Information about whose knowledge is accepted as important isvaluable in understanding how a profession evolves. The term elders describes the individuals who control invisible networks of prestige and who determine what information is accepted for publication in professional journals. These published works stands the foundation for the knowledge base of a discipline. The purpose of this article was to identify the elders inphysical education teacher education (PETE) and to trace their academic genealogy. Elders were defined as major contributors the Journal of Teaching in Physical Education from 1981 through 1989. The articles published by these subjects were generally, but not exclusively, research-related. Hence, aspects related to faculty research performance were selected as descriptors that may facilitate comparisons of PETE professors to other groups of professors and to future PETE professors. Subjects' gender, prestige of doctoral program, mentoring, and prestige of current institution of employment were studied as these indicators represent major correlates with research productivity.