Milwaukee Badgers
The Milwaukee Badgers were a professional American football team based in Milwaukee , Wisconsin . They played in the National Football League from 1922 to 1926 . The team played their home games in Athletic Park, known from 1927 as Borchert Field, in northern Milwaukee.
history
The Badgers were founded in 1922 by former players Ambrose McGurk and Joe Plankett . The development was supported by star player Fritz Pollard , who shared the head coach position with Budge Garrett in the first season . Plankett was hired as general manager. The Badgers ended their first season with two wins, four losses and three draws. Noteworthy was defensive tackle John Alexander , who occasionally stood in the backfield and thus became the first outside linebacker in NFL history. After that season, Pollard moved to the Hammond Pros. Led by player and head coach Jimmy Conzelman , the Badgers were able to win seven of their twelve games in the 1923 season and lost only two. After this relatively successful season, however, a sporting decline began.
1925 began the season for the Badgers with five defeats in a row, which is why they stopped playing in the middle of the season. Shortly before the end of the season, the Chicago Cardinals had a 9-2-1 record, which put them in the table behind the Pottsville Maroons . The Cardinals then set two more games to win the championship anyway. One of those games was against the Badgers. However, since they did not have enough players, Cardinals player Art Folz signed several high school players and provided them with false identities. The Cardinals won the game 59-0. However, when NFL commissioner Joe Carr found out about it, he banned Folz for life and the Badgers were fined $ 500. In addition, Badgers owner McGurk was forced to sell the team within 90 days. In 1926, the Badgers were still a team, but they were so burdened by the heavy fine and with only two victories of a poor sporting performance that the Badgers finally stopped playing after the season. Many of the players subsequently joined the Pittsburgh Pirates . Head coach during the last two games was player-coach John Bryan, who also played for the competing Cardinals at the same time.
Members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
| Surname | position | Time with the Badgers |
|---|---|---|
| Jimmy Conzelman | Quarterback / Head Coach | 1922-1924 |
| John McNally | Running back | 1925-1926 |
| Fritz Pollard | Running back | 1922 |
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Milwaukee’s NFL history a blip in Packers' rise. FOX Sports, accessed June 28, 2018 .
- ^ John M. Carroll: Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in Racial Advancement . University of Illinois Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-252-06799-0 , pp. 151-155 .
- ^ The day Milwaukee almost killed the NFL. Milwaukee Journal Setinel, accessed June 28, 2018 .
- ^ John Maxymuk: NFL Head Coaches: A Biographical Dictionary, 1920-2011 . McFarland, 2012, ISBN 978-0-7864-9295-4 , pp. 359 .