The Rochester Jeffersons from

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

played from 1898 to 1925, including play in 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 ...

from 1920 to 1925.

History

Formed as an amateur outfit by a rag-tag group of Rochester-area teenagers after the turn of the 20th century (a 1925 report has the team being founded in 1898), the team became known as the Jeffersons in reference to the locale of their playing field on Jefferson Avenue. Around 1908 a teenager by the name of

Leo Lyons Leo David William Lyons (born 30 November 1943) is an English musician, who was most notably the bassist of the blues rock band Ten Years After. Biography Leo Lyons was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire in November 1943 and became a professi ...

joined with the club as a player, and within two years began to manage, finance, and promote the team on a full-time basis. For their first decade of their existence the "Jeffs" played other amateur and semi-pro teams from the upstate

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

area such as the ''Rochester Scalpers'' and the ''Oxfords''. From 1914 to 1917, the team grew stronger with opponents from Buffalo and Syracuse. In 1916, they were the New York State champions. By 1917, the Jeffs had started to look past state borders not only for big-name opponents, but for big-name talent as well. At the end of October 1917, Lyons managed to secure a match against the country's greatest team, the

Canton Bulldogs The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and the American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football Leag ...

, who had the legendary

Jim Thorpe James Francis Thorpe ( Sac and Fox (Sauk): ''Wa-Tho-Huk'', translated as "Bright Path"; May 22 or 28, 1887March 28, 1953) was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was the first Native ...

as their star attraction. Thorpe's squad crushed the Jeffs 41–0, but the audacity of challenging such a superior team to a match won Lyons and his club a bit of notoriety. In 1920, Leo Lyons was at the

Hupmobile Hupmobile was an automobile built from 1909 through 1939 by the Hupp Motor Car Company of Detroit. The prototype was developed in 1908. History Founding In 1909, Bobby Hupp co-founded Hupp Motor Car Company, with Charles Hastings, for ...

showroom in

Canton, Ohio Canton () is a city in and the county seat of Stark County, Ohio. It is located approximately south of Cleveland and south of Akron in Northeast Ohio. The city lies on the edge of Ohio's extensive Amish country, particularly in Holmes and ...

to become an original member of the newly formed ''

American Professional Football Association 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 maj ...

'', which would be known in two years as the ''

''. The NFL recognizes that 1920 meeting as the founding of the National Football League. As it turned out, Rochester was more interested in its thriving

sandlot football Street football, also known as backyard football or sandlot football, is an amateur variant of American football primarily played informal ...

circuit than in professional football. The Jeffersons had attempted to recruit some of the country's best college players, but the fans would rather see local boys play, and, by 1922, the Jeffersons' on-field product was enough to annihilate local teams (thus discouraging fans from coming out as blowouts were assured) but, after some initial modest success, not good enough to compete with the rest of the NFL (thus also discouraging fans from coming out as the Jeffersons were almost assured to lose). As a result, the teams attendance suffered badly, with the local semi-pro teams drawing much better. Without a consistent draw at the gate, the team's finances, play on the field and ability to draw star talent likewise suffered, and the team finished its last four seasons without a single league win. (This was not to say that the team went totally winless in this span; in a 1924 contest, the Jeffersons defeated the

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 Boston ...

of the

Anthracite League The Anthracite League, also referred to as the Anthracite Association, was a short-lived American football minor league comprising teams based in coal-mining towns in eastern Pennsylvania (hence the league name's reference to anthracite coal). Th ...

; the Maroons, the class of their league, moved to the NFL in 1925, when it contended for the NFL title.) In 1920,

John Barsha John F. Barsha (born Abraham Barshofsky, December 25, 1898 – February 18, 1976), was a Russian-American professional American football fullback who played for the Rochester Jeffersons of the American Professional Football Association (APFA) and ...

played for the team. From 1921-24, two-time First Team All Pro

Doc Alexander Joseph A. "Doc" Alexander (April 1, 1897 – September 12, 1975) was an American football player, who played center, tackle, guard, and end, and coach in the National Football League. Alexander was born in Silver Creek, New York, the son of R ...

played for the team. After an unsuccessful last-ditch effort to lure

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 ...

to Rochester (he instead signed with the

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...

), the team suspended operations after the

1925 NFL season The 1925 NFL season was the sixth regular season (NFL), regular season of the National Football League. Five new teams entered the league: New York Giants, Detroit Panthers (NFL), Detroit Panthers, Pottsville Maroons, Providence Steam Roller, a ...

; by this point, the team had been losing money (to the point where Lyons' house had been

foreclosed Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mortg ...

upon because of his dumping of virtually all his assets into the team) and had been 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 can ...

for two seasons (1924 and 1925). The team remained technically suspended for 1926 and 1927, but allowed its franchise to expire in 1928.Crippen, Kenneth (2009-07-29)
The Rochester Jeffersons take to the national stage, part 2
Professional Football Researchers Association. Retrieved 2010-11-09. Lyons stayed on with the NFL as an unofficial historian after the Jeffersons' folding.

Notable players

(born Abraham Barshofsky; 1898–1976) *

Elmer Oliphant Elmer Quillen "Catchy" or "Ollie" Oliphant (July 9, 1892 – July 3, 1975) was an American football, basketball and track player and coach. He is one of the great scorers in college football history, credited with a total of 435 points in his coll ...

1920 edition of the team

Season records

References

External links

* Carroll, Bob
THE TOWN THAT HATED PRO FOOTBALL
Pro Football Researchers Association ''Coffin Corner'': Vol. III, 1981.
The Official Rochester Jeffersons Website
* {{Rochester Sports American football teams established in 1898 American football teams disestablished in 1928 Defunct National Football League teams

Jeffersons ''The Jeffersons'' is an American sitcom television series that was broadcast on CBS from January 18, 1975, to July 2, 1985, lasting 11 seasons and a total of List of The Jeffersons episodes, 253 episodes. ''The Jeffersons'' is one of the longe ...

Defunct American football teams in New York (state) New York Pro Football League teams 1898 establishments in New York (state) 1928 disestablishments in New York (state)