page_title: Chicago College All-Star Game
section_title: History of the game
hierarchical_section_title: Chicago College All-Star Game / History of the game
caption_attribution_description: English: This white leather hide football with rawhide lacing was autographed by the members of the 1935 Collegiate All-Star Team, including Gerald R. Ford. The football includes the dates during which Ford played for the University of Michigan.
context_page_description: The Chicago Charities College All-Star Game was a preseason American football game played from 1934 to 1976 between the National Football League champions and a team of star college seniors from the previous year. It was also known as the College All-Star Football Classic.
  The game was contested annually — except for 1974, due to that year's NFL strike — and was played in July, August, or September. In the 42 College All-Star Games, the defending pro champions won 31, the All-Stars won nine, and two were ties, giving the collegians a .238 winning percentage.
  The second game, played in 1935, involved the hometown Chicago Bears, runner-up of the 1934 season, instead of the defending champion New York Giants. The New York Jets played in the 1969 edition, although still an American Football League team, as once the AFL-NFL Championship was introduced the Super Bowl winner was the professional team involved, regardless of which league the team represented.
context_section_description: The game was the idea of Arch Ward, the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune and the driving force behind baseball's All-Star Game. The game originally was a benefit for Chicago-area charities and was always played at Soldier Field, with the exception of two years during World War II, 1943 and 1944, when it was held at Northwestern University's Dyche Stadium in Evanston.
  The Chicago game was one of several "pro vs. rookie" college all-star games held across the United States in its early years (the 1939 season featured seven such games, all of which the NFL teams won in shutouts, and the season prior featured eight, with some of the collegiate players playing in multiple games). Chicago's game had the benefit of being the highest profile, with the NFL champions facing the best college graduates from across the country as opposed to the regional games that were held elsewhere. Because of this, the game survived far longer than its contemporaries.
  The inaugural game in 1934, played before a crowd of 79,432 on August 31, was a scoreless tie between the all-stars and the Chicago Bears. The following year, in a game that included University of Michigan graduate and future president Gerald Ford, the Bears won 5–0. The first all-star team to win was the 1937 squad, coached by Gus Dorais, which won 6–0 over Curly Lambeau's Green Bay Packers. The only score came on a 47-yard touchdown pass from future Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh to Gaynell Tinsley. Baugh's Washington Redskins lost to the All-Stars the next year, but he did not play due to injury.
  In the 1940s, the games were competitive affairs that attracted large crowds to Soldier Field. The college all-stars had the benefit of being fully integrated, since the NFL's league-wide color barrier did not apply to the squad, meaning black players such as Kenny Washington (who played in the 1940 contest) were allowed to play in the game. As the talent level of pro football improved (and the NFL itself integrated), the pros came to dominate the series.
  The qualifying criteria for the College All-Star squad was loose, as the 1945 game featured Tom Harmon, who had begun his professional career in 1941 but had been interrupted by military service.  The all-stars last won consecutive games in 1946 and 1947, and won only four of the final 29 games. The Philadelphia Eagles fell in 1950, the Cleveland Browns in 1955, and the Detroit Lions in 1958. The last all-star win came in 1963, when a college team coached by legendary quarterback Otto Graham beat Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, 20–17.
  In 1949, Ward, who by this time had founded the competing All-America Football Conference, attempted to have that league's champion - the perennially winning Browns - play that year's game instead of the NFL champion, but after the NFL threatened legal action, the Tribune board overruled Ward and renewed its agreement with the NFL.
  By the late 1960s and early 1970s, enthusiasm for the game started to erode as NFL coaches had become increasingly reluctant to let their new draftees play in the exhibition due to their being forced miss part of training camp, and their draftees being at considerable risk for injury.
  As early as 1949, these concerns had been raised after Dick Rifenburg suffered a serious knee injury practicing for the game, effectively ending his professional career before it began, and prompting Rifenburg's move into broadcasting.
  A player's strike forced the cancellation of the 1974 game: although the league went forward with the rest of its preseason, they needed access to as many rookies as possible for replacement players to replace  striking players and players who defected to the World Football League, leaving them unable to spare players to field a team to play the college all-stars. 
  Further, the NFL was also withdrawing from competition against teams that were not members of the league at this time; the College All-Star Game remains, as of 2020, the last time an NFL team played a team from outside the league. 
  Only two other games, a 1969 split-squad match against a Continental Foot
caption: A football signed by the members of the 1935 Collegiate All-Star Team, including Gerald Ford.
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