Early History
Pottsville, about 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia, was the center of Pennsylvania's soft coal region. Several towns in the area had amateur or semi-pro football teams early in the 20th century.
After World War I, Pottsville developed a particularly strong team that's believed to have originated under the sponsorship of the local Yorkville Hose Company. Three businessmen took over the team in 1922 and began hiring some players from outside the area.
There are two stories about how the team got its nickname or, rather, the maroon jerseys that inspired the nickname. One is that the team manager, Dr. John T. Striegel, went to a sporting goods store shortly before the 1924 season, said he wanted new jerseys and the color didn't matter. Maroon happened to be easily available, so that's what he got. The other story is that two of its stars in 1925 were Jack Ernst and Charlie Berry, both from Lafayette College, whose team wore maroon jerseys. In any event, the team has come down in history as the Pottsville Maroons.
In 1924, Pottsville had a 12-1-1 record, winning all of its games in the Anthracite League. The tie came against the Frankford Yellowjackets, who finished third in the NFL that season with an 11-2-1 record and another NFL team inflicted the one loss, by a score of 10-7. Pottsville fans decided their team could and should compete in the NFL, and they began taking up a collection to buy a franchise. Dr. Striegel then stepped in to buy the team for $1,500. He went to the NFL's pre-season meeting in August of 1925 to pay the $500 franchise fee and post the required $1,200 guarantee.
As they entered the NFL in 1925, the Maroons had thoroughly outgrown their roots as a town team. There were only three local players on the club; the others were all imports and several had been college stars, including Berry, Ernst, and Walter French of Army. Even one of the locals, Fungy Lebengood, was something of an anomaly, because he'd played at Penn State before returning to Pottsville.
Dr. Striegel also brought in a full-time coach, Dick Rauch, who had been an assistant to Hugo Bezdek at Penn State and to Dick Harlow at Colgate. At the time, most NFL coaches, such as George Halas of the Bears, Curly Lambeau of the Packers, and Guy Chamberlin of Frankford, were players. Although Rauch was on the roster as a backup guard, his primary job was coaching.
Rauch held daily practices, which was also unusual in those days. The typical NFL team practiced only two or three times a week, and players from outside the team's area often didn't come into town until Friday or Saturday. But Rauch required that all his players had to live in or near Pottsville so they wouldn't miss any practices.
The Maroons were ready to challenge for the NFL championship. And their challenge was to create a controversy that still lingers, more than three-quarters of a century later.
1925: The "Stolen" Championship
Some knowledge of how the league operated in those days is necessary to understand the controversy that arose near the end of the 1925 season. The NFL didn't have an official schedule. To challenge for the championship, a team was simply required to play games against at least eight other NFL teams, and a schedule showing those games had to be approved at the August meeting.
However, that wasn't necessarily the complete schedule for the season. The original schedule for 1925 ended on December 6, with the provision that games played through December 20 would count in the standings. That extra two weeks was tacked on mainly to allow the league's better teams, which presumably attracted larger crowds, to play some additional games and bring in some more money, after the losing teams had given up for the year.
Early in December, the Maroons had a 9-2-0 record and were considered the best team in the east. However, the Chicago Cardinals had an even better record, at 9-1-1.
They weren't originally scheduled to play one another, but a game between the Maroons and Cardinals had become a natural late-season matchup, since it would help to settle the championship question and, just as important, it should mean a big gate for both teams. They agreed to play at Comiskey Park on December 6.
Meanwhile, Dr. Striegel had added another game to the schedule: On December 12, the Maroons were to play a team of Notre Dame all-stars at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Even though it was a non-league contest, that turned out to be a fateful game for Pottsville's championship hopes.
It was cold, windy, and snowy in Chicago on December 6, drastically cutting attendance. That sort of weather often resulted in a scoreless tie. But the Maroons stunned the few Chicago fans who showed up by cruising to an easy 21-7 win. Suddenly, Pottsville was in first place. Not for long, as it turned out. In fact, a week later, Pottsville wasn't even in the NFL any more.
League President Joe Carr had warned Dr. Striegel not to play the December 12 game in Shibe Park, because that was within the territory of the Frankford Yellow Jackets. Carr specifically warned that, if the game went on, Pottsville would be thrown out of the league for violating the provision against playing in another team's territory without that team's permission.
But Dr. Striegel was undoubtedly in a financial bind. He'd invested a lot of money in the team up front, and he was burdened with a very large payroll. The big game in Chicago hadn't brought in the revenue he'd expected, so he decided to go ahead with the game against the Notre Dame all-star team.
The Yellow Jackets, who were located in Philadelphia, had scheduled a game the same day against the Cleveland Bulldogs on their own field. Normally, they would have drawn a crowd of 15,000 or more, but only about 8,000 should up, and another 8,000 went to the Pottsville game.
Pottsville won its game, 9-7, but lost much more. Carr immediately sent a telegram to Dr. Striegel, informing him that the team had been fined $500 and that the franchise had been forfeited for invading Frankford's territory without permission.
The Maroons had another league game scheduled the following day, against the Providence Steam Roller, but Carr told Providence management not to play that game, since Pottsville was no longer in the league. A substitute game with Frankford was arranged, instead.
Further complicating the situation, Red Grange had joined the Chicago Bears as soon as his college football career ended at Illinois. Grange was drawing enormous crowds for the time. Cardinal owner Chris O'Brien, like Dr. Striegel, had financial problems and he wanted a season-ending game against the Bears and Grange. The best way to get that, he reasoned, was to take over first place again.
So the Cardinals had added two games to their schedule. Just four days after their loss to Pottsville, they walloped the Milwaukee Badgers, 59-0. The Badgers had actually disbanded for the season and the team that played the Cardinals was a patchwork lineup that included some high school players, which was to have further repercussions.
On the same day that Pottsville was playing the Notre Dame all-stars, the Cardinals beat the Hammond Pros, 10-0. That gave them an 11-2-1 record and an .846 winning percentage, just ahead of Pottsville's 10-2-0 record and .833 percentage.
But percentages really didn't matter any more. As we've seen, Pottsville was no longer in the league and therefore no longer entitled to win the championship. Even with their 9-2-1 record, the Cardinals would have won the 1925 title.
The End in Boston
Pottsville supporters continue to campaign for the "stolen" 1925 title. In 1963, NFL owners voted, 12-2, against changing the 1925 standings. But in 2003 the league again agreed to look into the matter. A decision was expected at the mid-season owner's meeting on October 29, but none was announced.
Pottsville was re-admitted to the league in 1926, and Red Grange was the primary reason. Grange and his manager, C. C. Pyle, wanted an NFL franchise in New York. But that would have infringed on the territorial rights of the New York Giants. They were turned down, so they decided to start their own league.
To keep independent teams from joining Grange's American Football League, the NFL hastily expanded to 22 franchises. The Maroons were one of the teams added. They had another good season, going 12-2-2, but that was good enough only for third place, behind Frankford and the Bears.
In 1927, Pottsville lost several of its stars, and others were growing older. The team slipped to 5-8-0 that year, then to 2-8-0 in 1928. Dr. Stiegel sold the franchise to an ownership group in Boston, where they played as the Bulldogs in 1929. Late that season, the Boston Bulldogs played a "home game" in Pottsville as a farewell to the fans. And, just a little later, the Bulldogs bade farewell to the NFL after compiling a modest 4-4-0 record and even more modest attendance figures.
Because the Washington Redskins began in 1932 as the Boston Braves, some Pottsville backers, with help from a few writers, have suggested that the Redskins descended from the Maroons by way of the Boston Bulldogs. But it's not true. The 1932 Boston franchise had no relationship to the 1929 Bulldogs.