, and outfit an attractive exhibit, work with creatives, contribute to marketing and social media projects, and a lot more. I find ways to get things done and ensure they are done well. But it can still be difficult to get my foot in the door because I don’t have a track record of working in a single discipline.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have spoken about my work history in earlier questions, so I will use this area to talk about a handful of projects, both personal and professional, of which I am very proud.
Charging Through the AFL – I enjoyed the interviews that I conducted for my master’s thesis with former Chargers players. Their stories had been fascinating. The football part was interesting, and they were a successful team, but I particularly enjoyed the sociological part of their stories. These were young men fighting for legitimacy in a brand-new professional football league as a mixed-race team traveling the country during the Civil Rights era. There was a lot going on! At the suggestion of a friend, I decided to write a book about the 1960s Chargers. The book took me more than four years to complete, and during that time, I got married, we bought and sold two houses, we had two children, and battled cancer with an eight-month chemotherapy regimen. Through it all, I just kept plugging. The end result was a book containing the first-hand accounts of more than 50 former Chargers and 0ver 300 photos that I had unearthed from team archives.
Bret Boone’s Baseball Display – The Boones were Major League Baseball’s first three-generation family of players. Ray broke into the league in 1948. His son, Bob, was a rookie in 1972, while Bret and Aaron made their Major League debuts in 1992 and 1997, respectively. When Bret remodeled his Rancho Santa Fe home, he built several large display cases into a large bar and rec room. I was then hired to turn the room into an exhibit for the artifacts of his family’s 60+ years in baseball. I was basically given carte blanche to turn the room into something that he and his friends could marvel over and enjoy. We framed and shadowboxed jerseys, installed custom bat racks, themed awards, and locker areas, and transformed the room into the classiest sports bar I’ve ever seen.
Autographed American Football League Trading Card Collection – When I first started interviewing former Chargers players for my master’s thesis in 1998, I brought along their trading cards to present as an icebreaker. I would typically ask the individual to sign the cards as we wrapped up my visit. As I have a completionist-type mentality, I eventually set out to collect autographed examples of all of the Chargers cards produced in the 1960s. As I learned more about the AFL and came to appreciate players from other teams, I expanded my autographed card collection to include players from other teams. Over the decades, as I met, interviewed, and wrote letters to hundreds of players, I got their cards signed for my collection. I supplemented the collection by purchasing a handful of vintage collections, trading with other collectors, and spreading my want lists to dealers around the country. After more than 25 years of effort, I have assembled what is likely the most extensive collection of autographed AFL trading cards in the world. Topps and Fleer produced a collective 1,285 base AFL trading cards between 1960-1970. Of those 1,285 possible cards, I have all but seven of them autographed. That includes dozens of cards of individuals who suffered premature deaths, such as Dick Christy (Dec. 1964), Eddie Erdelatz (Dec. 1964), and Frank Buncom (Dec. 1969). In addition, I have assembled several hundred other signed AFL cards to build out various themed collections.
Johnny Robinson Hall of Fame Campaign – I have long been a fan of former Kansas City Chiefs safety Johnny Robinson. He was an incredible football player: a six-time All-Pro, seven-time All-Star, two-time league leader in interceptions, thee-time AFL champion, Super Bowl IV champion, and the AFL’s All-TIme Safety. Even more impressive is that after leaving the game, he started the Johnny Robinson’s Boys Home, a live-in facility that has provided a home, education, and family environment to hundreds of disadvantaged boys in Louisiana since first opening in 1980. After coming into contact with Robinson’s stepson in 2017 and bemoaning the fact that Robinson had been overlooked by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I mounted a campaign to get him inducted. I admittedly had no idea what I was doing at the time, but I came up with a plan began touting Robinson to members of the national sports media and the Pro Football Hall of Fame Senior Committee. I started collecting statements from Robinson’s teammates and opponents. Eventually, I was being asked to make guest appearance on football podcasts and interviewed for articles that received national distribution. Johnny was one of 100+ individuals being considered for a single senior nomination for the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2019. But as he had done all his life, Robinson overcame the odds and won the nomination in the first vote after I began the campaign. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame at 81 years old, 48 years after his retirement as a player.
How do you define success?
When I was first working for the San Diego Hall of Champions, I became friends with a man named Buzzie Bavasi, a longtime major league baseball executive. He was in his late 80s when he told me that he and his wife strove to make a good living but did not want to make too much money. Their belief was that when you were solely focused on making money, that tunnel vision forced you to miss out on a lot of other important things life has to offer.
At the risk of sounding a bit arrogant, I would say that my wife and I are successful in the ways we find most important. We make some money, although still run into economic challenges, as most people do. After 23 years of marriage, we still love each other and are great friends. We have shared interests and enjoy each other’s company. Our three children are growing up to be good, smart, and independent people. We have a home we love, our health, friends, and hobbies.
There are probably as many ways to define success as there are grains of sand on a beach. My definition has developed over time after meeting many different people and seeing how they have lived their lives. I am happy with my definition of success and even happier that we are currently living it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://talesfromtheamericanfootballleague.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talesfromtheafl_collection/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-tobias-13a91b28/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalesfromtheAFL
- Other: https://laxcardarchive.com/
