Champaign (American) Legion - The Most Unexplored Team In Professional Football History

The Champaign Legion was a football team in 1920. Not much information is out there on this team but all that is currently known is that they played a game against the Decatur Staleys (later becoming the Chicago Bears) of APFA in 1920. In the game Dutch Sternaman ran for two touchdowns and threw one later in the football game to Pard Pearce. Sternaman also kicked two extra points to result in a 20-0 win for the Staleys. The only information of the game was it was played in Champaign, Illinois on McKinley Field. The field is still being used today but after many years of renovations it looks nothing like it did in 1920. Reportedly 500 people were in attendance for the game. Besides this game there is no other information on this team. We do not know who played for Champaign, who founded it or why they played one game then never played again. We also do not know what league, if any they were in. They just played one game, lost it to 0-20 on November 11th, 1920 and never played another game again from all that we know. In professional football history this might be the most unexplored teams in its history.

Sources

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/

https://www.profootballarchives.com/index.html

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Football_Wiki

https://www.gridiron-uniforms.com/GUD/controller/controller.php?action=main

https://www.profootballhof.com/hall-of-famers/