Los Angeles Wildcats (AFL)

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Los Angeles Wildcats
Founded1926
Folded1926
Based in
Chicago, Illinois, United States
LeagueAmerican Football League (1926)
Team historyLos Angeles Wildcats (1926)
Team colorsLight Brown, White
   
Head coachesJim Clark
Owner(s)C. C. Pyle
Red Grange
George "Wildcat" Wilson
Named forGeorge “Wildcat” Wilson
Home field(s)Traveling Team
For the 2020 football team in the XFL, see Los Angeles Wildcats (XFL).

The Los Angeles Wildcats (also reported in various media as Pacific Coast Wildcats, Los Angeles Wilson Wildcats and Wilson's Wildcats) was a

Chicago, Illinois (it trained in Rock Island). Coached by Jim Clark, the team was designed to be a showcase for University of Washington star back George “Wildcat” Wilson. Compared to most traveling teams in professional football
, the Wildcats were successful, compiling a 6–6–2 record in the only season of the team's – and the league's – existence.

Origin

Wildcat Wilson in 1926

The existence of the Wildcats began with the 1926 formation of the American Football League by C. C. Pyle, a sports agent who represented star back Red Grange. Pyle's application for a National Football League franchise in New York was rejected because Tim Mara, owner of the New York Giants, objected to Pyle's proposed intrusion into the Giants’ territory. Armed with a five-year lease at Yankee Stadium, Pyle subsequently announced the formation of the American Football League as a showcase for his client.

The league was also a showcase for another Pyle client who was an

Los Angeles and headed by Wilson. The team would be based in Moline, Illinois (home of the Rock Island Independents, which jumped from the NFL to the AFL) and would have no home stadium. Virtually all of the players of the team attended colleges sited west of the Rocky Mountains
.

The team was owned by

barnstorming
tour, the Wildcats closed up shop after only one year of existence.

American Football League

The Rock Island Argus
of September 23, 1926

As the team began league play, it became evident that Wilson was not the only weapon that the Wildcats had. Coach Jim Clark had the versatile

Mal Bross for either rushing and receiving duties; ends Ray Flaherty and Jim Lawson dutifully caught passes from Wilson, while Duke Morrison
ran when Wilson did not take the ball. Furthermore, no fewer than four Wildcats handled the kicking job at one time or another.

Originally scheduled to play only 10 games, the Wildcats played additional contests as last-minute “fill-in” opponents as one team after another in the American Football League folded or otherwise left the league. Immediately after tying the

Thanksgiving Day contest with the Bulls (a scoreless tie) was their third in a five-day stretch.[1][2]

By the end of October, the

Brooklyn Lions, in early November, and the Boston Bulldogs, a team that was subsidized by Pyle's money, dropped out. In the four weeks following the departure of Cleveland and the exit of Boston, scheduling “holes” were filled by the two traveling teams of the AFL, the Wildcats and the Rock Island Independents, until November 21, when the Independents – charter members of both the NFL and the AFL – joined the exodus from the younger league by calling it quits after a 3–0 loss to the Bulls. With only two weeks remaining in the season, the Wildcats, Yankees, and Bulls – three teams owned (or co-owned) by Pyle and Grange – and the Philadelphia Quakers
were the last teams remaining, with only the Quakers reporting a profit.

Only two official AFL games were left to play in December 1926. On the 5th, the Wildcats shut out the Bulls 5–0 on a frozen field in Comiskey Park, while the Bulls hosted the Yankees the following Sunday as the visiting team wrapped up the 1926 season of the American Football League with a 7–3 victory. At the same time, in a snowstorm at the Polo Grounds, the league champion Quakers were crushed, 31–0, by the New York Giants in a game that marked the end of the American Football League, December 12, 1926.

Year W L T Finish Coach
1926 6 6 2 4th Jim Clark

After the first AFL

Two days after the end of the 1926 season (and of the AFL), the Wildcats and the New York Yankees started a series of exhibition games as the two Pyle-owned teams went on a

San Antonio (a 20–14 Yankees win)[7] before traveling to California for games against the independent Hollywood Generals (whom the Wildcats defeated, 26–7, in Wrigley Field of Los Angeles)[8] and the NFL's traveling team, the Los Angeles Buccaneers (the Wildcats won, 17–0, in a game played in San Francisco).[2]

With the dissolution of the American Football League (Pyle's Yankees were preparing to join the NFL under an arrangement with New York Giants owner Tim Mara, who acquired the assets of the defunct

Providence Steam Roller for the 1927 NFL season. Wilson was not the only 1926 Wildcat to join an NFL roster for the 1927 season:[9]

Flaherty continued to play until 1935 (taking 1930 off to teach college football), then became head coach of the

Washington Redskins in 1937. He became a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
in 1976.

References

  1. ^ a b 1926 American Football League from Elias Sports Bureau and Pro Football Research Association Linescore Committee Archived June 5, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b c Schedules and scores of the teams in the 1926 American Football League Archived July 13, 2009, at the Wayback Machine – “Ghosts of the Gridiron”
  3. Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  4. Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  5. Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  6. Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  7. Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  8. Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  9. ISBN 0-312-11435-4

See also
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