OTD: 100th Anniversary Red Grange-Chicago Bears Tour: Washington Game

LOOKING BACK

By Chris Willis

The Grange-Bears tour finally left New York. It headed south to the nation’s capital.

After a day off the Grange-Bears tour was back on the field, but only after an impromptu visit to the White House. On the morning of the game, Red got a unique request. Illinois Senator William McKinley, who was a graduate of Illinois and had seen many Illini home football games of Red’s, and William Holaday, a U.S. House of Representative from Illinois (who also played a little college football at Penn College and Missouri) and who received his Law Degree from Illinois, invited the redhead to the White House to meet President Calvin Coolidge. Red quickly said yes. Joining Red would be George Halas, “Doc” Coolley, and Byron Moore. Red, dressed in a dark winter overcoat with quarter-size buttons, a fedora, a suit and tie with a striped scarf around his neck, wanted to look like an average twenty-two-year-old. He allowed his good friend Coolley to wear his trademark raccoon fur coat. 

The foursome was picked up by the Senator and transported from the Lee House to the White House. After posing for a few photos outside the famous building the whole group went inside. Red recalled meeting the President: “I remember our game in Washington very well. Senator McKinley called George Halas and asked us if we’d like to meet the President. And, of course, we were flattered and thrilled to have the opportunity to meet President Coolidge And the Senator picked us up and took us to the White House. And I remember so well as if it was yesterday. He said ‘Mr. President, this is George Halas and Red Grange with the Chicago Bears.’ I remember President Coolidge saying, ‘Young men, I’m very happy to meet you, I always did like animal acts.”

A few minutes later the entire group left the White House. In newspapers across the country, it was reported that Red had meet the President. In every article it just mentioned that he briefly met Coolidge, who shook his hand, asked him “where he was from?” and wished him good luck. 

It was obvious that the President didn’t know who Red was, since he had to ask where he was from. Most sports fans and citizens knew that the redhead was from Wheaton. This meeting became a banquet story told by Red and Halas for decades. 

Now it was onto the game. The Washington game was set up between Pyle and local sports promoter Al Stern who agreed to give “Cash-and-Carry” 60 percent of the gate. 

ickets were sold for $2.50 (general admission), $3.85 (grandstands) and $5.50 (box seats) at Griffith Stadium and Spalding’s Sporting Goods. 

Stern and Pyle also agreed to offer five thousand tickets at $1.00 to prep, high school and college fans. 

Advertisements in the local papers announced, “Red Grange at Griffith Stadium,” with no mention of the Chicago Bears or the Washington All-Stars.

   

As for the team Stern organized it was a rather rough and tough group of players. Because of the haste Stern was able to only sign a few quality pro football players, including Jack Hagerty, a former Georgetown star who played for the New York Giants (1926-1932), fullback Roy Mackert (Maryland), halfbacks Ira McKee (Navy) and Les Hawes (Dartmouth) who also played for the Frankford Yellow Jackets. 

Most of the roster was semi-pro players from the area. “I honestly believe that we’ll give the Bears a real battle,” shouted Ira McKee with confidence.

The Bears were starting to feel the strain of playing several games in a row as tackle Ed Healey and center George Trafton would sit out with nagging knee injuries. But Red would put in his allotted time to please the fans. Most contracts drawn up by Pyle had him obligated to play at least 25 minutes. In the press box would be the usual suspects of Peglar, MacNamara, and Frick, but this time they would be joined by local writers Ross Conklin of the Washington Times, Frank Young and Walter Haight of the Washington Post, as well as Arthur Chamberlin of the New York World Service. 

The crowd was very disappointing for both teams. It also didn’t help that the game was scheduled on a Tuesday afternoon (2:00 p.m. kickoff). Newspapers announced as many as 15,000 and as low as 5,000, but the crowd most likely was 5,000. Most spectators sat in the cheap seats paying $1.00 in the southeast corner of Griffith Stadium. The first half became a slug-fest with no scoring. Red did nothing to separate himself from the other players. “When he retired early in the second quarter, probably for the first time in his young life he was greeted with several raspberries,” wrote the Washington Post. The Bears then suddenly started to make some plays in the second half this time on defense as Duke Hanny (30 yards) and Johnny Bryan (65 yards) returned interceptions for touchdowns. The game ended with Dutch Sternaman and Washington guard Nick Busch staging a boxing match on the field- both were ejected by referee Harmon. The Bears won 19-0.

Red struggled mightily against the Washington team. The Washington Post credited Red with 11 carries for just 8 yards; 0 for 3 on passes, no punt returners, 3 tackles on defense and made one of two extra-point kicks. 

The local press wasn’t kind to the redhead. Ross Conklin of the Washington Times wrote “Red Shows Nothing Here: Other Players Far Outshine Chicago Bears’ Big Drawing Card,” and called him a “bust.” Walter Haight of the Washington Post wrote “Red a Sheep in Bear’s Clothing: Merely ‘Puts in Time’”. The Post recap had three photos, including an image of Red being tackled hard and one sitting on the bench in between Jim McMillian and Don Murry. Frank Young, also of the Post, wrote about the prospects of pro football in Washington: “True, Grange himself proved quite a disappointment when the game actually staged, but fans could not anticipate this in advance and the fact that such a small number showed up, proves conclusively that, no matter what the attraction, as long as it is pro football, Washington fans are not interested.” 

 The Grange tour had proved that the pro football was a game that could entertain and be a business- games in Chicago, Philadelphia and New York proved that. The Nation’s Capital would be slow in recognizing the popularity of the pro game. Not ever stop on the tour would spread the NFL’s propaganda. Washington wouldn’t embrace the NFL until 1937 when the Redskins arrived in town. Maybe if the game was played on the weekend like the other big cities the crowd would’ve been bigger. After the game Al Stern reported that Red and company collected $6,752.52 while the gate brought in between $11,000 and $12,000. He claimed he broke even. As for Red he was beat up. Not only was he dead tired he had suffered a bruised nose, a badly hurt mouth and a wrenched left arm. At 7:00 p.m. the tour boarded another train to head back north for Boston.