There have been various shut calls all through sports activities historical past. Consider how if one play, one determination, one second was barely modified, all the pieces could be completely different. What if Ray Allen did not make that three in Sport 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals? What if Alex Gordon tried for an inside-the-park house run to tie Sport 7 of final yr’s World Collection? What if the Seahawks ran the ball from the one-yard line as an alternative of attempting to cross it?
We will all the time debate the nice what-ifs all through sports activities, however there’s one tragedy that occurred a century in the past, which fairly presumably may have modified the complete sports activities panorama as we all know it.
It is the story of how the NFL was created, thanks partially to a person oversleeping.
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SS Eastland Catastrophe
This yr marks the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the SS Eastland Catastrophe. The SS Eastland was a passenger vessel that was primarily used for excursions. On the morning of July 24, 1915, Eastland and three different ships have been taking staff from Western Electrical Firm’s Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois, to a picnic in Michigan Metropolis, Indiana. Since a whole lot of the employees have been unable to afford holidays or take day off, this was a really massive occasion of their lives.
Sadly, the SS Eastland was not essentially the most structurally sound vessel. Due to the Titanic catastrophe three years earlier, vessels have been retrofitted to incorporate extra lifeboats ought to one other sinking happen. This added much more weight to the Eastland and made it fairly top-heavy.
Docked within the Chicago River, the ship reached its capability of two,572 individuals. It began itemizing in the direction of the port facet, away from the wharf, and inside 20 minutes, it had utterly tipped over onto its facet, coming to relaxation on the backside of the river. Although the water was solely 20 ft deep, various passengers had already located themselves beneath deck and have been trapped inside or crushed by heavy gadgets. In complete, 844 passengers and 4 crew members died – the largest maritime tragedy that has ever occurred on the Nice Lakes.
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One of many individuals who had a ticket for that boat? A man named George Halas. On the time, the 20-year-old George Halas was a brief employee for Western Electrical.
There are a selection of differing reviews as to why George missed the boat that day. Some recommend that Halas’s brother Frank was serving to George get in form to play soccer on the College of Illinois and needed to weigh him earlier than he left. One other principle is that he was attending the picnic to play within the firm softball sport, and because the sport was scheduled for later within the afternoon, he was going to take one other boat that wasn’t leaving so early.
The ultimate principle comes from Charles Brizzolara, the son of Halas’s longtime enterprise associate Ralph Brizzolara, who means that Halas merely overslept. It is fascinating to suppose an alarm clock (or lack thereof) might have saved Halas’ life.
Regardless of the purpose, Ralph Brizzolara and his brother waited for Halas, however when he did not present, they boarded the ship and went beneath deck. Issues regarded bleak when the vessel capsized, however an unknown particular person pulled each Brizzolara and his brother out by means of a port window. They by no means came upon who rescued them, however Brizzolara remained a enterprise associate with Halas all through the remainder of their lives.
The truth is, Halas was listed among the many casualties of the ship within the newspaper. When two of his fraternity brothers confirmed up at his home to supply their condolences, Halas shocked them by opening the door himself. The shut name supplied him a brand new outlook on life, and in 1920, he took a place with the A.E. Staley Firm, a starch producer. The corporate sponsored a soccer crew known as the Decatur Staleys. Regardless of one profitable season on the sector, a poor monetary state of affairs resulted in Halas getting full management of the crew.
In 1920, George Halas attended a gathering in Canton, Ohio, with representatives from different impartial skilled soccer groups. In a gathering that occurred at Ralph Hay’s Hupmobile showroom, George and different pioneering house owners like Ralph Hay, Jim Thorpe, and Joe Carr, Halas helped set up a soccer league which they named the “American Skilled Soccer Affiliation” (APFA).
Halas was instrumental in creating the league’s first structure and bylaws, establishing customary guidelines for participant contracts, and growing a league schedule. He additionally performed an important position in implementing necessary insurance policies that helped the league survive its early years, similar to territorial rights for groups. In 1921, he moved the Staleys to Chicago. In 1922, he renamed the crew the Bears. Additionally, in 1922, the league house owners voted on a reputation change. The brand new identify?
The Nationwide Soccer League
Beforehand, the NFL had been seen as a spot the place much less gifted and desired gamers went to compete. In 1925, George satisfied Illinois star participant Crimson Grange to hitch the Bears.
Within the late Thirties, Halas and Clark Shaughnessy modernized the T-formation system, which was at its peak within the Bears’ 73-0 drubbing of the Washington Redskins within the 1940 NFL Championship Sport – nonetheless the most important margin of victory in league historical past. Halas introduced Hugh “Shorty” Ray into the NFL as a technical adviser. Ray, who had beforehand served as a Large Ten official, helped quicken the tempo of the sport, made the rulebook extra compact and arranged, and usually improved issues for the offense within the NFL.
Halas additionally served within the Navy in each World Wars. After getting back from World Conflict II, he helped create an annual soccer sport between the Military, Navy, and Air Pressure, with the Bears serving as hosts. The sport ran from 1946-1957, and raised greater than $2 million (about $25 million in the present day) for reduction businesses of the armed forces.
Different notable issues Halas dropped at Bears video games – and, by extension, the NFL – embrace each day follow periods, analyzing movie of opponents, placing assistant coaches within the press field throughout video games, inserting a tarp on the sector to guard it from rain, publishing a membership newspaper, and broadcasting video games by radio. Moreover, he supplied to share the crew’s tv earnings with groups in smaller cities, as he felt that no matter was good for the league would even be useful for the Bears.
George additionally performed for the crew (which went by means of iterations because the Hammond All-Stars and the Decatur Staleys) from 1919 till 1929 and served as coach of the crew from 1920 till 1967, solely taking just a few years off throughout these years.
In his 40-year teaching profession, Halas solely had six dropping seasons, and he received six championships and 324 video games, an NFL document for almost thirty years, and by far nonetheless a Bears franchise document. Halas was a constitution member of the Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame in 1963.
(Picture by Give attention to Sport/Getty Photos)
Chicago Bears Worth
George died in 1983 on the age of 88. He was the final surviving participant in that iconic assembly in 1920 that gave beginning to the NFL. He had two youngsters, a daughter named Virginia and a son named George Jr., who sadly died in 1979. George Jr. had two youngsters. Virginia had 11! In response to George Sr.’s will, the crew was inherited by Virginia and his 13 grandchildren, with Virginia proudly owning 20% of the fairness however sustaining 80% voting share.
Right now, the Chicago Bears are price $6.5 billion. Virginia Halas McCaskey died on February 6, 2025, on the age of 102. On the time of her dying, she was price $1.3 billion.
It is fascinating to consider how the league could be completely different, or if it could even exist in any respect, if Halas had stepped aboard the SS Eastland that fateful morning of July 24, 1915. And maybe even extra unimaginable is that he very doubtless boarded the identical boat years later!
After the ship was raised, it was changed into a gunboat and renamed the USS Wilmette by the Illinois Naval Reserve. It was then used as a coaching vessel at Nice Lakes Naval Station, a spot the place Halas served throughout World Conflict I. There’s a fantastic likelihood he spent at the very least a few of his time on the USS Wilmette.
Whether or not he knew he was driving the identical ship from the tragedy, Halas was completely a pioneer within the sport of soccer and supplies a fantastic instance of how you can take advantage of a possibility.
