FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[New Tradition]

Speaking of shout-outs..............................

Heres a shout-out to all the knowledgeable posters here who regularly disagree during the CCIW football, basketball, and prob every other season too, but can come together in support of DA BEARS and a Super Bowl victory.

Couldn't have said it better myself!  I was thinking this exact same thing as I was reading until I got to your post.

[TitanBacker]

Well since the Pats lost, good luck to Da Bears and NUTS to the colts.

I second that motion.  Too bad Brady couldn't finish this time.  Did anyone else notice the "Manning face" repeatedly on Sunday after the Colts were down 18.  Way too funny to see his sad, glazed over stare.   

[Tailgater]

The game's unsung hero was Brad Maynard. He had a 44.7 average for seven punts, and, remarkably, put four of them inside the 20 yard line -- including the third-quarter punt that went out of bounds at the 5 and directly led to the safety that changed the game.

Nobody ever gives the punter any love, but since Maynard's performance was so huge I figured he deserves a shout-out.

Remember... it wasn't too many seasons ago that Maynard was named Bears team MVP for the season.

[diehardfan]

The Bears? Seriously people, come on, this is a D3 Chat board! Who are the Bears? Wash U? Bowdoin? If the NFL was so special, Swider would have taken one of those offers we all know he's gotten to coach at the professional level.

Oh well... (looks down at orange collared shirt and blue jeans I'm currently wearing) I guess I can take consolation in the fact that the bears copied our school colors and that seems to be working for them this year. Salem or bust!

[dansand]

If the NFL was so special, Swider would have taken one of those offers we all know he's gotten to coach at the professional level.

...as an assistant to Bob Reade.

[CardinalAlum]

If the NFL was so special, Swider would have taken one of those offers we all know he's gotten to coach at the professional level.

...as an assistant to Bob Reade.

Isn't Mugsy an assistant maintenance man on that team?   

[usee]

If the NFL was so special, Swider would have taken one of those offers we all know he's gotten to coach at the professional level.

...as an assistant to Bob Reade.

Isn't Mugsy an assistant maintenance man on that team?   

He used to be. wheaton hired him back to ring the bell on the half hour in the football office.

[Red Reign]

Hey guys, I haven't been on since the national championship so if this was already posted please forgive.

I was talking to another graduate from NCC and a rumor has it that all of NCC defensive coaching staff has quit. Only defensive cond. Coach Wienke is left and it is said that he was demoted and coach thorne will hire another D-cond. before spring football practice as well as new segment/asst. coaches. Any news on this. Thanks

[Gregory Sager]

I guess I can take consolation in the fact that the bears copied our school colors and that seems to be working for them this year.

George Halas chose navy blue and orange as the colors of the Decatur Staleys in 1920, the year he helped found the league in which the franchise played, the American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football League). He chose the team's colors because they were the colors of his alma mater, the University of Illinois. I doubt that he'd ever even heard of Wheaton College.

He moved the team from Decatur to Chicago in 1921, and a year later renamed them the Bears. The name was an homage to the Chicago Cubs, who were both the most popular sports team in Chicago and his football team's landlord at Wrigley Field, where the Bears would play their home games until they moved to Soldier Field after the 1970 season. The elongated 'C' with left point that he adopted as the team's logo was taken from the most popular football team in town, that of the University of Chicago, which was a Big Ten powerhouse at the time -- although the 'C' logo was not put on the Bears' helmets until 1962. The team also adopted its nickname, "the Monsters of the Midway", from the University of Chicago's football team as well.

(As everyone who knows Chicago geography is well aware, the Bears have never played their home games anywhere near the Midway. For six decades the Bears were the North Side's NFL team and played at Wrigley Field, while the Chicago Cardinals were the South Side's NFL team and played at Comiskey Park from 1922 through 1959 -- just as the Cubs were the North Side's baseball team and the White Sox were the South Side's baseball team. In fact, like his father, the current Mayor Daley grew up a Cardinals fan, and like most South Siders he hated the Bears as much as he hated the Cubs. That all changed once the Cardinals left town for St. Louis in 1960 and Chicago became a one-team city as far as professional football was concerned. But I guess that the "Monsters of the Midway" nickname was so cool that the Bears saw no reason not to appropriate it when the U of C dropped its football program, even though the Bears were a North Side team and the Midway is way down on the South Side between Jackson Park and Washington Park.)

In fact, the Cardinals also have a link to the University of Chicago. The pre-NFL version of the franchise was known as the Racine Normals -- Racine, because they were based on Racine Avenue on the South Side, the Normals because they played at Normal Park (Racine & 61st). Team owner Ken O'Brien bought used jerseys, sight unseen, from the University of Chicago's football team for his Normals in 1901, but their maroon color had faded. When O'Brien opened the box of jerseys, he exclaimed, "These aren't maroon! They're cardinal red!" He thus decided to change the team's nickname to the Cardinals. And they've been the Cardinals ever since.

The story of the founding of the Bears also has a CCIW link. George Halas had two teammates at the University of Illinois who were also Chicagoans, brothers Edward "Dutch" Sternaman and Joey Sternaman. After Halas injured his hip and was cut by the New York Yankees (many people aren't aware that Papa Bear was a major-league baseball player as a young man), Dutch Sternaman got his old Illini teammate a job with him at the A.E. Staley starch processing plant in Decatur. The two men became co-coaches of the factory's football team, and the following year, when the APFA was founded at a meeting held in a Hupmobile car dealership in Canton, Ohio, Halas and Sternaman were given full control of the team by A.E. Staley. They bought him out a year later and thus became co-owners of the team as well. In addition, all three former Illini played on the Bears -- Halas at end, Dutch Sternaman at halfback, Joey Sternaman at quarterback.

Dutch Sternaman played ten years with the Bears, and after retiring as a player spent two more years as the co-coach and co-owner with Halas. However, hit hard by the Depression, Sternaman sold his share of the team to Halas and left the Bears organization in 1932. He then took a job as a teacher and football coach at a North Side school three miles west and two miles north of the Bears' home at Wrigley Field. And what was that school where Dutch Sternaman continued his football coaching career? Why, North Park College, of course.

[diehardfan]

Greg you are profoundly random... and literal... and verbose. And this is at least the third time you've told me that the Bears didn't copy us. But since Illinois also copied us, it's really only a matter of degree. ;-)

[usee]

I guess I can take consolation in the fact that the bears copied our school colors and that seems to be working for them this year.

George Halas chose navy blue and orange as the colors of the Decatur Staleys in 1920, the year he helped found the league in which the franchise played, the American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football League). He chose the team's colors because they were the colors of his alma mater, the University of Illinois. I doubt that he'd ever even heard of Wheaton College.

I find it highly unlikely he hadn't heard of Wheaton College and I agree with DHF, it is probable he copied our colors. Wheaton College  was founded in 1860, played its first football season in 1914 and in fact the basketball team played in the summer Olympics in St. Louis in 1904. Not to mention the Illini's first football game ever was a loss vs. wheaton foe Illinois Wesleyan......all of these ties make it clear that Halas created the copycat Bears.  8) 8)

[Gregory Sager]

Greg you are profoundly random... and literal... and verbose.

Literal and verbose? Guilty as charged. Random? Not on your life. Everything in my post fit together perfectly like a tight end seam route.

And this is at least the third time you've told me that the Bears didn't copy us.

That's because this is at least the third time that you've made that silly brag. I'm not going to let you get away with stuff any more than Cardinal Alum would.

I find it highly unlikely he hadn't heard of Wheaton College

Based upon what? The fact that the school had been around for a long time? Doesn't necessarily mean anything, particularly since Papa Bear was a good Catholic boy who likely didn't have any experience with the revivalist sawdust trail. The basketball exhibitions at the St. Louis Olympics of 1904? Gimme a break. The fact that the Illini played Illinois Wesleyan -- a school that had nothing to do with Wheaton at the time -- long before Halas wore the blue and orange under Bob Zuppke in Champaign-Urbana? C'mon, man, you're really reaching. You might as well argue that Wheaton stole its colors from Hope College.

[usee]

I find it highly unlikely he hadn't heard of Wheaton College

Based upon what? The fact that the school had been around for a long time? Doesn't necessarily mean anything, particularly since Papa Bear was a good Catholic boy who likely didn't have any experience with the revivalist sawdust trail. The basketball exhibitions at the St. Louis Olympics of 1904? Gimme a break. The fact that the Illini played Illinois Wesleyan -- a school that had nothing to do with Wheaton at the time -- long before Halas wore the blue and orange under Bob Zuppke in Champaign-Urbana? C'mon, man, you're really reaching. You might as well argue that Wheaton stole its colors from Hope College.

Its no reach Gregory. Let's boil it all down to 2 dates: Wheaton College 1860. U of Illinois 1867.

Case Closed. 

[Gregory Sager]

Its no reach Gregory. Let's boil it all down to 2 dates: Wheaton College 1860. U of Illinois 1867.

Case Closed. 

Case not closed. The dates don't mean a thing. NPU has been in its present location since 1894, and yet how many Chicagoans are completely unaware of the school's existence? Quite a few, believe me.

(This is shaping up to be one of my all-time-favorite D3sports.com debates: Whether or not a man who has been dead for over two decades was aware of the existence of a future D3 school back when he was in his twenties. )

[usee]

Its no reach Gregory. Let's boil it all down to 2 dates: Wheaton College 1860. U of Illinois 1867.

Case Closed. 

Case not closed. The dates don't mean a thing. NPU has been in its present location since 1894, and yet how many Chicagoans are completely unaware of the school's existence? Quite a few, believe me.

(This is shaping up to be one of my all-time-favorite D3sports.com debates: Whether or not a man who has been dead for over two decades was aware of the existence of a future D3 school back when he was in his twenties. )

so you don't think Halas was aware a local chicago school was playing a basketball exhibition at the 1904 Olympics? I actually think Halas' father and Jonathon Blanchard were close, childhood friends and they loved the color orange so much because it reminded them of the family trips they used to take together in the summers to FLorida where they would pick oranges and sit on the beach. they decided Orange would be a great color for sports teams because of its cheerfulness. Blanchard's mother was an interior designer and counseled them to choose a complimentary dark color to coordinate. An arguement ensued because Halas preferred Black to Blanchard's Navy. The rift resulted in a family feud of sorts such that Blanchard's family had to relocate to the West suburbs where he spent the rest of his childhood prior to founding Wheaton College in 1860 and dubbing its colors Orange and Blue. Halas pretended not to pay attention but paid off University of Illinois officials to make their colors Orange and Black when they began in 1867. When his son attended, he didn't know any better and stole the original wheaton colors for his upstart Decatur team after his graduation.

Those are the facts.