The Los Angeles Wildcats (also reported in various media as Pacific Coast Wildcats, Los Angeles Wilson Wildcats and Wilson's Wildcats) was a

traveling team Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical locations. Travel can be done by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip. Travel c ...

of the first American Football League that was not based in its nominal home city but 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 ...

(it trained in Rock Island). Coached by Jim Clark, the team was designed to be a showcase for

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

star back George “Wildcat” Wilson. Compared to most traveling teams in

professional football In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...

, the Wildcats were successful, compiling a 6–6–2 record in the only season of the team's – and the league's – existence.

Origin

The existence of the Wildcats began with the 1926 formation of the American Football League by

C. C. Pyle Charles C. Pyle (March 26, 1882 – February 3, 1939), often called Cash and Carry Pyle, was a Champaign–Urbana, Illinois theater owner and sports agent who represented American football star Red Grange and French tennis player Suzanne Lenglen ...

, a sports agent who represented star

back The human back, also called the dorsum, is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral column runs ...

Red Grange Harold Edward "Red" Grange (June 13, 1903 – January 28, 1991), nicknamed "the Galloping Ghost" and "the Wheaton Iceman", was an American football halfback for the University of Illinois, the Chicago Bears, and the short-lived New York Yankees ...

. Pyle's application for a

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 ...

franchise in New York was rejected because

Tim Mara Timothy James Mara (July 29, 1887 – February 16, 1959) was the founding owner of the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL).''Wellington, the Maras, the Giants, and the City of New York'', Carlo DeVito, Triumph Books, 2006, pp ...

, owner of the New York Giants, objected to Pyle's proposed intrusion into the Giants’ territory. Armed with a five-year lease at

Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx, New York City. It is the home field of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, and New York City FC of Major League Soccer. Opened in April 2009, the stadium replaced the origi ...

, Pyle subsequently announced the formation of the American Football League as a showcase for his client. The league was also a showcase for another Pyle client who was an All-American on the

West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...

Wildcat Wilson George Schly "Wildcat" Wilson (September 6, 1901 – December 27, 1963) was an American football player. After earning All-American honors in 1925 as a halfback for the University of Washington, he played professionally, including three season ...

. Because of the limitations of train (or bus) travel, the National Football League extended only from the Atlantic coast westward to

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

, and Pyle wanted to tap the talent of college football players along the Pacific. His solution was novel (and one that the more established NFL would copy quickly): establish a traveling team nominally representing

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and headed by Wilson. The team would be based in

Moline, Illinois Moline ( ) is a city located in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in 2020, it is the largest city in Rock Island County. Moline is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring East Moline, Illinois, East M ...

(home of the Rock Island Independents, which jumped from the NFL to the AFL) and would have no home stadium. Virtually all of the players of the team attended colleges sited west of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

. The team was owned by

and

, who also owned another AFL team (the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

) and had stock in a third (the

Chicago Bulls The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago. The Bulls compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded on January ...

). The three teams and league champion Philadelphia Quakers were the only four teams (of the original nine) still in existence at the end of league play on December 12, 1926. Upon the completion of a

barnstorming Barnstorming was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks individually or in groups that were called flying circuses. Devised to "impress people with the skill of pilots and the sturdiness of planes," it became popular in t ...

tour, the Wildcats closed up shop after only one year of existence.

American Football League

As the team began league play, it became evident that Wilson was not the only weapon that the Wildcats had. Coach Jim Clark had the versatile Mal Bross for either rushing and receiving duties; ends

Ray Flaherty Raymond Paul Flaherty (September 1, 1903 – July 19, 1994) was an American football player and coach in the National Football League, and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was part of three List of NFL champions (1920–69), NFL Champ ...

and Jim Lawson dutifully caught passes from Wilson, while Duke Morrison ran when Wilson did not take the ball. Furthermore, no fewer than four Wildcats handled the kicking job at one time or another. Originally scheduled to play only 10 games, the Wildcats played additional contests as last-minute “fill-in” opponents as one team after another in the American Football League folded or otherwise left the league. Immediately after tying the

in Comiskey Park, the team trekked to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

’s

Maple Leaf Stadium Maple Leaf Stadium was a jewel box-style baseball stadium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located at the foot of Bathurst Street on the south side of Lake Shore Boulevard (formerly Fleet Street). It was built in 1926 by Lol Solman for his Toronto M ...

for a game with the

, who also played games on back-to-back days. The Yankees won, 29–0.1926 American Football League from Elias Sports Bureau and Pro Football Research Association Linescore Committee
Schedules and scores of the teams in the 1926 American Football League
– “Ghosts of the Gridiron” It was not the first weekend in which the Wildcats played on consecutive days (they actually did so on three other weekends); their

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 ...

contest with the Bulls (a scoreless tie) was their third in a five-day stretch. By the end of October, the

Cleveland Panthers The Cleveland Panthers were a professional American football team. They were an independent team founded in 1919 from the remains of the Youngstown Patricians. The Panthers played, with various degrees of success, continuously from 1919 and event ...

and

Newark Bears The Newark Bears were an American minor league professional baseball team based in Newark, New Jersey. They were a member of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball and, later, the Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball. T ...

had closed up shop; the Brooklyn Horsemen merged with their NFL cousins, the

Brooklyn Lions The Brooklyn Lions were a National Football League team that played in the 1926 NFL season. The team was formed as the league's counter-move to the first American Football League, which enfranchised a team called the Brooklyn Horsemen, a profess ...

, in early November, and the Boston Bulldogs, a team that was subsidized by Pyle's money, dropped out. In the four weeks following the departure of Cleveland and the exit of Boston, scheduling “holes” were filled by the two traveling teams of the AFL, the Wildcats and the Rock Island Independents, until November 21, when the Independents – charter members of both the NFL and the AFL – joined the exodus from the younger league by calling it quits after a 3–0 loss to the Bulls. With only two weeks remaining in the season, the Wildcats, Yankees, and Bulls – three teams owned (or co-owned) by Pyle and Grange – and the Philadelphia Quakers were the last teams remaining, with only the Quakers reporting a profit. Only two official AFL games were left to play in December 1926. On the 5th, the Wildcats shut out the Bulls 5–0 on a frozen field in Comiskey Park, while the Bulls hosted the Yankees the following Sunday as the visiting team wrapped up the 1926 season of the American Football League with a 7–3 victory. At the same time, in a snowstorm at the Polo Grounds, the league champion Quakers were crushed, 31–0, by the New York Giants in a game that marked the end of the American Football League, December 12, 1926.

After the first AFL

Two days after the end of the 1926 season (and of the AFL), the Wildcats and the New York Yankees started a series of exhibition games as the two Pyle-owned teams went on a

tour of the American South and

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

. The two teams competed in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

(a 7–7 draw),

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

(a 14–3 Yankees win),

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

(a 17-14 Yankees win), Beaumont, Texas (a 34–0 Wildcats win), and

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(a 20–14 Yankees win) before traveling to California for games against the independent Hollywood Generals (whom the Wildcats defeated, 26–7, in Wrigley Field of Los Angeles) and the NFL's traveling team, the

Los Angeles Buccaneers The Los Angeles Buccaneers were a traveling team in the National Football League during the 1926 season, ostensibly representing the city of Los Angeles, California. Like the Los Angeles Wildcats of the first American Football League, the team n ...

(the Wildcats won, 17–0, in a game played in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

). With the dissolution of the American Football League (Pyle's Yankees were preparing to join the NFL under an arrangement with New York Giants owner Tim Mara, who acquired the assets of the defunct Brooklyn Horsemen), the Wildcats ceased to exist after the game in San Francisco. Wildcat Wilson joined the

Providence Steam Roller The Providence Steam Rollers (also referred to as the Providence Steam Roller, the Providence Steamroller and the Providence Steamrollers) were a professional American football team based in Providence, Rhode Island in the National Football Leagu ...

for the 1927 NFL season. Wilson was not the only 1926 Wildcat to join an NFL roster for the 1927 season:David S. Neft, Richard M. Cohen, and Rick Korch, ''The Football Encyclopedia: The Complete History of Professional Football, From 1892 to the Present'' (St. Martin’s Press 1994), * Mal Bross –

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...

* Ted Bucklin –

Chicago Cardinals The professional American football team now known as the Arizona Cardinals previously played in Chicago, Illinois, as the Chicago Cardinals from 1898 to 1959 before relocating to St. Louis, Missouri, for the 1960 through 1987 seasons. Roots ...

* Walden Erickson –

Pottsville Maroons The Pottsville Maroons were an American football team based in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, in the northeastern part of the state. Founded in 1920, they played in the National Football League (NFL) from 1925 to 1928. In 1929 they relocated to Bosto ...

–

* Ted Illman – Chicago Cardinals * Jim Lawson – New York Yankees * Ray Stephens – New York Yankees *

John Vesser John Martin Vesser (October 1, 1900 – March 20, 1996) was an American football player, coach of football and basketball, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Idaho State University for nine seasons during ...

– Chicago Cardinals Flaherty continued to play until 1935 (taking 1930 off to teach college football), then became head coach of the

Washington Redskins The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...

in 1937. He became a member of the

Pro Football Hall of Fame The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, , the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coa ...

in 1976.

Origin

American Football League

After the first AFL

References

See also