The Providence Steam Rollers (also referred to as the Providence Steam Roller, the Providence Steamroller and the Providence Steamrollers) were a professional American football team based in Providence, Rhode Island in the National Football League (NFL) from 1925 to 1931. Providence was the first New England team to win an NFL championship. The Steam Roller won the league's championship in 1928, which is the latest NFL championship win by a defunct team to date. Most of their home games were played at the Cycledrome, a 10,000-seat stadium that was built as a velodrome for bicycle races.
The Steam Rollers were established in 1916 by members of the Providence Journal; sports-editor Charles Coppen and part-time sports-writer Pearce Johnson. Three men shared in the ownership and management of the team: Coppen, James Dooley, and Peter Laudati. Meanwhile, Johnson stayed on as the team's manager for each year of its existence.[1]
The team soon became a regional power and by the mid-1920s was known as the best independent team in the country. By 1919 the team was drawing in more spectators than Brown University by a margin of 2–1, according to newspaper reports at the time. However, it seemed unlikely since the Steam Rollers crowd was on average 3,000 spectators a game. The players' wages were lower than those of Indiana and Ohio, so it was harder for the Steam Rollers to bring in "ringers". Several college football players did play for the Steam Rollers, but under aliases, so as not to jeopardize their amateur status.[2]
In 1924, Providence's schedule featured several NFL teams. The Steam Rollers posted a 3–2–1 record against those teams, defeating the Rochester Jeffersons (3–0), Minneapolis Marines (49–0) and Dayton Triangles (10–7). Both of their losses came against the Frankford Yellow Jackets (21–10) and (16–3). The team also posted a scoreless tie against the Columbus Tigers. The 1924 Steam Rollers then went on to win the mythical "undisputed championship of the Northeast". The team's success that season was enough to make Steam Rollers management and fans start thinking about playing in the NFL.[3]
NFL years
Providence joined the NFL in time for the 1925 season. By that time only three players from the 1924 team were still in the line-up when the team's first practice of 1925 was held on September 17. In fact, only about a dozen of them wore Steam Rollers colors for the team's debut in the NFL.[4] The Steam Rollers played mediocre football in their first two NFL seasons, but posted a strong 8–5–1 record in 1927 with Jim Conzelman as the team's head coach. For his per game salary of $292, Conzelman not only coached the team but also played quarterback in the single-wing formation. The star player for Providence was halfbackGeorge "Wildcat" Wilson, a 1925 All-American from the University of Washington who had spent the 1926 season as the head of the traveling Los Angeles Wildcats of the AFL.[5]
1928 championship season
1928 World Champions pennant.
Providence opened its 1928 season against Red Grange and the New York Yankees, Wilson's rival from the AFL. The Steam Rollers led the Yankees 20–7 at halftime and held that score throughout the second half. However, the team's next game resulted in a 10–6 loss to the Frankford Yellow Jackets. However, the team soon rebounded with a four-game winning streak over the Dayton Triangles (28–0), Yankees (12–6), Pottsville Maroons (13–6) and Detroit Wolverines (7–0). The Steam Rollers faced the Yellow Jackets again at Frankford Stadium on November 17, which resulted in a scoreless tie. However a week later, at the Cycledrome, Providence finally avenged its only loss of the season with a 6–0 victory over the Yellow Jackets. The team would then post wins over the New York Giants (16–0) and Pottsville (7–0), before ending its season with a 7–7 tie, against the Green Bay Packers. Providence was named the 1928 NFL Champions. Prior to the 1932 season, the NFL team with the best winning percentage was named the NFL Champions. Despite the Yellow Jackets winning 3 more games than the Steam Rollers and posting an 11–3–2 record, Providence was awarded the title due to having a better winning percentage.[6]
A "victory banquet" at the Biltmore Hotel took place a week later. At the banquet, each player was rewarded with a gold watch. It was also at this event that Conzelman was given a trophy and named the team's "Most Valuable Player". Five of the Steam Rollers players gained All-NFL honors when the league issued its official honor roll on December 23. Wildcat Wilson and Clyde Smith were named to the first team, while Curly Oden, Milt Rehnquist, and Gus Sonnenberg were placed on the second team.[7][8]
NFL firsts
Over the course of the next seven years, the team not only won an NFL championship but also established three league "firsts." In 1925, Providence was the first NFL team to play its home games in a bicycle racing stadium (a velodrome). In 1929, the Steam Rollers established two NFL "firsts." In the six-day period between November 5 and November 10, 1929, Providence played four games. The marathon string began against the Staten Island Stapletons, the Chicago Cardinals and concluded with a two-game series against the Frankford Yellow Jackets. Although the Steam Rollers made history, their 0–3–1 record during that six-day stretch proved to be a scheduling disaster. During the second game of that four-game series, Providence hosted the Cardinals on November 6. The game was played at night at nearby Kinsley Park, where floodlights recently had been installed. The teams had originally been scheduled to play on Sunday, November 3, but heavy rains made the Cycledrome field unplayable. Since neither team wanted to lose a payday, the historic night game was hastily scheduled. Because of this, Providence made history again by being the first team to host an NFL game at night under floodlights. Although the Steam Rollers lost 16–0, the game was declared a success because 6,000 fans attended.[9]
Decline
Despite their 1928 championship, the team experienced troubles in 1929. On January 4, 1929, Sonnenberg defeated Strangler Lewis in two straight falls to capture the world heavyweight championship in professional wrestling. This caused Sonnenberg to stay out of football, as he could make better money defending his title. Meanwhile, Oden quit pro football to take a job with an insurance company in Boston, and Smith decided to return to his native Missouri and coach football. Conzelman also didn't fully recover from a knee injury sustained in 1928. Rehnquist missed the first half of the season due of illness, and Wildcat Wilson became complacent and turned into an ordinary back. The 1929 Steam Rollers team struggled to a 4–6–2 record, resulting in a 7th place league finish. This caused the fans, who attended each game during the championship season, to stay home. The team posted a 6–4–1 record in 1930 and a 4–4–3 record in 1931.[10]
The lack of interest, coupled with the Great Depression in 1930, caused Dooley, Coppen and Laudati to suspend operations after the 1931 season. The three owners then gave up and turned the franchise back over to the NFL in 1933.[11]
Name origin
During halftime against a game between the Steam Rollers and the Providence Pros, Charles Coppen, who was getting a hot dog, heard a remark that the opposing team was "getting steam-rolled". Coppen loved the remark so much he named his team the Steam Rollers.[12]
Other Steam Roller teams
A team known as the Providence Huskies (the Steam Roller had used a husky-like dog as their mascot, so this team may have been a continuation of or successor to the Steam Roller) played during the 1933 season. The Huskies earned a perfect season, the only season in the professional or semi-professional record books to have not allowed their opponents to score a single point over an entire season. In 1936 an unrelated Providence Steam Roller team played in the New England Football League for one season.
The Steam Roller name was revived by Pearce Johnson, one of the original team's founders. The subsequent Steamrollers played on a near-continuous basis since that point as a semi-pro, minor league, and independent team until 1942, when it moved to Springfield and became the Springfield Steamroller for 1943, and suspended operations shortly thereafter. The last three seasons of a "Providence Steamrollers " team were as a member of the Atlantic Coast Football League; in 1962, the Steamroller team was the league's runner-up, losing in the championship to the Paterson Miners in a double-overtime decision. The assets of the ACFL Steam Roller were bought and taken to the Continental Football League as the Rhode Island Indians, where the team played one last season in 1965. After the 1965 season, the team's franchise rights were turned over to famed baseball player Jackie Robinson and became the "Brooklyn Dodgers," which lasted one season.
A rare home movie showing the Providence Steamrollers playing the Framingham Lion Tamers was recently discovered and preserved by Northeast Historic Film, a regional moving image archive in New England.
↑ Hogrogian, John (1980). "The Steam Roller"(PDF). Coffin Corner. Professional Football Researchers Association. 2 (3): 1–13. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-11-27.
↑ Hogrogian, John (1980). "The Steam Roller"(PDF). Coffin Corner. Professional Football Researchers Association. 2 (3): 1–13. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-11-27.
↑ Hogrogian, John (1980). "The Steam Roller"(PDF). Coffin Corner. Professional Football Researchers Association. 2 (3): 1–13. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-11-27.
↑ Carroll, Bob (1980). "Steam Rolled"(PDF). Coffin Corner. Professional Football Researchers Association. 2 (3): 1–4. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-09-29.
↑ Hogrogian, John (1980). "The Steam Roller"(PDF). Coffin Corner. Professional Football Researchers Association. 2 (3): 1–13. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-11-27.
↑ Hogrogian, John (1980). "The Steam Roller"(PDF). Coffin Corner. Professional Football Researchers Association. 2 (3): 1–13. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-11-27.
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The 1925 NFL season was the sixth regular season of the National Football League. Five new teams entered the league: New York Giants, Detroit Panthers, Pottsville Maroons, Providence Steam Roller, and a new Canton Bulldogs team. The Kenosha Maroons folded, with the Racine Legion and Minneapolis Marines mothballing.
The 1928 NFL season was the ninth regular season of the National Football League. The league dropped to 10 teams as the Cleveland Bulldogs and the Duluth Eskimos both folded before the season, while the Rochester Jeffersons, after missing two seasons of play, also folded, and the Buffalo Bisons also had a year out from the league. The Detroit Wolverines were added as an expansion team.
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The 1925 National Football League (NFL) Championship, claimed by the Chicago Cardinals, has long been the subject of controversy, centering on the suspension of the Pottsville Maroons by NFL commissioner Joseph Carr, which prevented them from taking the title. The Maroons were one of the dominant teams of the 1925 season, and after defeating the Chicago Cardinals 21–7 on December 6, they came away with the best record in the league. However, Carr suspended and removed the team from the NFL after they played an unauthorized exhibition game in Philadelphia, on the grounds that they had violated the territorial rights of the Frankford Yellow Jackets. Chicago played and won two more games against weak NFL opponents, but were sanctioned because Cardinals player Art Folz hired four Chicago high school football players to play for the Milwaukee Badgers under assumed names to ensure a Cardinals victory.
Pedro "Pete" Calac was a professional football player who played in the Ohio League and during the early years of the National Football League (NFL). Over the course of his 10-year career he played for the Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators, Oorang Indians and the Buffalo Bisons.
Louie Lehman Smyth was a professional football player for the Canton Bulldogs from 1920 until 1923. Smyth won two NFL championships with the Bulldogs in 1922 and 1923 and another with the Yellow Jackets in 1926. He also played for the Hartford Blues, Rochester Jeffersons and the Providence Steamroller. Outside of the National Football League (NFL), he played for the Gilberton Cadamounts of the Anthracite League. During his year in Gilberton, Smyth doubled as a player with the Jeffersons. In 1923 Smyth led the NFL in touchdowns, with 7.
The Cycledrome was an American football stadium and velodrome located in Providence, Rhode Island. Its name derived from its intended use as a bicycle racing stadium (velodrome) when it was built in 1925 by sports promoter Pete Laudati. The stadium was home to the Providence Steam Roller of the National Football League (NFL) from 1925 to 1933, who played their games in the infield of the velodrome. The football field was snugly surrounded by a wooden track with steeply-banked ends, which cut sharply into the end zones and reduced them to just five yards in depth. During football games, temporary seating was permitted on the straight-away portion of the track, which was so close to the field that players, after being tackled, often found themselves in the stands.
The 1925 Chicago Cardinals–Milwaukee Badgers scandal was a scandal centered on a 1925 game between the Chicago Cardinals and the Milwaukee Badgers of the National Football League. The scandal involved a Chicago player, Art Folz, hiring a group of high school football players to play for the Milwaukee Badgers against the Cardinals. This would ensure an inferior opponent for Chicago. The game was used to help prop up their win–loss percentage and as a chance of wresting the 1925 Championship away from the first place Pottsville Maroons.
Pearce B. Johnson was a part-time sports editor for the Providence Journal and the general manager of the Providence Steam Roller of the National Football League. He was also one of the original founders of the team and served as the team's manager throughout its entire history (1916–1933). He is best known for hosting the very first night game in NFL history. After the team ended play in 1931, Johnson organized a semi-pro version of the Steam Roller in 1932 to play small-scale local teams. He also managed a minor league version of the Providence Steam Roller in the American Association in the 1940s. Later in life, he became a football historian for the Pro Football Researchers Association and was at one time their oldest member.
Charles B. Coppen was an American journalist who was the sports editor for the Providence Journal. He was also a baseball executive and a part owner of the Providence Steam Roller of the National Football League. He not only shared ownership of the team with Peter Laudati and James Dooley, but was also a co-founder of the team with Pearce Johnson, the team's general manager. In addition to his duties to the Steam Roller, he also had a budding law practice. His career with the Providence Journal ended with his involvement with the Steam Roller and in managing boxers. Coppen was also the manager of Providence's stadium, the Cyclodome.
Peter A. Laudati was a sports promoter and a part-owner of the Providence Steam Roller of the National Football League. He was also responsible for the construction of the team's stadium, the Cyclodome. Prior to this, he was a prominent Providence real estate developer.
Kinsley Park was an athletic field, used for professional football, minor league baseball and pro soccer, located in Providence, Rhode Island at the corner of Kinsley Avenue and Acorn Street, across Acorn from the Nicholson File Company Mill Complex. The field was used primarily by Providence Steam Roller, Providence Grays and the Providence Gold Bugs. The park was built primarily by Peter Laudati, a prominent Providence real estate developer and a part-owner of the Providence Steam Roller. He also built the Steam Roller's second stadium, the Cycledrome. During the 1930s the New York Yankees, featuring Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig played an exhibition game at that park.
John Grattan O'Connell was an American professional football player who played two seasons in the National Football League (NFL) from 1926 to 1927. He played for the Hartford Blues during the 1926 season and the Providence Steam Roller during the 1927 season.
Orland Francis Smith was an American football player.
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