November 30, 1922: Chicago Football's Thanksgiving Brawl

Paddy Driscoll

November 30, 1922: It is Thanksgiving Day in Chicago. After 2 years under the name of the American Professional Football Association, this is the 1st season the league operates under the name of the National Football League. And, after playing in Decatur, Illinois as the Decatur Staleys in 1920, and as the Chicago Staleys in 1921, this is the 1st year that the NFL's flagship franchise uses its familiar name: The Chicago Bears.

Note: Until 1940, Thanksgiving Day was always celebrated on the last Thursday in November, regardless of whether that was the 4th Thursday or the 5th. Since then, it has been celebrated on the 4th Thursday in November, regardless of whether there was a 5th.

The Bears played their home games at Cubs Park, on the North Side. In 1926, it was renamed Wrigley Field. The other team in the city, the Chicago Cardinals, played on the South Side, previously at Normal Field. But, for this season, they moved into the much larger Comiskey Park, home of baseball's Chicago White Sox.

George Halas was 27 years old. He was the Bears' end on offense and defense. By the standards of the time, he was a very good player. He was also their head coach. He was their general manager. And he was their owner. When the Pro Football Hall of Fame was established in 1963, he was the first man elected. His line had 2 other future Hall-of-Famers, center George Trafton and tackle Ed Healey. The offense was led by quarterback Joey Sternaman and his brother, halfback Ed "Dutch" Sternaman.

The 1922 Bears. George Halas is 5th from the right.

The Cardinals were also coached by a man still at the height of his playing career, John "Paddy" Driscoll. The position of quarterback wasn't what it would become over the next 20 years, but he was a good passer. He was a good runner. And he was the best kicker in the game. Being good at all 3, he was called a "triple threat." He might have been the best player in the game. Also in the backfield were the brothers Arnold and Ralph Horween.

(While baseball has the concept of "the five-tool player," meaning one who can hit for average, hit for power, run, catch and throw; football has never gone beyond the term "triple threat." I suppose one who can do it all would run, throw, catch, block, tackle and kick, making him a "six-tool player." But since the early 1950s, when players began playing only on offense or only on defense, going from "single-platoon football" to "double-platoon football," it hasn't really been applicable.)

Halas was a graduate of the University of Illinois; Driscoll, of Northwestern University. Eventually, those schools would be thought of as arch-rivals, but, until 1940, the University of Chicago still had a football team, and usually a good one, so UC was Northwestern's big rival. Driscoll and Halas had been teammates on the Great Lakes Naval Training Station team out of the Chicago area, winning the 1919 Rose Bowl.

(Due to the manpower drain of World War I, military bases fielded sports teams that played college teams. This would be done again in World War II. The Great Lakes station had a baseball team led by pitcher Bob Feller, and was good enough to be called "the 17th Major League Team.")

The Cardinals won their 1st 6 games, with their defense allowing an average of only 2.7 points per game. Then they played back-to-back games against the league's best team, the Canton Bulldogs, and lost both. So they needed to prove themselves, and, as the saying goes, they were loaded for Bear. At that point, the Bears had also lost to the Bulldogs and to nobody else: The Bears were 8-1 going into the game; the Cardinals, 6-2.

The Cardinals had been averaging 6,000 fans per game at Charlie Comiskey's South Side ballpark. A crowd of 14,000 fans attended the Thanksgiving game against the Bears. This is an indication of where pro football was in its early years: Anybody calling the NFL "major league" was on shaky ground. But those 14,000 fans got plenty of bang for their buck.

As the unidentified reporter covering the game for Chicago Herald-Examiner wrote -- and I have not changed a word, or the spelling, or the grammar:

Chicago's Cardinals carved the Chicago turkey yesterday, gobbled all the white meat, stuffing and left the Bears the neck, wing, gizzard and a bunch of black eyes. The struggle between the post-grad teams of north and south sides…ended with the score of 6-0 in favor of the south siders, after a battle which included a half-riot, two fist-fights, and finished peacefully enough with the clanging pf patrol wagons bringing the reserves."

Halas himself, in his autobiography Halas on Halas, told the story:

What happened was this: Paddy Driscoll made a good run around end, reaching our 20. Joe Sternaman and I thought that must not be allowed to happen again. On the next play, Driscoll set off with the ball. Joey and I brought him down with all the force we could muster, which was considerable. Paddy was down but not out. He pulled himself to his feet, wobbled toward Joey and started pummeling him with both fists. That is when the thugs came out. So did reserve players. So did fans from both stands. The police came out, too, wielding sticks and blowing whistles and shouting. In time, in quite a time, order was restored.

George Halas, in his playing days.

Photo obviously colorized.

The referee threw Driscoll out of the game. Halas, recovering his sense of sportsmanship, asked the ref to reconsider. Hugh Fullerton of the Chicago Tribune wrote:

The Bears…offered to waive the rules and let Driscoll return to play. The officials declined, and during the argument another fight started suddenly with three of the Cardinals swinging at Halas, who was knocked flat with a burly Cardinal riding him.

On December 10, the teams would play each other again, also at Comiskey, which was larger than Cubs Park, and thus guaranteed more gate receipts. (In spite of the benefits of having the home field, Halas had his priorities.) The Cards won this one, too, 9-0.

Driscoll spent the last 28 years of his life with the Bears as an assistant coach (1941–55), head coach (1956–57), and later as the director of the Bears' research and planning unit (the position that would, today, be called their director of scouting, 1958-68).

The Cardinals won the NFL Championship in 1925, under controversial circumstances. But Halas built a much stronger team that dominated the early 1930s, and another that dominated the 1940s. The Cardinals won another Championship in 1947, and reached the NFL Championship Game again in 1948.

But as television became big, Halas cultivated the networks, and Cardinal owner Violet Bidwill Wolfner didn't. In 1960, the Cardinals gave up, and moved to St. Louis, leaving Chicago to the Bears, eventually moving to Arizona in 1988. While Bears vs. Cardinals was once a very rough rivalry, it no longer feels like one, even though the Phoenix area is often a target for retirees from the Midwest, effectively being to Chicago what South Florida is to New York.

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November 30, 1922, like all Thanksgiving Days, was a Thursday. There were 4 other games played in the NFL that day, each of them, more or less, a local rivalry:

* The Buffalo All-Americans beat the Rochester Jeffersons, 21-0 at the Bay Street Ball Grounds in Rochester, New York.

* The Canton Bulldogs beat the Akron Pros, 14-0 at Lakeside Park in Canton, Ohio.

* The Oorang Indians beat the Columbus Panhandles, 18-6 at Neil Park in Columbus, Ohio. The Indians were owned by Walter Lingo, who owned the Oorang Kennel in LaRue, Ohio, outside Marion, the hometown of the man who was then the President of the United States, Warren G. Harding. It was a team staffed entirely of Native Americans, with Jim Thorpe as player-coach. His brother Jack Thorpe also played for them. But this game was an anomaly: Aside from the Thorpes, they weren't professional grade, going 3-6 in 1922 and 1-10 in 1923, before folding.

* And the Racine Legion beat the Milwaukee Badgers, 3-0 at Horlick Park in Racine, Wisconsin.

Not one of these teams played after 1929.

Among the college football games played that Thanksgiving Day were some games that are now thought of as familiar rivalries, and some others that aren't:

* Colgate beat Columbia, 59-6 at South Field in Upper Manhattan. Columbia were the only New York Tri-State Area team playing on the day. Most of the Area teams had finished their seasons the preceding Saturday.

* Cornell beat the University of Pennsylvania, 9-0 at a newly-rebuilt Franklin Field that still stands today.

* Washington & Lee beat Johns Hopkins, 14-0 at Homewood Field in Baltimore.

* North Carolina beat Virginia, 10-7 at Lambeth Field in Charlottesville, Virginia.

* The University of Richmond beat the College of William & Mary, 13-3 at the unimaginatively-named Stadium Field in Richmond, Virginia.

* Virginia Polytechnic Institute (the school usually called Virginia Tech) beat Virginia Military Institute -- VPI over VMI -- 7-3 at the Fair Grounds in Roanoke, Virginia.

* Maryland beat North Carolina State, 7-6 at Riddick Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina.

* Georgia Tech beat Alabama Tech (renamed Auburn University in 1960), 14-6 at Grant Field in Atlanta.

* Tennessee beat Kentucky, 14-7 at Shields-Watkins Field (since expanded into the huge Neyland Stadium) in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* Alabama beat Mississippi State, 59-0 at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama.

* Oklahoma A&M College beat the University of Arkansas, 13-0 at Andrew's Field in Fort Smith, Arkansas -- but on the Oklahoma State Line, so it was kind of a "neutral site game." A&M became Oklahoma State University in 1957.

* Louisiana State University (LSU) beat Tulane, 25-14 at State Field in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* Texas A&M beat Texas, 14-7 at Clark Field in Austin, Texas.

* The University of Pittsburgh beat Penn State, 14-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* West Virginia beat Washington & Jefferson, 14-0 at WVU Athletic Field in Morgantown, West Virginia. WVU went undefeated, though tied by Washington & Lee (not to be confused with Washington & Jefferson). Though the Rose Bowl was the only "bowl game" played then that survives today, there were other warm-weather end-of-season invitational games. On Christmas Day, WVU beat Gonzaga, 21-13, in the San Diego East-West Christmas Classic, at Balboa Stadium, later to be the AFL home of the San Diego Chargers.

* Missouri beat Kansas, 9-7 at Rollins Field in Columbia, Missouri.

* Kansas State beat Texas Christian University (TCU), 45-0 at Memorial Stadium in Manhattan, Kansas.

* Nebraska beat Notre Dame, 14-6. This was the last game the Cornhuskers played at Nebraska Field in Lincoln. The next season, they moved into Memorial Stadium, where they still play, albeit in a vastly expanded form.

* The University of Wyoming beat Brigham Young University (BYU), 13-0 at the Campus Athletic Grounds in Laramie, Wyoming. It was the only game that Wyoming won all season, finishing 1-8. BYU finished 1-5, having beaten only Wyoming, on November 14. So each team's only win was against the other.

* Utah beat Utah State, 14-0 at Cummings Field in Salt Lake City, Utah.

* The University of Southern California beat Washington State, 41-3 at the newly-opened Rose Bowl stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, California. They returned on New Year's Day, and beat Penn State in the 1923 Rose Bowl.

* Oregon and Washington played to a 3-3 tie at Husky Stadium in Seattle.