December 12, 1920: The 1st NFL Champions

Fritz Pollard (left) and Paul Robeson

December 12, 1920: The Akron Pros and the Decatur Staleys play to a 0-0 tie at Cubs Park in Chicago. This was the last game of the season for each team. The Pros finished with a record of 8-0-3, while the Staleys finished 10-1-2. This made the Pros the Champions of the American Professional Football Association in its 1st season. In 1922, the APFA would be renamed the National Football League. So the Akron Pros were the 1st-ever NFL Champions.

The Pros also had the 1st black head coach in any major league sport -- if, that is, the APFA could be defined as "major league." It would be many years before the NFL could be taken seriously as such. Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard coached the Pros, and was also their star end, making the 1st All-Pro team. Also making it from Akron were fullback Andrew "Rip" King, guards Alf Cobb and Brad Tomlin, and end Bob Nash.

The Pros, playing their home games at League Park in Akron, Ohio, didn't lose a game. The blemishes on their record were ties: Against the Cleveland Tigers, at the Cleveland Indians' League Park on November 7; against the Buffalo All-Americans, at Olympic Park in Buffalo on December 5; and this game against the Staleys.

Not on the Pros in this season, but joining them for 1921, was Paul Robeson. A star at Rutgers, he impressed Walter Camp, the former Yale coach who created the concept of the All-America team, to the point where Camp called him the best defensive end he'd ever seen. When Camp made his all-time All-America team in 1920, he named Robeson to it.

But Robeson had his mind on bigger things than professional sports. He played for the Pros in 1921, and moved with Pollard to the Milwaukee Badgers in 1922. Robeson then became a lawyer, a singer, an actor, and perhaps the biggest civil rights advocate of his time.

Camp called Pollard, a Chicago native who starred at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, "one of the greatest runners these eyes have ever seen," moved around football a bit, last playing in 1926 and last coaching in 1928. Without him, the Pros folded after the 1926 season. He died in 1986, and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005.

The Staleys were a "company team" (what British soccer fans would call a "works side"), working for the A.E. Staley Starch Company of Decatur, Illinois. The team was also coached by one of its ends, who was also a co-owner: George Halas, who had played at the University of Illinois. Their membership on the 1st All-Pro team included Halas, end Guy Chamberlin, tackles High Blacklock and Bert Ingwerson, guard Ross Petty, center George Trafton, and halfback Ed Sternaman.

The 1st game for this historic sports franchise came on October 3, against the Moline Universal Tractors, a team that never entered the NFL, at Staley Field in Decatur. In front of an estimate 1,500 fans, most of whom had no idea that history was being made, the Staleys won, 20-0. The 1st game they played against an actual NFL team was on October 17, at Douglas Park in Rock Island, Illinois, one of the "Quad Cities" on the Mississippi River in Illinois and Iowa. They beat the Rock Island Independents, 7-0.

The Staleys returned to Rock Island on November 7, and played the Indys to a 0-0 tie. What cost them the title was a tight schedule, what English soccer fans would call "fixture congestion." On November 21, they had a relatively easy 28-7 win at Staley Field over the Hammond Pros, based in Hammond, Indiana, just over the State Line from Chicago.

Just 4 days later, on Thanksgiving Day, they played the Chicago Tigers, one of the new league's worst teams, at Cubs Park on the North Side, and only won, 6-0. Just 4 days after that, the Staleys returned to Chicago, to Normal Park on the South Side, and lost to the Chicago Cardinals, 7-6. They beat the Racine Cardinals the next week, but then closed the season with the tie with Akron.

Right behind these 2 teams were the Buffalo All-Americans. They went 9-1-1, having tied the Pros, and lost to the Canton Bulldogs, 3-0 at home on November 21. That cost them the APFA title. It was the 1st professional heartbreak for football in Buffalo. It would not be the last. Strangely, no All-Americans were selected for the All-Pro team.

In 1921, the Staleys would move to Chicago full-time. In 1922, in line with their landlords, the Chicago Cubs, they became the Chicago Bears, and Halas bought the Staley ownership out, becoming sole owner. He would play for the team until 1929, coach them on and off until 1968, and own them until his death in 1983. The Bears still wear his initials, GSH, on their sleeves. In 1963, he became the 1st man elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In 1926, Cubs Park was renamed Wrigley Field. The Bears remained there until 1970, moving to Soldier Field for 1971, because Wrigley was too small to meet the new NFL attendance requirements. The fact that Monday Night Football had been started, and Wrigley didn't have lights until 1988, had nothing to do with it.

The Bears' arch-rivals, the Green Bay Packers, began play in 1919, and joined the APFA/NFL in 1921. Like the Bears, they began as a company team, for the Indian Packing Company, a meatpacking company in Green Bay, Wisconsin. However, it would be many years before the Packers became established as the Bears' arch-rivals: From 1922 to 1933, the Bears would play the crosstown Cardinals on Thanksgiving; from 1934 to 1937, the Bears played the Detroit Lions on the day; and from 1951 to 1963, the Packers played the Lions on Thanksgiving.

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December 12, 1920 was a Sunday. This was the only game played in the APFA that day. Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season didn't start for another 12 days. So this was the only score on this historic day.