1938 Chicago Bears vs. Colored All-Stars FULL Ticket Ozzie Simmons Joe Lillard

The 1938 Chicago Bears vs. Negro All-Stars Game

 

Barred from the NFL, Black football players in the 1930s showcased their talent wherever they could, on predominantly white semi-pro clubs or all-Black teams such as the Virginia, New York, and Chicago Black Hawks. These teams barnstormed across the country, challenging anyone willing to meet them on the field.

 

Chicago, meanwhile, was a football capital. It was home to the Bears and the Cardinals, and each summer hosted the wildly popular College All-Star Game, an idea conceived by Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward. First staged in 1933, the annual matchup between the nation’s best college players and the reigning NFL champions drew at least 74,000 fans per game during its first five years, with the collegians posting an impressive 2-1-2 record.

 

In 1938, the Tribune went a step further. After the Washington Redskins lost that year’s College All-Star Game, someone at the paper proposed another spectacle: a Chicago Bears exhibition against a team of elite Black players, dubbed the Negro All-Stars. Although the NFL itself excluded Black athletes, the plan for an interracial contest went forward. The Tribune partnered with more than 100 Black newspapers nationwide to poll readers and select the All-Stars’ roster.

 

The team was initially set to be coached by E. P. Hunt of Morgan State, then considered the top Black college coach in the country, along with former NFL figures Duke Slater, Ray Kemp, and promoter Ink Williams. When Hunt could not take the post, Kemp, who was coaching at Lincoln University by then, assumed head-coaching duties. The squad trained for two weeks in Chicago before the Friday-night game on September 23, 1938, with expenses covered and each player paid $100.

 

While the All-Stars practiced, the Bears were already in mid-season form. NFL teams of that era filled their schedules with exhibitions to generate extra income. Before facing the Negro All-Stars, the Bears had already beaten a college all-star team in Providence (24–14), a southern all-star squad in Birmingham (32–18), and logged regular-season wins over the Chicago Cardinals and Green Bay Packers.

 

A week before the game, the All-Star coaches announced a tentative starting lineup drawn from both historically Black and predominantly white colleges, though the actual starters shifted by kickoff:

 

• LE: Dwight Reed (Minnesota)
• LT: Hiram Workman (Xavier, New Orleans)
• LG: James Portray (LeMoyne)
• C: Richard Sowell (Morgan State)
• RG: Carl Drake (Morgan State)
• RT: Al Duvalle (Loyola, Los Angeles)
• RE: Doc Kelker (Western Reserve)
• QB: Madison Doram (Xavier, New Orleans)
• LHB: Joe Lillard (Oregon)
• FB: George Edward (Kentucky State)
• RHB: Ozzie Simmons (Iowa)

The Tribune optimistically predicted a crowd of 30,000 at Soldier Field, with proceeds earmarked for charity. But public interest fell short, and only about 6,000 fans attended. The next morning, even the Tribune offered little coverage of what turned out to be a one-sided affair: the Bears overwhelmed the All-Stars 51–0.

 

Still, the 1938 Bears-Negro All-Stars exhibition remains a striking historical footnote, an early and uneasy intersection of segregated and professional football more than a decade before the NFL reintegrated.

 

Offered is a full ticket from this game.  In EX-NR MT condition other than two tape marks from previous mounting into a scrapbook; otherwise very clean!

 

Super RARE!!!!