The Chicago Athletic Association was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team, based in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. The club itself had been organized in 1890, and in 1892 it formed a football team. The team was built around veterans of Chicago's University Club football team.

History

The University Club football team was the initial first-rate team produced by the city, because

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

and Northwestern were still years away from being competitive, and

Amos Alonzo Stagg Amos Alonzo Stagg (August 16, 1862 – March 17, 1965) was an American athlete and college coach in multiple sports, primarily American football. He served as the head football coach at the International YMCA Training School (now called Springfie ...

would not form the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

's program until 1892. Chicago society therefore needed a team to represent the city in annual

Thanksgiving Day Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden a ...

games, and from 1888 to 1891 they created the University Club team and had it compete against either

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

each year. The University Club team was made up of recent college graduates, whose families were from Chicago but who were products of east coast football programs. In 1892, the Chicago A. A. football team not only took over the primer football role of the University Club team. It built a program of playing a season-long schedule of university and club teams. That team included at least eight names from the 1891 University Club team, and added

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

halfback star

Pudge Heffelfinger William Walter "Pudge" Heffelfinger (December 20, 1867 – April 2, 1954), also spelled Hafelfinger, was an American football player and coach. He is considered the first athlete to play American football professionally, having been paid to pl ...

to the line-up. The 1893 team featured Heffelfinger, Yale, Laurie Bliss, and five players from the University Club. In 1893 at the Chicago's World Fair, the Chicago A. A. played one of the first night football games against

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

(the earliest being on September 28, 1892, between Mansfield State Normal and

Wyoming Seminary , motto_translation = Truth, beauty, and goodness , address = 201 North Sprague Avenue , location = , region = , city = Kingston , county = Luzerne , st ...

). Chicago won the game 14–0. The game lasted only 40 minutes, compared to the normal 90 minutes. The exterior of the Chicago Athletic Association building (1893) is based on the

Doge's Palace The Doge's Palace ( it, Palazzo Ducale; vec, Pałaso Dogal) is a palace built in Venetian Gothic style, and one of the main landmarks of the city of Venice in northern Italy. The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the supreme auth ...

in Venice.

Notable players

In 1894,

Jesse Van Doozer Jesse Peck Van Doozer (October 12, 1871 – September 23, 1929) was an American football player and coach. He was the fourth head football coach at Northwestern University, serving for one season, in 1897, and compiling a record of 5–3. Van Dooz ...

dropped out of Northwestern to play with the Chicago Athletic Association. Alvin Culver, who graduated that same year did the same.

Knowlton Ames Knowlton Lyman "Snake" Ames (May 27, 1868 – December 23, 1931) was an American football player and coach. He played for Princeton University from 1886 to 1889, and the Chicago Athletic Association, in 1892. Playing for the Princeton Tigers, Am ...

, a former All-American from Princeton, also played on the team in 1892.

Sport Donnelly Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

also played with the Chicago Athletic Association in 1892. In a game against the

New York Cresants New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

, the Cresants refused to take field unless Donnelly was barred from the Chicago lineup because of some alleged rough tactics he used the year before. Chicago benched Donnelly, and his absence resulted in a tie. Donnelly then became enraged and refused to rejoin the team in Chicago.

, who was also playing for Chicago, joined Donnelly in the walk-out. After this game he was once again recruited by the

Allegheny Athletic Association The Allegheny Athletic Association was an athletic club that fielded the first ever professional American football player and later the first fully professional football team. The organization was founded in 1890 as a regional athletic club in A ...

, to play for them. A few weeks later, Donnelly and Heffelfinger were professional players with that team. However, by 1896, Donnelly was once again with Chicago as a coach.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* * * *{{cite journal, title=A is for Amateur, publisher=The Professional Football Researchers Association, pages=1–6, url=http://www.profootballresearchers.org/Articles/A_Amateur.pdf, author=PFRA Research, access-date=2009-12-10, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100929091136/http://profootballresearchers.org/Articles/A_Amateur.pdf, archive-date=2010-09-29, url-status=dead
A History of Football at Northwestern: The First Twenty Years: 1882–1902
1892 establishments in Illinois History of Illinois Defunct American football teams Early professional American football teams in Illinois American football teams in Chicago Athletic Club football teams and seasons