The Chicago Bears are an NFL original. Well, sort of. During their first year of play, 1920 the inaugural year of the NFL (known as the American Professional Football Association before adopting the name – National Football League), the Bears were actually known as the Decatur Staley’s. And, much to the surprise of most football fans, even those in Chicago, George Halas was not the founder of the Staley’s. While Papa Bear controlled the Staley’s in 1920, the Staley’s were actually the brainchild of A.E. Staley who owned a starch company in Decatur, Illinois and created the team to help boost company morale. What a team it was! In 1919, their only year of play, the Staley’s lost their first game, 3-0, and then went on an incredible streak in which they won their final 6 games and outscored their opponents over that time 294-10. But, Staley said he was losing too much money on the team and wound up selling it to Halas. But, while they were a company team playing in an industrial league, they certainly made a name for themselves winning a mythical Illinois State Championship in the lone year of play. Their star was their quarterback, Charlie Dressen, the same guy who would win a World Series as a member of MLB’s New York Giants and who later became the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. In fact, Dressen might best be remembered for being the Dodgers manager in 1947 when Jackie Robinson made his MLB debut. Chris Serb, a terrific writer and researcher, is also the author of the book, “War Football: World War I and the Birth of the NFL.” On this episode of SFH, Chris brings his wealth of knowledge about the Staley’s, which he discovered while doing research for his book, to the show for a wonderful discussion about a team that pre-dates the start of the National Football League.
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