The McKeesport Olympics were a professional football team from McKeesport, Pennsylvania from 1896 until around 1940. The Olympics were considered one of the top football teams in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

from 1910 until 1919. The Olympics played against many of the teams that later formed 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 ...

. These teams included the Buffalo All-Americans,

Rochester Jeffersons The Rochester Jeffersons from Rochester, New York played from 1898 to 1925, including play in the National Football League from 1920 to 1925. History Formed as an amateur outfit by a rag-tag group of Rochester-area teenagers after the turn of t ...

and the Canton Bulldogs. The primary reason the Olympics never joined the NFL during the early era was the state of Pennsylvania's

blue laws Blue laws, also known as Sunday laws, Sunday trade laws and Sunday closing laws, are laws restricting or banning certain activities on specified days, usually Sundays in the western world. The laws were adopted originally for religious reasons, ...

which prevented football from being played on Sunday; as a result, no Pennsylvania team joined the NFL (which played most of its games on Sundays) until 1924, though because most teams were available to play on Saturdays, they were able to schedule exhibition games against NFL teams fairly easily. Why the Olympics never joined after that was unclear. In 1929, the Olympics were crowned as Sandlot Qrid Champs with Art Rooneys team, Rooneys Majestics, placing second. The team also played against a current NFL team, the Pittsburgh Pirates (renamed the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1940) twice. The first game between the two clubs was held on October 31, 1938. The Pirates, led by

Byron White Byron "Whizzer" Raymond White (June 8, 1917 April 15, 2002) was an American professional football player and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1962 until his retirement in 1993. Born and raised in Colo ...

, won that game 21-6. However, almost a year later, on October 4, 1939, in McKeesport, while the Pirates won that game too, the semi-pro Olympics held them to a much closer score, 9-6. The Olympics also played against several strong clubs that never made it into the NFL. These teams included the

Youngstown Patricians The Youngstown Patricians were a semi-professional football team based in Youngstown, Ohio.McClellan (1998), p. 98. In the 1910s, the team briefly held the professional football championship and established itself as a fierce rival of more exper ...

and the

Shelby Blues The Shelby Blues were an American football team based in Shelby, Ohio. The team played in the Ohio League from 1900 to 1919. In 1920, when the Ohio League became the APFA (now known as the National Football League), the Blues did not join but conti ...

. However, the Olympics main rivals were the

Pitcairn Quakers The Pitcairn Quakers were a professional American football team from Pitcairn, Pennsylvania, United States. The team played as an independent from 1904 until 1920 and featured the best players in the community as well as some famous college-leve ...

, another strong team from the Pittsburgh-area. In 1919 the Olympics had won the first game of the two-game series, 3-0 and had employed the entire

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive F ...

team just for that game. However, Pitcairn would win the second game due to a last minute field goal by Paul Rupp. The team disappears from the records shortly after the 1939 contests and likely shut down, as many professional football teams and leagues did, due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

References

* * * * * * * * {{Pittsburgh sports American football teams established in 1896 American football teams disestablished in 1940 Early professional American football teams in Pennsylvania Defunct Pittsburgh sports teams Defunct American football teams in Pennsylvania 1896 establishments in Pennsylvania 1940 disestablishments in Pennsylvania