The Pottsville Maroons were an American football team based in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1920, they went on to play in the National Football League (NFL) for four seasons, from 1925–1928. In 1929 they relocated to Boston, where they played one season as the Boston Bulldogs.
Originally known as the Pottsville Eleven, the team was initially an independent team playing in the local eastern Pennsylvania circuit. Home games were played at Minersville Park, a high school stadium in nearby Minersville. They joined the local Anthracite League in 1924, the same year they adopted the "Maroons" nickname, and clinched the league title. The next season they joined the NFL under owner John G. Streigel. Though dominant on the field, a controversial suspension cost them the 1925 NFL Championship. They were reinstated the following year, but after two successive losing seasons in 1927 and 1928, Streigel sold the Maroons to a group in Boston, where they played one season before folding.
1925 was their best season. The 1928 roster included three future Pro Football Hall of Fame members - Johnny "Blood" McNally, Walt Kiesling, and coach Wilbur "Pete" Henry - but posted the worst record in franchise history. Writer John O'Hara, who would go on to become a world-famous novelist with Appointment in Samarra, covered the team for the local newspaper.
Read more about Pottsville Maroons: NFL, Boston Bulldogs, Today, Pro Football Hall of Famers, Season-by-season
Famous quotes containing the word maroons:
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)