Cooney Checkaye Severin Joseph Checkaye ( born 1893 - 1970 ) was a professional football player , coach and owner . He was also a co - founder of the National Football League . Checkaye ' s franchise , the Muncie Flyers was a charter member of the league . Early football career . After graduating from high school in 1916 , Cooney played semi - pro football for a team based in Wabash , Indiana . By 1919 , he organized a team in Muncie , Indiana , the Congerville Flyers ( a team that would later be the Muncie Flyers ) . Cooney soon became a star player in the region . Forming the NFL . In 1920 , Checkaye represented Muncie at the meeting that formed the NFL . The meeting was set up by Ralph Hay who owned a Hupmobile dealership in Canton , Ohio , a Decatur Staleys ( renamed the Chicago Bears in 1922 ) owner , George Halas . Halas and Hay gathered similarly - minded men from Ohio , Illinois , Indiana and New York for a meeting in Hay ’ s Hupmobile showroom on September 17 , 1920 . Due to the hot weather that occurred that night , a couple of the owners went to a local bar and bought several buckets of beer which they hung from the fender of one Hay ’ s cars . The owners then sat on the dealership ' s running boards and organized the American Professional Football Association ( renamed the National Football League in 1922 ) . After the meeting , Checkaye was the quarterback , owner and manager of the Muncie Flyers of the brand new APFA . NFL career . Sixteen days later , the season opened with two games for Sunday October 3 , 1920 . The games consisted of the Columbus Panhandles playing the Dayton Triangles at Dayton , while Muncie played the Rock Island Independents at Rock Island . With Dayton and Rock Island being in different time zones , as well as their being no standard kickoff times and the fact that newspaper accounts of the games did not give the kickoff times , so there ’ s no way of knowing which game started first . This means that Cooney may have played in the very first NFL game . However the Flyers lost their game to Independents , 45 - 0 . It would be the team ' s only game played during the 1920 season . The Flyers had a tough time finding teams to play against in the league . The Staleys cancelled their game against Muncie the following week and a game to be played against Dayton was rained out . The Flyers came back to the APFA in 1921 . The team though lost league games against the Evansville Crimson Giants , and the Cincinnati Celts . They were scheduled to play again on November 13 , 1921 against the Green Bay Packers , however that game was cancelled , leaving the Flyers with a 0 - 2 - 0 APFA record . The team then folded . Cooney cited that the salaries , transportation and operating costs were just too steep for the team ’ s gate receipts . The Flyers mark in APFA football was an unimpressive 0 - 3 - 0 . But during 1920 and 1921 , the Flyers posted a 4 - 0 - 0 mark against non - APFA teams . Including 1919 , the Flyers posted a 8 - 1 - 1 record against non - APFA teams . The team regrouped and began playing independently of the NFL , after 1922 . Cooney renamed the team the Congerville Flyers . By 1925 the Flyers based their team out of neighboring Jonesboro , and was called the Jonesboro Flyers . The team played 9 of 11 games in Jonesboro and finished with a 6 - 2 - 3 record , before disbanding for good that year . Post - football . After his NFL career ended , Cooney went to work at Republic Iron & Steel . He married Mayme McCabe in 1927 .