Jimmy Conzelman
November 29, 1928: On this Thanksgiving Day, the people of Rhode Island have something to be thankful for: For the 1st time since the Providence Grays were baseball's World Champions in 1884, 44 years earlier, they have a World Championship team.
NOTE: Until 1939, America celebrated Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday in November, regardless of whether it was the 4th Thursday or the 5th. From 1940 onward, it's been the 4th Thursday in November, whether it's the last one or not.
The Providence Steam Roller were established in 1916, by men working for the Providence Journal newspaper: Sports editor Charles Coppen and sportswriter Pearce Johnson. Three men shared in the ownership and management of the team: Coppen, Judge James Dooley, and sports promoter Peter Laudati. Johnson served as what would now be called the general manager.
The team soon became a regional power. In 1924, its schedule featured several NFL teams. The Steam Rollers posted a 3–2–1 record against those teams. The 1924 Steam Roller then went on to win the mythical "undisputed championship of the Northeast." The team's success that season was enough to make Steam Rollers management and fans start thinking about playing in the NFL.
They joined for the 1925 season, moving from their former home of Kinsley Park to a 10,000-seat cycling stadium called the Cycledrome, which wasn't quite big enough to hold a regulation football field, and so the corners of one end zone were cut off. Laudrati had both of these stadiums built. They went 6-5-1, then 5-7-1 in 1926.
The Providence Cycledrome
They hired star back Jimmy Conzelman, still only 29 years old and still playing, as head coach for 1927, and he improved the team to 8-5-1. Their other players included back Gus Sonnenberg, who went on to greater fame as a professional wrestler; and back George "Wildcat" Wilson, who had starred at the University of Washington.
They began the 1928 season by beating the football team named the New York Yankees, 20-7 at the Cycledrome. They lost at home to the Frankford Yellow Jackets, 10-6. They did not lose again that season: They beat the Dayton Triangles at home, 28-0; the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, 12-6; the Pottsville Maroons at home, 13-6; and the Detroit Wolverines at home, 7-0.
With Pennsylvania having "blue laws" prohibiting the playing of professional sports on Sundays, the Yellow Jackets would often schedule home-and-home series on back-to-back days: In Philadelphia on a Saturday, and then against the same team, at their stadium, on Sunday. On November 17, the Steam Roller went into Frankford Stadium in Northeast Philadelphia, and came away with a 6-6 tie. On November 18, at the Cycledrome, they beat the Yellow Jackets 6-0.
The following Sunday, they beat the football version of the New York Giants at home, 16-0. They were set to play the Maroons at Minersville Park in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Jack Cronin rushed for a touchdown in the 2nd quarter, and that was it: Providence 7, Pottsville 0. With the Yellow Jackets already having lost 3 games, this game the Steam Roller the NFL Championship.
They closed the season on December 2, at home, playing the Green Bay Packers to a 7-7 tie. They finished 8-1-2, for a winning percentage of .889. The Yellow Jackets were 11-3-2, at .786; while the Wolverines were 7-2-1, at .778. (At the time, ties were not counted in winning percentage. If they had been, it would have been Providence .818, Frankford .750, Detroit .750, so it wouldn't have made a difference.)
Under the rules that began in 1933, Providence would have won the Eastern Division, and Detroit the Western Division, and they would have played each other in the NFL Championship Game. This being an even-numbered year, the Eastern Division winners would have hosted, so the Steam Roller would have done so. But this was still the pre-title game, single-division NFL, so the Steam Roller won the title outright.
But they couldn't hold it together. Conzelman could only guide them to 4-6-2 in 1929, and 6-4-1 in 1930. He left, and they finished 4-4-3 in 1931. Their last home game came on another Thanksgiving, November 26, a 38-7 loss to the Packers; and their last game, on November 29, was a 0-0 tie against the Giants at the Polo Grounds. The owners then turned the franchise back over to the NFL.
Providence has never gotten another NFL team. In 1971, the Boston Patriots changed their name to the New England Patriots, and moved to Foxborough, Massachusetts. It's almost exactly halfway between downtown Boston and downtown Providence. The Patriots have won 6 Super Bowls, but they do not claim New England's 1st NFL Championship, that of the 1928 Providence Steam Roller, as their own.
The Providence Journal, a.k.a. the ProJo, remains the largest-circulating newspaper in Rhode Island. A Peter Pan Bus Terminal now stands on the site of the Cycledrome.
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November 29, 1928, being Thanksgiving, was a Thursday. There were 3 other NFL games that Thanksgiving Day:
* The Frankford Yellow Jackets beat the Green Bay Packers, 2-0 at Frankford Stadium in Philadelphia.
* The Detroit Wolverines beat the Dayton Triangles, 33-0 at Navin Field (the eventual Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.
* And the Chicago Bears beat the Chicago Cardinals, 34-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
There were also 24 college football games on this day, but most of them were not the more familiar rivalries that would develop:
* Brown beat Colgate, 16-13 at Brown Stadium in Providence, Rhode Island.
* New York University (NYU) welcomed Oregon State to Yankee Stadium, and lost, 25-13 in front of a crowd of 40,000.
* Syracuse beat Columbia, 14-6 at Baker Field in Manhattan.
* The University of Pennsylvania beat Cornell, 49-0 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
* The University of Pittsburgh beat Penn State, 26-0 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh.
* Maryland beat Johns Hopkins, 26-6 at Municipal Stadium in Baltimore.
* West Virginia beat Washington & Jefferson, 14-0 at the old Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia.
* Virginia Military Institute (VMI) beat Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI, now usually called Virginia Tech), 16-6 at Maher Field in Roanoke, Virginia.
* North Carolina beat Virginia, 24-20 at Lambeth Field in Charlottesville, Virginia.
* North Carolina State beat South Carolina, 18-7 at Riddick Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina.
* Mercer beat Wake Forest, 14-12 at Memorial Stadium in Asheville, North Carolina.
* Clemson beat Furman, 27-12 at Manly Field in Greenville, South Carolina. I guess Furman's home field wasn't manly enough.
* Georgia Tech beat Alabama Polytechnic (now Auburn University), 51-0 at Grant Field in Atlanta.
* Florida beat Washington & Lee University, 60-6 at Fairfield Stadium in Jacksonville.
* Alabama beat Georgia, 19-0 at Denny Stadium (now Bryant-Denny Stadium) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
* Kentucky and Tennessee played to a tie, 0-0 at Shields-Watkins Field (now Neyland Stadium) in Knoxville, Tennessee.
* Arkansas beat Southwestern College, 73-0 at Russwood Park in Memphis. Southwestern, in Memphis, is now known as Rhodes College, and competes at the NCAA Division III level.
* Mississippi (Ole Miss) beat Mississippi State, 20-19 at Scott Field (now Davis Wade Stadium) in Starkville, Mississippi.
* Louisiana State University (LSU) and Tulane played to a tie, 0-0 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.
* Oklahoma beat Missouri, 14-0 at Owen Field (now Gaylord Family Memorial Stadium) in Norman, Oklahoma.
* The University of Tulsa beat Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State), 31-0 at McNulty Park in Tulsa,
Oklahoma.
* Texas Christian University (TCU) beat Southern Methodist University (SMU), 15-6 at Ownby Stadium in Dallas.
* Texas beat Texas A&M, 19-0 at Memorial Stadium in Austin.
* Baylor beat Rice, 25-14 at Rice Field in Houston.
* The University of Detroit beat Georgetown, 33-13 at Titan Stadium in Detroit.
* Marquette beat Iowa State, 6-0 at Marquette Stadium in Milwaukee.
* Drake beat Creighton, 6-0 at Creighton Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska.
* Nebraska beat Kansas State, 8-0 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln.
* The University of Colorado beat the University of Denver, 7-0 at Hilltop Stadium in Denver.
* New Mexico beat Colorado Mines, 32-13 at University Field in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
* Utah beat Utah A&M (now Utah State), 20-0 at Ute Stadium in Salt Lake City.
* Oregon beat UCLA, 26-6 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
* Montana beat Gonzaga, 7-0 at Gonzaga Stadium in Spokane, Washington.
* And Washington beat Washington State, 6-0 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.
The NBA hadn't been founded yet, but there were 3 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-1 at the old Madison Square Garden, which was then new.
* The Montreal Canadiens and the Pittsburgh Pirates played to a tie, 1-1 at the Montreal Forum. The Pirates folded in 1930.
* And the Montreal Maroons and the Detroit Cougars played to a tie, 1-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Cougars became the Falcons in 1930, and the Red Wings in 1932. The Maroons folded in 1938.
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