The Chicago–Michigan football rivalry was an American college football rivalry game played by the Wolverines of the University of Michigan and Maroons of the University of Chicago. From 1892 to 1905, it was the most important game of the season for the two schools, which were the first major football powers in what was then considered the western United States. The rivalry ended after the 1939 season when the University of Chicago dropped out of the Big Ten Conference. The roots of the rivalry date back to 1879 when Michigan played its first intercollegiate football game in Chicago and to a series of matches played between Michigan and the "Chicago University Club" between 1888 and 1891.
Background
The University of Chicago was founded in 1890, but the roots of the Chicago–Michigan football rivalry pre-date that university's founding. The University of Michigan was founded in 1817 and began its football program in the 1870s. Michigan's first intercollegiate game was played in Chicago on May 30, 1879. That first game, a 1–0 victory over the "Purple Stockings" from Racine College, was played at the Union Base-Ball Grounds in Lakefront Park (now part of Grant Park). The Chicago Daily Tribune called it "the first rugby-football game to be played west of the Alleghenies."
1887: Thanksgiving Day game in Chicago
The Michigan football team next returned to Chicago in November 1887. On the way to Chicago, the Michigan team stopped in Indiana where they participated in the first match ever played by a Notre Dame football team. Michigan had planned on a Thanksgiving Day game against Northwestern, but the game could not be arranged. Instead, a match against the Harvard school team was played on a wet and muddy field at the grounds of the Wanderer Cricket Club (referred to in some reports as Wanderers' park) at 37th Street and Indiana Avenue. The game was called with Michigan leading 26 to 0.
1888: Chicago University Club 26, Michigan 4
In 1888, Michigan returned to Chicago for a Thanksgiving Day game against the Chicago University Club. The Chicago University Club team was a "picked team" selected from the best athletes in the West, many of whom had played college football for Yale, Princeton, Harvard, or Columbia. The New York Times wrote that "the preparatory schools and the universities had been drained for the best talent in sight." Michigan lost by a 26 to 4 score in a game played at the Chicago Baseball Park and attended by 3,000 persons. The New York Times and Outing magazine both called it "undoubtedly the greatest football event that ever took place in the West."
Football was new to Chicago in 1888, and the Chicago Daily Tribune therefore published a lengthy summary of the game's rules, jargon, and methods on the day before the game. The Tribune described prize-fighting as "a mild sport" in comparison to football: "In a football game a player who gets possession of the ball may be attacked by anywhere from one to eleven men. . . . Slugging is not allowed, but 'tackling' is. A tackle, as described below, is a delightful and exciting point of play. . . . The man who is tackled, if game, will endeavor to hold the ball while the members of both teams will try to form a mountain on top of him."
The game attracted many representatives of Chicago's high society. The Chicago Daily Tribune wrote: "The finest turnouts of the city with the leaders of Chicago beauty decked in furs and favorite college colors swept into the grounds. Four-in-hands, tally-hos, tandem drags, English carts, mail phaetons, carriages and all sorts of fashionable vehicles were in the stream. Their occupants did not know much about football and did not entirely approve of the rough and gory sport, but came out in force to applaud for 'our boys.'" A bugle on a tally-ho belonging to Chicago quarterback Harry Hamlin announced the arrival of the Chicago team at the playing field.
Early in the contest, Michigan's starting center Horace Greely Prettyman was ejected for "slugging" Chicago's center, Peters. The New York Times wrote: "Prettyman lost his temper and struck Peters in the mouth twice with his fist." The Times called Prettyman "the backbone of the Michigan rush line" and noted that the team was disheartened after his ejection. The Chicago Daily Tribune emphasized the physical nature of the battle: "Not a man on either team had escaped blood. Noses were bleeding profusely, every man's lips were cut and swollen faces were plastered with mud, and lame joints and twitching backs were many."
The game drew extensive press coverage, and The Chronicle from Ann Arbor opined with respect to the game of football that "the fever may now be said to be upon us."
1889: Chicago University Club 20, Michigan 0
Michigan returned to Chicago on Thanksgiving Day in 1889 and lost for the second consecutive year against the Chicago University Club, this time by a score of 20 to 0. The game was played in "a swirling snow storm" on "as treacherous a field as ever athletes worked upon." For the second consecutive year, Michigan's Prettyman was ejected from the game, this time for slugging Chicago's quarterback, Gamble Rogers.
1891: Chicago University Club 20, Michigan 0
Michigan returned to Chicago on November 14, 1891, for its third game in four years against the Chicago University Club. The Chicago University Club was again a "picked team" made up of former stars from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other schools. The Chicago team included W.J. Crawford, who led the undefeated national champion 1884 Yale team and was "the most famous halfback of his time, "Snake" Ames, who had set the college scoring record with 730 points and was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, Ben "Sport" Donnelly, the second professional player in football history, and William C. Malley, who had played for Michigan in his student years.
The game was played at the South Side Baseball Grounds in Chicago. Although University of Michigan records reflect the score as a 10–0 loss for the Wolverines, contemporaneous press accounts report the score as 20 to 0. The Detroit Free Press reported: "After a hard fight, during which neither side scored until the second innings, the Chicago University team won the great foot ball match against the University of Michigan by 20 points to nothing. It was a gallant battle, the Michigan men contesting every inch gained by their opponents."
With a growing fan-base in Chicago, Michigan played a second game in that city at the end of the 1891 season. That game, a 10–0 loss to Cornell, was also played at the South Side Baseball Grounds. The New York Times called it "one of the prettiest foot-ball games ever played in the West" and described the wintry conditions of the game: "The field was covered with a six-inch blanket of snow, the air was icy, and frosted feet and hands were among the thousands of spectators ... Three minutes after the game began the ball was covered with ice, but the dazzling white ground soon began to look as though a herd of elephants had been tramping on it."
The rivalry at its peak: 1892 to 1905
1892: Michigan 18, Chicago 10
In the fall of 1892, the University of Chicago fielded its first football team with Amos Alonzo Stagg serving as both head coach and starting right halfback. On November 13, 1892, the Maroons and Wolverines played their first game, on a wet and muddy field in front of a crowd estimated at between 700 and 1,500 spectators at Olympic Park in Toledo, Ohio. Michigan won by a score of 18 to 10. Right halfback George Jewett, the first African-American to play football for a Big Ten school, was the star for Michigan. Game accounts are imprecise, but Jewett was responsible for two Michigan touchdowns (one on a toss to Frank Decke) and possibly a third and also kicked for goals after touchdown.
In January 1893, Ralph Stone (1868–1956), who later served as a Regent of the University of Michigan, expressed hope that a rivalry with Chicago might help overcome the "woeful" lack of loyalty to alma mater. He wrote:
"The apparent lack of patriotism among our alumni is largely due to the fact that while in college there was little or no incentive to college spirit, so-called, growing out of contests with other colleges. Michigan has always been without a near-at-hand rival. Therefore, her alumni were born, brought up, and graduated into the world without much of an opportunity to yell, fight and bet upon her college base-ball team, foot-ball team, or crew. Perhaps the University of Chicago, under the leadership of Stagg, may alter matters in this respect in the near future. . . . The athletic competition which is now awakening will rouse a more active display of their latent enthusiasm, and it will do it without sacrificing the real and more serious purpose of the University. While we deplore the excessive attention now paid at times to athletics, we cannot deny that athletic prestige does much to help a university in more substantial ways."
1893: Chicago and Michigan each win a game
In 1893, Michigan and Chicago played twice. Stagg's Chicago Maroons won the first meeting on October 21, 1893, by a 10 to 6 score at the University of Chicago Athletic Grounds. Each team scored a touchdown and goal after touchdown to tie the score at 6–6 at halftime. Chicago scored a touchdown in the second half, but missed the goal from touchdown. As time was running out, Michigan moved the ball to the edge of the chalk line when the referee called time.
Michigan returned to Chicago for a rematch on Thanksgiving Day. The Thanksgiving game was played at the University of Chicago's new Ellis Avenue grounds with a crowd of 3,500 in attendance, and Michigan won by a 28 to 10 score. Michigan took a 24–0 lead at halftime, and Chicago played better in the second half as snow blanketed the field, making it difficult for the "fat, chunky, little fellows" from Michigan to keep their footing. The Chicago Daily Tribune wrote: "The Ann Arbor men are mainly short and fat, weighing an average of 185 pounds, and their attack is like the rush of a battering ram. Several of the local men on the contrary are lightweights and their line looked feeble before the grim lads from Ann Arbor."
1894: Michigan 6, Chicago 4
On November 29, 1894, the two teams again met on Thanksgiving Day, this time at Marshall Field in Chicago. Two hours before kickoff a "driving sleet storm" hit the city, and when the players lined up "the grounds were better fitted for skating rink purposes rather than a gridiron." Despite the weather, a large crowd turned out to watch the game. According to a newspaper account, "the grand stand and outfield were packed with yelling collegians, and the boxes and carriage rooms were well filled with society people." An account published in the Detroit Free Press described the atmosphere surrounding the game:
"Notwithstanding the threatening weather, fully 6,000 of Chicago's best and fairest witnessed the hardest fought battle ever seen in Chicago. . . . The east and south sides of the field were lined with tally-hos, landaus, etc. Everyone wore the colors of one of the colleges. The yellow and blue of Michigan was as prominently displayed as was the maroon of Chicago. Everyone was out to yell for his respective team and from the noise it seemed as if pandemonium had been turned loose."
Some accounts indicate that Michigan had been expected to "bury the Chicagos under a big score," while others indicated that "the betting was even on the two teams." Chicago scored the game's first touchdown on an end run by Nichols less than ten minutes into the game. However, Chicago missed the try for goal after touchdown. The first half ended with the score 4 to 0 in favor of Chicago. Michigan's Gustave Ferbert scored a touchdown late in the second half, and John A. Bloomingston kicked the goal after touchdown. Michigan won by a final score of 6 to 4.