Sports Friday: Eleanor Roosevelt – NFL Halfback?

Eleanor Roosevelt has been many things: First Lady, author, speaker, UN Human Rights Commission chairperson, and National Football League Player?!!??? It happened. Here’s the story.

Dateline October 1946

The war had ended. America now had time to turn its collective attention to raising families, boosting its economy, and a new popular sport known as “football.” Initially a collegiate activity, football was establishing itself on a professional level in the form of the National Football League or the NFL.  Still dwarfed by the popularity of baseball, football owners (then a group more akin to carnival barkers) attempted marketing schemes to drum up interest.  Such gambits included using midgets as balls, assigning a horse as a place kicker for each team, and the ever popular “fan plays for a day.”  This bit of “P.T. Barnum” thinking combined with Eleanor Roosevelt’s love of pigskin would find the former First Lady in the thick of a real football game. From the Canton Repository dated October 28, 1946:

A crowd of ten thousand stood witness to history today as America’s favorite gal, Eleanor Roosevelt, donned shoulder pads to battle as a grid iron gladiator for the hometown Canton Bulldogs.  Initially laughed at by her own teammates in the huddle, Roosevelt silenced the detractors gaining a respectable five yard on the first play as the Bulldog’s halfback. Teammate William “Link” Lyman called Mrs. Roosevelt, “the guttiest lady he’d ever seen,” adding “I’d gladly fight next to her in any foxhole.”  By the game’s end Roosevelt had netted a respectable eighty yards and two touchdowns exhibiting stunning combination of stiff arms, ballet like spins, and bruising power to thwart the Detroit Lion’s defense.  The only black mark on an otherwise sterling day came in the third quarter.  After Mrs. Roosevelt gained a first down, Jimmy Conzelman of the opposing Lions uttered a comment to Mrs. Roosevelt that apparently referenced the reproductive challenges of her late husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  This comment will go unprinted in this publication.  The usually peaceful woman responded with a knee to the groin resulting in a fifteen yard unnecessary roughness penalty against the Bulldogs. Despite the setback Canton would go on to defeat Detroit 24 – 17.  Perhaps the highest compliment of all came from Canton star and Olympian Jim Thorpe, “All in all I am against woman in sports, but that right there is a football player through and through. We could really use her the rest of the season, but I understand she has more important affairs to attend to.”  When asked by this reporter if a having a female like Mrs. Roosevelt in the locker room was distracting Thorpe responded, “Not at all.  She’s just like one of the guys.”

Although women and men never again intermixed in football, undoubtedly Eleanor Roosevelt paved the way for future trailblazers like golfer Michelle Wie.  Eleanor Roosevelt’s football career ended the same day it began, but her sports endeavors were far from over as her arm wrestling opponents would soon discover – that however is a story for another day.

Eleanor Roosevelt – Football Player.

Strange?  Maybe.  Weird?  Probably.  History?  Definitely!