by Thomas Best
Last Week, I took you on a narrative tour of the Professional Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Specifically, I spoke about one of the more interesting now defunct NFL teams—and one with a local connection—the Rock Island Independents here in Illinois.
As I briefly described “the Independents,” you learned that they played on Douglas Field, which still stands today. In 1920, they also played the Muncie, IN, Flyers in what is said to have been one of the first two games ever played in the NFL. Rock Island won 45-0.
But what else is there to learn?
This team actually began their professional football days in 1907. Under the leadership of their founder, Demetrius Clements, they lacked athletic club group or corporate sponsorship—thus they gained the name, “the Independents.” In the years just before their unification with the NFL, they played an increasingly challenging schedule. The 1910 season may have been one of their best as they not only went undefeated, but shutout their opponents in five of their contests. For unknown reasons, Rock Island shut down for the 1911 season, but reunited next year. This season, they did even better defensively. In eight contests, they never allowed a score.
In 1917, the Independents enhanced their status by scheduling two games against the powerful Minneapolis Marines. Although losing both games at home, one contest before a crowd of 6,400 on November 4 (losing just 7-3), the Independent’s abilities and fan appeal became more widely known.
But their greatest year ever was undoubtedly in 1919 when they were crowned the “Champions of the U.S.A.” In that season, owner Walter Flanigan hired not only Rube Ursella of the powerhouse Minneapolis Marines to serve as a player-coach, but attracted other skilled players from Minneapolis to join the squad. They lost only one game all season—that being to the Hammond, IN, Pros, then led by George Halas. To show off their prowess, they challenged the Canton, OH, team, winner of the Ohio League. Flanigan offered Canton a $5,000 upfront guarantee if they would come to play a “championship” game in Rock Island. But Canton, led then by their famous player-manager Jim Thorpe, turned them down, thinking Flanigan could not honor the $5,000 cash payout. Therefore, with the Independents having already having defeated the Ohio League’s Columbus Panhandles 49-0 and the same Canton squad 17-0, the conclusion of many fans was that Rock Island was the true “national champion.” No doubt, such success, led the early NFL organizational leaders in Canton, to invite the Independents to play with the best. And Flanigan, the Independents earlier one-time player, coach, and executive was called upon to help write what became the NFL’s first constitution.
During their years from 1920 onward, Rock Island’s record was continually impressive—records such as 4-2-1 were common. Of their six total losses in these years, five were suffered to George Halas of the Decatur Staleys, then Chicago Staleys, and eventually the Chicago Bears. Only in one season, 1923, did the team not post a winning record. Their overall NFL record was 26–14–9.
Oh, and by the way, they did defeat, much to my sadness, the Green Bay Packers twice in 1921 and 1922, the second time at Douglas Field, 19-14, in front of 3,500 fans. However, they also beat the Chicago Bears once 7-6 at Wrigley Field before a crowd of 7,000 fans.
In 1926, the Independents, then with a recently signed legend, Elmer Layden, one of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, decided to join Red Grange’s effort to leave the NFL for greener pastures. Establishing a rival league, the American Football League, unfortunately lasted but one season. Who knows what may have happened to them if they had stayed in the NFL? And as final note here, then playing that year on Browning Field in Moline, during their 1926 season in the AFL, they beat a football team named the New York Yankees in Yankee stadium, 35-0 before 35,000 spectators—no doubt their biggest attended game ever.
Were there any football greats on these teams? Yes, indeed. There were Pro Football Hall of Fame alumni Jimmy Conzelman (1920–1921), Joe Guyon (1924), Ed Healey (1920–1922)—later a star for the Bears, Duke Slater (1922-1926), and Jim Thorpe (1924–1925), who was also the league’s first president.
Jim Thorpe, considered “the World’s Greatest Athlete,” joined the Independents in 1924 and led them to a 5–2–2 record. After the 1925 season, Thorpe, toured the nation hoping to drum up more support for professional football. Basing himself and a team in warmer Florida, the “Tampa Cardinals,” was largely made up of players from the Rock Island’s Independents. In 1926 on New Year’s Day, the team played an exhibition game against the Chicago Bears, led by the up-and-coming star from the University of Illinois, Red Grange. The game was advertised as a clash between the old and the new—Thorpe versus Grange. Grange was the hero that day scoring on a 70-yard touchdown leading the future heroes to a 17-3 victory in Tampa.
The other great Rock Island player was a local African-American athlete, “Duke Slater.” First a high school standout on state championship teams at Clinton, Iowa (during which time he played without a helmet as his family could not afford one), “Duke” became one of the greatest college players ever at the University of Iowa. Frederick “Fred” Wayman Slater, not only played tackle for the Hawkeyes undefeated National Championship team in 1921, but he was named a first-team All-American that season. During that season, Slater helped Iowa upset one of the best Notre Dame squads, 10-7. A nationally disseminated photograph showed Slater blocking three Fighting Irish defenders. Legendary head coach Knute Rockne claimed that Slater single handedly beat Notre Dame using his innate strength and intelligence. Many contemporary college coaches said Slater was the best lineman ever to play the game.
Coming to the Independents in 1922, in his first NFL game, Slater helped defeat the Green Bay Packers, 19-14. The key play on the final drive was Slater swatting away a pass by Packer’s QB Curly Lambeau to end their drive. Moreover, his career in the NFL was known for hard-nosed play. In fact, he never sat out one single play for injuries in all his seasons in Rock Island and later the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals).
Slater retired in 1931. But his NFL legacy was firmly established. During seven of his ten seasons in the NFL, he was honored as an all-pro player.
Tragically, two years after Duke Slater retired, the NFL enacted an unofficial color ban; and no African-Americans appeared in the NFL from 1934-1945. However, his knowledge of football was next imparted to other young black athletes as he coached a variety of black football teams in Chicago during the 1930s to 1940s.
After his football days were over, he studied law back at the University of Iowa and became a lawyer in Chicago. Slater was later elected to the Cook County Municipal Court; and finally, to the Cook County Superior Court.
To honor Slater, he was named in 1951 to the first College Football Hall of Fame—and the only black player among them. In 1946, Slater was one of eleven players selected to an all-time college football All-American team by a nationwide poll of sportswriters and coaches. With some controversy included for such as oversight, Slater was not named to the Pro-football Hall of Fame until 2020; although, in that same year, the NFL named Slater as one of best professional players of the NFL’s first 100 years. Finally, getting his well-deserved recognition for his achievements at the University of Iowa, the playing surface itself is now named Duke Slater Field.
Thanks for your interest. Next week’s broadcast will allow you to follow me along through the World War II wing of the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.
