The 1922 Princeton vs. Chicago football game, played October 28, 1922, was a

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football in the United States, American football rules first gained populari ...

game between the

Princeton Tigers The Princeton Tigers are the athletic teams of Princeton University. The school sponsors 35 varsity teams in 20 sports. The school has won several NCAA national championships, including one in men's fencing, three in women's lacrosse, six in m ...

and University of Chicago Maroons. The "hotly contested" match-up was the first game to be broadcast nationwide on

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

. Princeton's team won, 21–18. It was to be the national champion of 1922,1922 Princeton University football scores and results
.

College Football Data Warehouse College Football Data Warehouse is an American college football statistics website that was established in 2000. The site compiled the yearly team records, game-by-game results, championships, and statistics of college football teams, conferences, ...

. Retrieved on October 18, 2013. and in this game received its nickname, "Team of Destiny", from

Grantland Rice Henry Grantland "Granny" Rice (November 1, 1880July 13, 1954) was an early 20th-century American sportswriter known for his elegant prose. His writing was published in newspapers around the country and broadcast on the radio. Early years Rice wa ...

First radio broadcast

It was the first college football game to feature an intersectional audience on radio. The game was broadcast from KYW, a Westinghouse radio station in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, to WEAF, an American Telephone & Telegraph station in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and from there to the rest of the country. Historian Ronald Smith has called it "probably the most important radio broadcast up to that point."

Game summary

Fullback John Webster Thomas scored Chicago's three

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Amer ...

s, one in each of the first three quarters, but the team failed to score an

extra point The conversion, try (American football, also known as a point(s) after touchdown, PAT, or (depending on the number of points) extra point/2-point conversion), or convert (Canadian football) occurs immediately after a touchdown during which the sc ...

for any of them. Walter Camp wrote in picking Thomas first-team All-American: "It is safe to say he did far more against the Princeton

line Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Art ...

in effective scoring than did any backs of the East who met the Tigers". 1922PrincetonChicagobuck

The Tigers had scored a single touchdown in the second quarter, and also the extra point for a total of seven; they then scored two additional touchdowns for 14 points in the final quarter to win the game, while holding Chicago scoreless. With 12 minutes to play and Chicago nursing an 18–7 lead,

Howdy Gray Howard Kramer "Howdy" Gray (August 28, 1901 – September 6, 1955) was a college football player and surgeon. Princeton Gray was a prominent end on the Princeton Tigers football team. 1922 On the national champion " Team of Destiny" in its ...

of Princeton picked up a Jimmy Pyott fumble and ran it 40 yards for the touchdown. Gray's father, the president of the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

, reacted by waving his

program Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Programm ...

in the air, striking a woman in the shoulder. After an additional Princeton touchdown was scored, Chicago responded with a fierce

drive Drive or The Drive may refer to: Motoring * Driving, the act of controlling a vehicle * Road trip, a journey on roads Roadways Roadways called "drives" may include: * Driveway, a private road for local access to structures, abbreviated "drive" * ...

ending in a goal line stand with Thomas falling short of the goal. Halfback Harry "Maud" Crum scored Princeton's other touchdowns.

Aftermath

At one point late in the game, Chicago assistant

Fritz Crisler Herbert Orin "Fritz" Crisler (; January 12, 1899 – August 19, 1982) was an American college football coach who is best known as "the father of two-platoon football," an innovation in which separate units of players were used for offense and ...

implored Amos Stagg to send in Alonzo Jr. at

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Am ...

to call an

end run In gridiron football, an end run is a running play in which the player carrying the ball tries to avoid being tackled by running outside the end (or flank) of the offensive line. It is distinct from a dive, which is a run "up the middle", or an ...

. Ever the sportsman, Stagg flatly refused, citing afterwards "the rules committee deprecates the use of a substitute to convey information." Both teams finished the contest badly exhausted, especially Princeton, as during the last half of the game the heat was oppressive. The ''Princeton Alumni Weekly'' noted: "If this game proved anything at all it proved that a fine

forward pass In several forms of football, a forward pass is the throwing of the ball in the direction in which the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line. The forward pass is one of the main distinguishers between gridiro ...

ing game can defeat a fine line-plunging game."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Princeton vs. Chicago football game 1922 1922 college football season vs. Princeton 1922 vs. Chicago 1922 October 1922 sports events 1922 in sports in Illinois