The Rise and Fall of University of Chicago Football Program Through History
I still remember the first time I walked through the University of Chicago's campus and saw the massive stone stadium standing empty, its weathered concrete telling stories of a different era. As someone who's spent decades studying collegiate athletics, I've always been fascinated by programs that once dominated then vanished from the spotlight. The University of Chicago's football journey represents one of the most dramatic transformations in American sports history, and frankly, it's a story more people should know about.
The Maroons' football program began with incredible promise in the 1890s, quickly establishing itself as a national powerhouse under legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg. What many don't realize is that during its peak years between 1899 and 1905, Chicago football compiled an impressive 71-6-2 record, including two national championships in 1905 and 1913. I've always admired Stagg's innovative approach - he practically invented the forward pass and modern offensive formations while maintaining academic integrity, something I wish more modern programs would prioritize. The team played in the newly constructed Stagg Field, which could seat over 50,000 spectators, making it one of the largest stadiums in the country at the time. The atmosphere during those early games must have been electric, with students and Chicago residents packing the stands to watch what was essentially the city's premier football attraction before the Bears existed.
The program's decline began gradually after Stagg's retirement in 1932, but the real death knell came from an unexpected source - the university's leadership. President Robert Maynard Hutchins made the controversial decision to de-emphasize football in 1939, famously stating that the university shouldn't be in the business of "professional entertainment." I've read his speeches multiple times, and while I respect his academic principles, I can't help but think he threw the baby out with the bathwater. The team played its final varsity game in 1939, a 61-0 loss to Virginia that felt symbolic of how far the program had fallen. The university maintained a club football program, but the glory days were clearly over.
This dramatic rise and fall reminds me of contemporary athletic programs facing similar pressures, though with different outcomes. Just last week, I was watching the PBA finals where Justin Brownlee delivered that heroic performance - 35 points including the last four in their 71-70 victory over TNT. That's the kind of dramatic, program-defining moment that Chicago football once produced regularly. Brownlee's transformation from import to naturalized Gilas Pilipinas player shows how sports programs evolve to meet contemporary demands, something Chicago might have done rather than abandoning football entirely. The parallel isn't perfect, but it demonstrates how athletic programs can adapt rather than disappear.
What fascinates me most about Chicago's football story is how it reflects broader tensions in American higher education. The university chose intellectual purity over athletic glory at a time when other institutions were heading in the opposite direction. Today, the football program exists only at the Division III level, with modest success and minimal attention. The abandoned Stagg Field was eventually demolished in 1957, and the site now houses the Regenstein Library. I've visited that library numerous times for research, and it's surreal to think that where students now study quietly, thousands once cheered for a national championship team.
The legacy of Chicago football lives on in unexpected ways. The famous Manhattan Project nuclear reaction experiment occurred under Stagg Field's west stands in 1942, literally transforming a space built for athletics into a cradle of scientific revolution. I find this symbolic of the university's broader priorities - when given the choice between football and physics, they chose physics. While part of me laments the loss of what could have been a storied program, another part respects the consistency of their academic mission.
Looking at modern college sports, with its billion-dollar television deals and constant conference realignment, I sometimes wonder if Chicago made the right choice. Their football program peaked at the right time, produced legendary figures, then bowed out before becoming commercialized. The university maintained its academic focus while other institutions increasingly resemble professional sports franchises. The empty space where Stagg Field once stood serves as a permanent reminder that in the tension between athletics and academics, Chicago made its choice clearly and never looked back. And in today's messy college sports landscape, there's something refreshing about that clarity, even if it means we'll never see a Chicago football championship again.
We are shifting fundamentally from historically being a take, make and dispose organisation to an avoid, reduce, reuse, and recycle organisation whilst regenerating to reduce our environmental impact. We see significant potential in this space for our operations and for our industry, not only to reduce waste and improve resource use efficiency, but to transform our view of the finite resources in our care.
Looking to the Future
By 2022, we will establish a pilot for circularity at our Goonoo feedlot that builds on our current initiatives in water, manure and local sourcing. We will extend these initiatives to reach our full circularity potential at Goonoo feedlot and then draw on this pilot to light a pathway to integrating circularity across our supply chain.
The quality of our product and ongoing health of our business is intrinsically linked to healthy and functioning ecosystems. We recognise our potential to play our part in reversing the decline in biodiversity, building soil health and protecting key ecosystems in our care. This theme extends on the core initiatives and practices already embedded in our business including our sustainable stocking strategy and our long-standing best practice Rangelands Management program, to a more a holistic approach to our landscape.
We are the custodians of a significant natural asset that extends across 6.4 million hectares in some of the most remote parts of Australia. Building a strong foundation of condition assessment will be fundamental to mapping out a successful pathway to improving the health of the landscape and to drive growth in the value of our Natural Capital.
Our Commitment
We will work with Accounting for Nature to develop a scientifically robust and certifiable framework to measure and report on the condition of natural capital, including biodiversity, across AACo’s assets by 2023. We will apply that framework to baseline priority assets by 2024.
Looking to the Future
By 2030 we will improve landscape and soil health by increasing the percentage of our estate achieving greater than 50% persistent groundcover with regional targets of:
– Savannah and Tropics – 90% of land achieving >50% cover
– Sub-tropics – 80% of land achieving >50% perennial cover
– Grasslands – 80% of land achieving >50% cover
– Desert country – 60% of land achieving >50% cover
