Who Were The Milwaukee Badgers And What Scandel Were They Involved In?

The Milwaukee Badgers were a professional American football team based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that played in the National Football League from 1922 to 1926. The team played its home games at Athletic Park, later known as Borchert Field, on Milwaukee's north side. The team was notable for having a large number of African-American players for the time.

After the team folded following the 1926 season (largely due to being left broke because of a $500 fine by the NFL for using four high-school players in a 1925 game against the Chicago Cardinals, a game arranged after the Badgers had disbanded for the season), many of its members played for the independent semi-pro Milwaukee Eagles. A few of the players from this team went on to play for the original Pittsburgh Pirates football team in 1933; the team later became the Steelers. This has led some to mistakenly believe that either the Badgers or Eagles became the Steelers. The 1925 Chicago Cardinals–Milwaukee Badgers scandal was a scandal centered around a 1925 game between the Chicago Cardinals and the Milwaukee Badgers of the National Football League. The scandal involved a Chicago player, Art Folz, hiring a group of high school football players to play for the Milwaukee Badgers, against the Cardinals. This would ensure an inferior opponent for Chicago. The game was used to help prop up their win-loss percentage and as a chance of wresting away the 1925 Championship away from the first place Pottsville Maroons.

In 1925, the Chicago Cardinals were in the running to win the NFL championship with the Pottsville Maroons. The Maroons had beaten the Cardinals 21-7 earlier in the season at Comiskey Park. This loss gave Pottsville a half game lead in the standings. However, the Cardinals felt that they could make up for the loss. Many professional football teams during the first decade of the NFL would schedule some easy extra games to pad their record and place in the standing. The Cardinals had hoped that the move would help bump the team to a first place finish over Pottsville. Prior to 1933, the team with the best record in the standings at the end of the season was named the season's NFL Champions.

The two extra games were scheduled against the inferior Milwaukee Badgers and Hammond Pros, both of which were NFL members but had disbanded for the year. The Badgers, owned by Ambrose McGuirk, agreed to a game against the Cardinals. However, McGuirk lived in Chicago, which put him at a disadvantage in getting his team back together to play the Cardinals. Art Folz, a substitute quarterback for the Cardinals, convinced four players from Englewood High School, located in Chicago, into joining the Badgers for the game under assumed names, thereby ensuring that the Cardinals' opponent was not a pro caliber club. It also should be noted that Folz himself was an Englewood High School graduate. Meanwhile the Cardinals' owner, Chris O'Brien, unaware of the roster tampering, but still sensing a mismatch, didn't even charge attendance to the few scattered spectators who turned up for the December 10, 1925 game. However, the second game on December 12, against Hammond proved to be much closer in score with 13-0 Cardinals win over the Pros.
A few weeks later, when NFL President Joseph Carr learned high school players had been used, he told reporters the 59-0 Cardinals win would be stricken from the record. However, the league had never got around to removing it. The game is still a part of the NFL records. Chris O'Brien was also fined $1,000 by Carr for allowing his team play a game against high schoolers, even though he claimed that he was unaware of the players' status. Ambrose McGuirk was ordered to sell his Milwaukee franchise within 90 days. Folz, for his role, was barred from football for life.

By the summer of 1926, Carr toned down his punishment for each party involved in the scandal. Folz's lifetime ban was lifted, probably to prevent him from going the first American Football League, however he chose not to return to pro football. The $1,000 fine against O'Brien was rescinded, probably since the amount would have put the Cardinals out of business. McGuirk though had already sold his Badgers franchise to Johnny Bryan, a fullback with the Chicago Bears. The Englewood players were also forgiven, and two of them, William Thompson and Charles Richardson, earned high school all-star recognition at the end of the season. Folz reportedly told the high schoolers that the game was a "practice game" and would in no part affect their amateur status.

In early December 1925, the Maroons, with a 9-2 record, were just a half-game behind the Cardinals, who were 9-1-1. At the same time as the Hammond-Chicago game, the Maroons scheduled a game against a team of Notre Dame all-stars that included the famed Four Horsemen. Due to the public interest of the game, it was played in a larger venue, Philadelphia's Shibe Park, not Pottsville's Minersville Park, which was mainly a high school stadium. By playing in Philadelphia, the Maroons were violating territory agreements drawn up by the NFL. Philadelphia was within the boundaries already claimed as the home by the Frankford Yellow Jackets. The Yellow Jackets, after hearing of the planned Notre Dame contest, filed a protest with the NFL. Pottsville's owner said all along that the game was sanctioned by the NFL and that he had received permission to play in Philadelphia from an NFL secretary. However, Carr had the final say and on several occasions, he threatened the Pottsville team with suspension from the league if the game took place. Pottsville played the game anyway and won, 9-7, on a last-minute field goal. The Maroons were fined, tossed from the league, and stripped of their title. They'd also have to cancel the remaining game on their schedule, against the Providence Steam Roller. The team also was ruled ineligible for the league title, which was eventually awarded to the Cardinals.

However, the Pottsville fans still demand to know why Cardinals was awarded the title even though they too were found by Carr to have violated the NFL's rules. According to Bob Carroll of the Professional Football Researchers Association, "The Cardinals didn't defy the league," Carroll said. "Pottsville did. It was a great team, but the owner made a mistake." However, it is still not entirely known if O'Brien knew of the high school players on the Badgers team.

The Pottsville team was reinstated by the NFL in July 1926, mainly because the NFL didn't want to lose Pottsville's skilled group of players to the upstart American Football League. Even though the Cardinals were awarded the 1925 Championship, O'Brien refused to accept it, stating that he didn't want to win the title "that way". However in 1933, as Charles Bidwell took over as the owner of the Cardinals, he began to claim the 1925 title belonged to the Cardinals, overturning O'Brien earlier decision. It is also believed that a Cardinals Football Curse was put upon the Cardinals and Bidwell because of the events surrounding the 1925 Championship. The Cardinals did however, win the NFL Championship in 1947.

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/
Reimann, George (December 3, 1981). "Pro football lived here". Milwaukee Journal. p. 3, part 3.
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 "Green Bay Packers season tickets". Retrieved April 29, 2012.
 "Badgers, Milwaukee's great 'pro' eleven, to meet Racine Sunday". Milwaukee Journal. October 12, 1922. p. 2, final.
 "Milwaukee pro eleven trims Racine Legion". Milwaukee Sentinel. October 16, 1922. p. 7.
 Prigge, Matthew J. (December 28, 2011). "Smash-Mouth Football: The brief, bruising years of the NFL's Milwaukee Badgers". Express Milwaukee. Retrieved April 30, 2013.
 "Bryan Badgers quit pro league". Milwaukee Sentinel. July 17, 1927. p. 1, section 3.
 Maas, Tyler (October 21, 2021). "The short, scandalous story of Milwaukee's NFL team". Milwaukee Record. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
 "Player BIO | Pro Football Hall of Fame Official Site". www.profootballhof.com.

The Story And Significance Joe Carr - The Man Who Established The NFL In The Early Years

Joseph Francis Carr was an American sports executive in American football, baseball, and basketball. He is best known as the president of the National Football League from 1921 until 1939. He was also one of the founders and president of the American Basketball League (ABL) from 1925 to 1927. He was also the promotional director for Minor League Baseball's governing body from 1933 to 1939, leading an expansion of the minor leagues from 12 to 40 leagues operating in 279 cities with 4,200 players and attendance totaling 15,500,000.

A native and lifelong resident of Columbus, Ohio, Carr worked in his early years as a machinist for the Panhandle Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a sports writer for a Columbus newspaper. While working for the Panhandle Division, he founded the Famous Panhandle White Sox baseball team in approximately 1900. He also revived the Columbus Panhandles football team in 1907, manning the team with railroad employees. The Panhandles became one of the inaugural members of the American Professional Football Association (APFA), which was renamed the National Football League (NFL) in 1922.

From 1921 until his death in 1939, Carr served as president of the NFL. He oversaw the growth of the league from is origins, principally in small or medium-sized cities in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois into a national league with teams in major cities. During his tenure, many of the NFL's premier franchises were established, including the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, Philadelphia Eagles, Detroit Lions and Washington Redskins. Called the "Father of Professional Football", Carr was one of the 17 inaugural inductees into Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963.

In 1900, Carr organized a baseball team made up of employees of the railroad's Panhandle Division. The team, known as the Famous Panhandle White Sox, played in the Capital City League and the Saturday Afternoon League in Columbus for several years. According to the Chicago Tribune, Carr's Panhandle club "gained a reputation in semi-professional ranks throughout the country."
In 1907, Carr began a long association with the sport of football. He obtained permission from the Panhandle Athletic Club to reorganize the Columbus Panhandles football team, a team that had been formed in 1900 or 1901 and disbanded in 1904. He secured players from the railroad shop where he worked. The core of Carr's Panhandles teams were six Nesser brothers who worked at the shop and were excellent athletes. To save on expenses, the players, who were railroad employees, used their passes to ride the train for free and practiced during the lunch hour on the railroad yards. Over the next 13 years, the Panhandles became known as a traveling team, as Carr saved money on travel expenses and stadium rental by playing mostly road games. In 1921, the Fort Wayne Journal called the Panhandles the "most renowned professional football aggregation in the country."
Carr also continued his association with professional baseball while running the Panhandles, serving for several years as the secretary/treasurer and later president of the Ohio State League, a minor league baseball circuit.

As early as 1917, Carr was one of the leading advocates of a plan to develop a national professional football league. Sources are not in agreement as to what role, if any, he played in the formation of the American Professional Football Association (APFA), which later became the National Football League. However, once the APFA was formed in 1920, Carr's Panhandles played in the league's inaugural season. The 1920 Panhandles team played only one home game and compiled a 2–7–2 record.
In 1900, Carr organized a baseball team made up of employees of the railroad's Panhandle Division. The team, known as the Famous Panhandle White Sox, played in the Capital City League and the Saturday Afternoon League in Columbus for several years. According to the Chicago Tribune, Carr's Panhandle club "gained a reputation in semi-professional ranks throughout the country."

In 1907, Carr began a long association with the sport of football. He obtained permission from the Panhandle Athletic Club to reorganize the Columbus Panhandles football team, a team that had been formed in 1900 or 1901 and disbanded in 1904. He secured players from the railroad shop where he worked. The core of Carr's Panhandles teams were six Nesser brothers who worked at the shop and were excellent athletes. To save on expenses, the players, who were railroad employees, used their passes to ride the train for free and practiced during the lunch hour on the railroad yards. Over the next 13 years, the Panhandles became known as a traveling team, as Carr saved money on travel expenses and stadium rental by playing mostly road games. In 1921, the Fort Wayne Journal called the Panhandles the "most renowned professional football aggregation in the country." Carr also continued his association with professional baseball while running the Panhandles, serving for several years as the secretary/treasurer and later president of the Ohio State League, a minor league baseball circuit.

As early as 1917, Carr was one of the leading advocates of a plan to develop a national professional football league. Sources are not in agreement as to what role, if any, he played in the formation of the American Professional Football Association (APFA), which later became the National Football League. However, once the APFA was formed in 1920, Carr's Panhandles played in the league's inaugural season. The 1920 Panhandles team played only one home game and compiled a 2–7–2 record.

At the annual meeting of the APFA held in Akron, Ohio, on April 30, 1921, Carr was elected as the organization's president. He was re-elected president in January 1922, and he held that position for 18 years until his death in 1939.

Carr moved the APFA's headquarters to Columbus, drafted a league constitution and by-laws, gave teams territorial rights, developed membership criteria for the franchises, and issued standings for the first time, so that the APFA would have a clear champion. Carr also began cleaning up other problems. By 1925, he introduced a standard player's contract, fashioned after the ones being used in pro baseball, so players couldn't jump from one team to another. Carr also declared that players under contract from the previous season could not be approached by another team unless first declared a free agent, thus introducing the reserve clause to professional football.

In the early 20th century, college football was the dominant version of the sport, and professional teams would sometimes pay college players to play for them, often under assumed names. The practice was considered questionable ethically, resulting in taint being associated with the professional game. In order to remove the taint, and to engender peaceful relations with the college game, Carr made it one of his first goals as league president to impose a strict ban of the use of college football players. Indeed, at the same meeting at which Carr was elected president, the APFA adopted a rule prohibiting teams from using players who had not completed their college course.

Carr enforced the ban with vigor. During the 1921 APFA season, two or three college players from Notre Dame played for the Green Bay Acme Packers under assumed names. The incident resulted in the players losing their amateur status and being barred from further college football participation. In January 1922, Carr responded with the severest possible action, kicking the Packers out of the APFA. A few months later, a group headed by future Hall of Famer Curly Lambeau applied for and was granted the Green Bay franchise.

The 1925 Chicago Cardinals-Milwaukee Badgers scandal followed four years later. In December 1925, four high school students played for the Milwaukee Badgers in a game against the Chicago Cardinals. Carr responded by imposing stiff penalties. The Milwaukee club was fined $500 and given 90 days within which to "dispose of all its club assets at which time the management must retire from the league." The Cardinals were fined $1,000 for their prior knowledge of the violation, and Cardinal player Art Foltz was temporarily banned from the league for life for having "induced the boys to play".

The issue arose again when Red Grange, star halfback of the University of Illinois football team, signed with the Chicago Bears. Grange played his final college game on November 21, signed with the Bears the next day, and appeared in his first professional game on November 26. Two weeks later, Ernie Nevers signed a professional football contract for $50,000. To help ease tensions and promote the professional game in the college circles, Carr established a rule prohibiting college players to sign with professional teams until after their class had graduated. These decisions gave the NFL credibility and much needed support from the colleges and universities from across the country.

Carr faced numerous challenges as the league's president. One of the principal challenges was expanding the league to a national scope. In 1920, 11 of the league's 14 teams were located in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, including franchises in small cities such as Akron, Decatur, Rock Island, Canton, Hammond and Muncie. Carr believed that the league needed to model itself after Major League Baseball with teams in the country's largest cities. In 1922, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League, reflecting Carr's goal of building a professional football league that was national in scope.

Another challenge was fostering stability in the league's membership. In 1921, the APFA had 21 teams. Through the 1920s, NFL franchises were constantly setting up and then folding. From 1920 through 1932, 19 teams lasted one year and 11 teams lasted two years. During his tenure as league president, Carr sought to recruit financially capable owners to operate teams in the nation's largest cities. He oversaw the establishment of successful teams in the nation's largest cities, including the following:
In January 1922, George Halas was granted a franchise to operate the Chicago Bears at Cubs Park. Halas took over the franchise previously known as the Decatur Staleys, which under Halas' leadership had won the APFA championship and begun paying its home games in Chicago in October 1921. Halas acquired ownership of the club from A. E. Staley and remained the owner of the Bears until his death in 1983.

In 1930, he moved the Dayton Triangles to Brooklyn as the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Brooklyn team remained with the NFL through the 1944 season. In 1932, Carr oversaw the founding of the Boston Redskins under the ownership of George Preston Marshall. He also oversaw the move of the Redskins to Washington, D.C., in 1937. In 1933, he added the Philadelphia Eagles to the NFL with Bert Bell as owner. Bell would later follow Carr as NFL president. Also in 1933, Carr added Pittsburgh Steelers (originally called the Pirates) under the ownership of Art Rooney. As a testament to Carr's pursuit of stable ownership, the Rooney family continues to own the Steelers. In 1934, he oversaw the move of the Portsmouth Spartans to Detroit, where they were renamed the Detroit Lions. In 1937, the Cleveland Rams joined the NFL. (The Rams moved to Los Angeles nine years later.)

At the same time, many of the teams in smaller cities either moved or were dissolved altogether. One of the casualties was Carr's original team, the Panhandles. They were renamed the Tigers in 1923, and played for four more seasons before dissolving after the 1926 season. By 1937, the National Football League had reduced its membership to ten teams with nine of the ten teams located in major cities that also had Major League Baseball teams. Only Green Bay, Wisconsin, lacked a major league baseball team. By placing teams in big cities, Carr gave the NFL gained the foundation of stability it needed to survive during the Great Depression.

In 1925, the Pottsville Maroons, a first year NFL team, played an exhibition game against a team of former Notre Dame stars including the famous "Four Horsemen". The game was played at Philadelphia's Shibe Park, which was within the protected territory of the Frankford Yellow Jackets, who were playing a league game just a few miles away at Legion Field. On three occasions prior to the game, Carr reportedly warned the Pottsville management not to play the game, "under all penalties that the league could inflict". Ignoring Carr's warnings, the game went on as scheduled. However, the Maroons stated that Carr knew of the game and had allowed it to take place. For this act, the Pottsville Maroons were fined $500 and had their franchise forfeited; as a result, the team was stripped of their NFL title, which was given to the Chicago Cardinals. However Carr's decision and handling of the situation is still being protested by many sports historians, as well as by the people of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and controversy still lingers about who actually won the 1925 NFL Championship, since the Maroons had earlier beaten Chicago and were actually awarded the league championship before they were suspended.

In 1925, and after rejecting applications submitted by numerous candidates seeking to operate a franchise in New York City, Carr recruited Tim Mara to start a club in New York City known as the New York Giants. The Mara family became one of the leading families in the NFL over the next 80 years, as both Tim Mara and his son, Wellington Mara, having been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Carr was inducted into the inaugural Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963.

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/

Chris Willis (200). The Man Who Built the National Football League:Joe F. Carr. Scarecrow Press, Inc. pp. 8–9. ISBN 0810876701.

 Ancestry.com. Ohio, Births and Christenings Index, 1774-1973 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: "Ohio Births and Christenings, 1821-1962." Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2009, 2011. Index entries derived from digital copies of original and compiled records.

 1880 Census entry for Michael Karr and family. Son Joseph age 7 months, born the prior October. Year: 1880; Census Place: Columbus, Franklin, Ohio; Roll: 1017; Family History Film: 1255017; Page: 411D; Enumeration District: 039; Image: 0164. Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1880 United States Federal Census [database on-line].

 1900 Census entry for Michael Carr and family. Son Joseph F. born October 1879. Year: 1900; Census Place: Columbus Ward 9, Franklin, Ohio; Roll: 1268; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 0077; FHL microfilm: 1241268. Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line].

 Willis 2010, p. 9.

 Willis 2010, p. 14.

 Willis 2010, p. 13.

 Willis 2010, pp. 15-16.

 Census entry for Joseph F. Carr, age 30, employed as a machinist in a railroad shop. Year: 1910; Census Place: Columbus Ward 4, Franklin, Ohio; Roll: T624_1181; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 0077; FHL microfilm: 1375194. Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line].

 Willis 1910, p. 16.

 "Carr, President of Pro Football League, Dead". Chicago Tribune. May 21, 1939. p. Part 2, pages 1–2.

 Some sources indicate that Carr became affiliated with the Panhandles football team in 1904, but Chris Willis in his authoritative biography of Carr found that his involvement with the football club began in 1907.

 Willis 1910, pp. 28-32.

 Willis 2010, p. 33.

 Joe Horrigan (1984). "Joe Carr" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 6 (5–6). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–4.

 "Renowned Columbus Panhandles are Pro's Foes Sunday". Fort Wayne Sentinel. November 8, 1921. p. 10.

 "Columbus Player on the League Meeting Tuesday". The Marion (OH) Star. February 23, 1910. p. 6.

 "Official Schedule of the Ohio State League". Portsmouth (OH) Daily Times. April 23, 1915. p. 14.

 "May Expand To Eight Clubs: President Joe Carr Foresees Fine Season For Ohio State League". The Courier-Journal. January 10, 1916. p. 7.

 "Professional Football: League May Be Organized Including Ohio Cities". The Enquirer, Cincinnati. January 4, 1917. p. 7.

 Willis, 2010, p. 133-134.

 "1920 Columbus Panhandles". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved May 25, 2016.

 "College Players Will Be Barred By Professionals". The Pittsburgh Press. May 2, 1921. p. 21.

 "Football Men Draw Drastic Laws to Protect Collegians". Democrat and Chronicle. January 29, 1922. p. 43.

 "Defends Professional Game: C. F. Carr Says Paid Athletes Are Upholding Football". The Enquirer, Cincinnati. November 3, 1923. p. 14.

 Frank Smith (December 15, 1921). "Straight From the Shoulder". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 16.

 "Packers Dropped From Pro League". The Post-Crescent. January 31, 1922. p. 10.

 "Football Clubs Penalized When Break League Rule". Florence Morning News. December 30, 1925. p. 3.

 ""Red" Plays the Same Old Game". The Decatur Daily Review. November 26, 1925. p. 1.

 "Ernie Nevers to Get $50,000 for 'Pro' Football". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. December 12, 1925. p. 8.

 Chris Willis (2003). "Joe Carr VisionU" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 25 (5). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–3.

 "Pro Football Heads Oust Green Bay". The Republican and Times. February 1, 1922. p. 7.

 "Art Rooney Seeks Pro Football Franchise". The Pittsburgh Press. May 3, 1933. p. 27.

 "American Basketball League Is Formed By Cleveland Meeting". The Huntington (IN) Press. April 26, 1925. p. 6.

 "untitled". The Indianapolis Star. December 24, 1926. p. 16.

 "untitled". The Enquirer, Cincinnati. April 9, 1927. p. 16.

 "Senators Acquire Pitcher Stryker". The Indianapolis Star. January 5, 1931. p. 13.

 "Minor League Head Urges Preps Continue Baseball". The News-Palladium. January 26, 1933. p. 9.

 Jim Emerson (April 30, 1939). "Minor League Baseball Now In Healthiest State -- Carr". The Times, Hammond, Indiana (UP story). p. 39.

 Willis, 2010, p. 49-50.

 Willis, 2010, p. 62.

 Willis, 2010, p. 73.

 "Carr Elected For 10 Years". El Paso Herald-Post. February 10, 1939. p. 11.

 "Grid Mogul Dead: Carr Dies in Columbus". The Pittsburgh Press. May 21, 1939. p. Sports 1.

 "Joe F. Carr Stricken With Heart Attack". The Des Moines Register. September 22, 1937. p. 16.

 "Carr Is Improving". The Enquirer, Cincinnati. October 30, 1937. p. 12.

 "Sportsmen to Attend When Joe Carr, Professional Football President, Is Buried". The Enquirer, Cincinnati. May 23, 1939. p. 18.

 "Trophy Is Proposed To Honor Memory Of Pro Grid Chief". The Enquirer, Cincinnati. June 5, 1939. p. 13.

 "Storck Named President". The Pittsburgh Press. July 23, 1939. p. 16.

 "Helms Foundation Starts Football Hall of Fame". The Arizona Republic. August 3, 1950. p. 26.

 Chester L. Smith (July 27, 1962). "NFL Hall of Fame Designed To Allow For Changing Times". The Pittsburgh Press. p. 20.

 "'Milestone Men' of Pro Game: All-Time Grid 'Dream Backfield' Heads 17 Hall of Fame Nominees". The Daily Courier (UPI story). January 29, 1963. p. 7.

 "Portraits of First Pro Hall Inductees". The Daily Courier (UPI story). January 29, 1963. p. 7.

 "Canton (O.) Awaits Pro Football Hall Opening Saturday". The Pittsburgh Press. September 5, 1963. p. 42.

 George Halas (November 22, 1979). "Halas reminisces about birth of professional football". Kokomo (Ind.) Tribune. p. 28.

 Chris Willis (2010). The Man Who Built the National Football League. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0810876705.

Peterson, Robert W. (1997). Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511913-4.

Roberts, Howard (1953). The Story of Pro Football. New York:Rand McNally and Company.

Who Were The Columbus Panhandles?

In 1920, the American Professional Football Association formed. This organization became the National Football League in 1922. Among its original fourteen teams was the Columbus Panhandles, which would eventually become known as the Columbus Tigers. The team played its home games in Columbus, Ohio. The origin of the name "Panhandles" was the Pennsylvania Railroad route from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Columbus called the "Panhandle Division," once owned by the Panhandle Railroad (formally the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad) in the late 19th century. The team often went by the nickname the "Handles".

Before joining the American Professional Football Association in 1920, the Panhandles had represented Columbus against other non-professional football teams. Joseph Carr, president of the National Football League (1921-1938), formed the team in 1904. They were a part of the Ohio League from 1904 before folding after one season. Three years later, the team tried again and playing the Ohio League from 1907 to 1919, not winning a championship, before joining the American Professional Football Association, the Panhandles only had seven winning seasons. During 1920, the team’s first year in the American Professional Football Association, the Panhandles finished thirteenth. The next two seasons, the squad finished seventeenth and eighteenth respectively, near the bottom of the league.

The Panhandles are credited with playing in the first NFL game against the Dayton Triangles. Joseph Carr, the team's owner from 1907 to 1922, is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his work as NFL president. The earliest existence of the Panhandles was in 1900; the Columbus Press-Post reported Jack Walsh creating the "Panhandle railroad team" consisting of "big hardy railroad men." No other articles in 1900 were written about the Panhandles. A game was scheduled for October 19 of next year, however, no source provided an outcome. In 1901, managed by William Butler of the Ohio Medical University, the Panhandles played two games against the Columbus Barracks, a team consisting of local soldiers. The results were split; the first was a 2–6 loss while the second was a 12–6 win.

Butler left the Panhandles for unknown reasons, and the new manager for the 1902 season was Harry Greenwood. Greenwood placed advertisements in every newspaper he could in order to schedule games against local opponents. His ad read "The Panhandle Athletic Club has organized a football team and would like to play any college, high school or manufacturing team on Saturday or Sunday." As a result, the Panhandles scheduled four games in 1902: three against the Columbus Barracks and one against the Dennison Panhandles, and finished with a 0–3–1 record.

Again, the Panhandles got a new manager for the 1903 season, E. E. Griest. Griest needed help with the team, so he hired Ben Chamberlain to coach the team. After an exhibition game against the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Panhandles won their first game of the season, a 38–0 victory over Neil Avenue Athletic Club. This victory gave the team some unexpected press; the Columbus Citizen wrote the first article praising the team. The Panhandles 1903 season ended with a 5–3 record.

In 1904, Joseph Carr, who was a sports writer for the Ohio State Journal and manager of the railroad's baseball team the Famous Panhandle White Sox, took over the football team. However, the Panhandles didn’t take off and the team played just two games. Carr tried again three years later in 1907. Carr saw the potential for professional football not only to be a great spectator sport but also to become a successful business venture and envisioned pro football being just as popular as Major League Baseball.

One of the first things Carr did when he became the owner of the Panhandles was to exploit one the railroad's policies. Since most of the team's players were employed by the railroad, they could ride the train free of charge. Because of this perk, Carr was able to schedule mostly road games, eliminating the expenses of stadium rental, game promotion, and security for the field. While the team did play the majority of their games on the road as a traveling team, their home games were played at Indianola Park.

The Panhandles adopted an amateur sandlot mentality for their playing style. Since the team was composed mainly of railroad workers, the scenario gave the players limited time to practice and prepare for games. The Panhandles did the majority of their preparation during their lunch breaks. Workers had a one-hour break during a normal workday, and the players on the team usually took the first 15 minutes to eat lunch and used the remaining 45 minutes to practice football. An athletic field behind the railroad shops in Columbus became the team's practice field.

However Carr knew that if his team was to succeed, he needed an attraction. Carr built his team around pro football's most famous family the Nesser Brothers, who were already drawing crowds throughout the country. Carr used the seven Nesser brothers as the backbone of the Panhandles, and the football-playing family remained in that role for nearly 20 years. None of the Nessers attended college, despite many offers. The seven Nesser brothers, who worked as boilermakers for the Pennsylvania Railroad, were exceptionally large and strong for people living in the early 20th century. Frank Nesser was 6-foot 1-inch tall and weighed 235 pounds. They all were exceptionally great athletes for their time. Carr took out ads describing his Panhandles as the toughest professional team in football, led by the famous Nesser brothers. In 1921 the Panhandles line-up included player-coach Ted Nesser and his son Charlie. It was the only time in NFL history a father and son played together on the same team. The Nesser brothers nephew, Ted Hopkins and brother-in-law, John Schneider, also played on the team.

The Panhandles' rosters did not include many former college players or All-Americans, so the athletic field in the railroad yards was the place where the team found out who could play. The team's "dirty" reputation was learned and developed on the railroad yards, not in college stadiums. The press sometimes criticized the Panhandles for their rough play; however, the fans who paid the gate money to attend the games loved it.

Over a span of 20 years, the Panhandles were considered the best pro team in the city of Columbus. The team compiled a 33–5 record against opponents from Columbus, including a 32–1 record over their last 33 games. Between 1914 and 1916, which were seen as best years of the franchise, the Nesser-led team went a combined 22–10–1. The majority of the early pro teams would go out of their way to schedule the Panhandles, as they knew it would be easy to advertise a game featuring the famous Nessers. In 1915, The Panhandles were rumored to have played against the legendary Knute Rockne six times in 1915. According to the team, each time they played Rockne, he was on a different team. This rumor, however, is false; Rockne was too much of a family man to play that much pro football, and Notre Dame had most of its home games during the pro football season.

On August 20, 1920, a meeting attended by representatives of four Ohio League teams which were the Canton Bulldogs, the Cleveland Tigers, the Dayton Triangles, and the Akron Pros—was held. At the meeting, the representatives tentatively agreed to introduce a salary cap for the teams, not to sign college players nor players under contract with another team, and became united as the American Professional Football Conference. They then contacted other major professional teams and invited them to a meeting for September 17. At the meeting in September, held at Ralph Hay's Hupmobile showroom, representatives of the Rock Island Independents, the Muncie Flyers, the Decatur Staleys, the Massillon Tigers, the Chicago Cardinals, the Rochester Jeffersons, and the Hammond Pros were present. The following was achieved: the name of American Professional Football Association was chosen; officers of the league were elected with Jim Thorpe as president; a membership fee of $100 was set; a committee to draft a constitution was named; the secretary of the league was to receive a list of all players used during the season by January 1, 1921; and the trophy that would be awarded to the league champions. During this time, the Panhandles were admitted into the league.

The Panhandles may have played in the first game with two APFA opponents. However, due to not having the games start at a standardized time, and the failure of the future NFL to record the start times, historians can not determine for sure which two teams played in the first league match-up. What is known for a fact is that the first contests between teams listed as APFA members occurred on October 3, 1920. On that date, the Panhandles were defeated by the Dayton Triangles, 14–0, at Triangle Park, and the Rock Island Independents beat the Muncie Flyers, 45–0, in Rock Island

Frank Bacon of the Panhandles is credited with the first punt return for a touchdown.

Following the 1921 season, Carr became the league's new president and renamed the AFPA, the NFL. He then discontinued the Panhandles after the 1922 season because of cost and salary demands. Following the 1922 season, the Panhandles became the Columbus Tigers. In 1923, the Tigers attained their best ranking in the NFL, finishing eighth. During that season multiple players won awards. Rookie end Gus Tebell, who was also the coach, was awarded 1st Team All NFL by the Canton Daily News as well as the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Gus Sonnenberg, Paul Goebel, Jack Sack, and Bob Rapp were all awarded 1st Team All-NFL by the Canton Daily News. Pete Stinchcomb was awarded 2nd Team All-NFL by Collyer's Eye. During this time, and at the time of the team folding, Jerry Corcoran was owner of the Tigers.

The next season, they finished tenth. Boni Petcoff was awarded 1st Team All-NFL by the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Petcoff and Paul Goebel were both awarded 2nd Team All NFL by the Green Bay Press-Gazette, with the latter being awarded 2nd Team All NFL by the Collyer's Eye as well. Then, the Tigers ended their final two seasons 20th and 19th, respectively.

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