Team photo of the 1920 Decatur Staleys, including Hall of Fame center George Trafton (far left, front row) and future University of Iowa coach Burt Ingwersen (third from left, front row).
By Don Doxsie
It all began 100 years ago in a Huppmobile showroom in Canton, Ohio.
Four men representing football teams aligned with Ohio-based businesses met there in August 1920 to talk about possibly forging some sort of organization. About a month later, on Sept. 17, they were joined by more men who had teams in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and New York.
Other football leagues had been attempted before, but the 13 teams that banded together to form what they called the American Professional Football Association (APFA) — including Hay’s Canton Bulldogs, the Decatur Staleys and the Rock Island Independents — hoped that their organization would last at least a few years. In fact, the Davenport Times reported that the Sept. 17 meeting in Canton “is one of the most far-reaching in the development of the game ever taken.’’
The men at that meeting laid out rules to prevent players from jumping from one team to another on a whim, agreed not to use players who still had college eligibility remaining and made plans to crown a champion. Each team agreed to pay a $100 membership fee but that was mostly for show. No one actually paid it. The league somehow managed to stagger through that season and was back with nearly twice as many teams in 1921. In 1922, they renamed their little alliance the National Football League (NFL).
A century later, it is a worldwide obsession for sports enthusiasts, with annual revenues of about $8 billion. It long ago became unquestionably the most popular sports venture in the United States. The day that its championship game is played has become a de facto national holiday.
And Iowans were a big part of its early development and evolution. There wasn’t anyone from Iowa in those early gatherings in Canton and there never has been an NFL team based in the state. But hundreds of native Iowans have played in the league, dozens have been among its brightest stars and one of the league’s most impactful executives was raised in Davenport.
The APFA included about a dozen players from Iowa in that first year and many of them played a role in the league’s very first game.
Just nine days after the teams’ representatives finalized their agreement, the Rock Island Independents hosted the St. Paul Ideals in a game on Sept. 26 at Douglas Park in Rock Island, Ill., little more than a mile from the Iowa border. St. Paul was not part of the new league so it essentially was an exhibition game, but 800 fans turned out in rainy conditions to watch the Indees, in their new Kelly green uniforms, romp to a 48-0 victory in what is regarded as the first NFL game ever played.
The undisputed star of the contest was Rock Island halfback Ray “Waddy’’ Kuehl, who grew up in Davenport and attended both St. Ambrose College and Dubuque University. Kuehl broke four tackles in returning an interception 82 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter, then galloped 27 yards for another score in the final period.
“The general playing of Waddy Kuehl … was the outstanding individual feature of the game,’’ the Rock Island Argus reported, adding “Kuehl displayed rare promise of developing into one of the best backfield men in the pro ranks.’’
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