The Elyria Athletics were 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

Elyria, Ohio Elyria ( ) is a city in the Greater Cleveland metropolitan statistical area and the county seat of Lorain County, Ohio, United States, located at the forks of the Black River in Northeast Ohio 23 miles southwest of Cleveland. As of the 2020 cen ...

. They played in the

Ohio League The Ohio League was an informal and loose association of American football clubs active between 1902 and 1919 that competed for the Ohio Independent Championship (OIC). As the name implied, its teams were mostly based in Ohio. It is the direct pr ...

until 1919, and then became an independent team. The team won the 1912 Ohio League championship, with an upset win over

Peggy Parratt George Watson "Peggy" Parratt (March 21, 1883 – January 3, 1959) was a professional football player who played in the "Ohio League" prior to it becoming a part of the National Football League. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Parratt played quarterb ...

Akron Indians The Akron Pros were a professional football team that played in Akron, Ohio from 1908 to 1926. The team originated in 1908 as a semi-pro team named the Akron Indians, but later became Akron Pros in 1920 as the team set out to become a charter mem ...

.PFRA Research (n.d.), p. 3 However, the team declined to join the American Professional Football Association, later known as the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

, in 1920. Still the Athletics did continue to play APFA teams, including a Thanksgiving game against the

Columbus Panhandles The Columbus Panhandles were a professional American football team based in Columbus, Ohio. The club was founded in 1901 by workers at the Panhandle shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad. They were a part of the Ohio League from 1904 before foldi ...

. The team folded after the 1920 season.

Notes

References

* Ohio League teams Defunct American football teams in Ohio Elyria, Ohio {{Ohio-sport-team-stub