The Official Website of the
The journey of a sandlot football team playing in Rochester, N.Y in 1898, to being an original member of the National Football League in 1920 and playing during the first six seasons of the NFL
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the sandlot football years 1898 to 1911
The new game of American foot-ball begins to catch on in the city of Rochester, New York around 1900, more as a curiosity than anything. Rules were few and injuries were commonplace. The University of Rochester began it's football program in 1889, with the help of a few Yale and Harvard players who were the current "experts" in the new game of football. Ten years later, the city has dozens of sandlot teams along with local area high schools that add football programs to their curriculum. During the early 1900's, college teams, amateur sandlot teams and high school teams would compete against each other, usually separated by the players weight.
In 1898, the U. of Rochester brought in a new director named Joseph Alling, a well known disciplinarian with strict religious morals with ties to the YMCA. The university football program had grown unruly, late night drinking and gambling while studies suffered brought about the expulsion of some student/players. These players still wanted to play football so they combined with a Jefferson Avenue neighborhood sandlot team to form the Rochester Jeffersons in 1898. The political organization, the "Jefferson Club" was rumored to have created the team but no evidence has ever been found. It was a national political influencer that did exist in their neighborhood, swaying local politicians and voters a certain way. It is possible they supported the team.
The sandlot teams grew in number, every year another 20 or so pop up, many named after the street or neighborhood they lived and played in. { The Genesees, Glenwoods, Atlantics, Oxfords, Jeffersons and Columbias }
While some had creative names like the Scalpers, Tomahawks, Climax, X-Rays and Rox. Team managers booked games by newspaper ads or word of mouth. Ads like these can been seen in the newspaper clippings below.
Football teams at West High and East High in Rochester became the hottest rivalry around. The largest crowds ever assembled in the city took place while these 2 combatants fought it out on the gridiron, upwards of 10,000 spectators.
West High versus East High
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Jeffersons 1907
Back row: Frank Dunning, Bill Caufield, Jack Plant, Mike Kelley, Bill Kretchmer, Dutch Mellody, Al Horth.
Front Row: Howard "Mike" Pfaudler, Doane, Bill Doane, Pete Hutchison, Ray "Yick" Rice, Jim Weldon, Shorty Caske, Bill O'Brien.
( Picture taken in front of the Pete Hutchison Hotel, Genesee St. and Brooks Ave.)
1908 is the year a 16 year old Leo Lyons joins the "Jeffs", introduced to the team by his best friend and a Jeffersons player, Walter "Dutch" Mellody. To just get to the playing field that day, would involve all kinds of chicanery. Lying to his parents where he was going was the start of the day. Then Leo would meet up with Dutch, on foot, and the two would scurry down the street, change into their football attire in an abandoned hotel, climb down on a ladder and walk a mile to the game. This would be how Leo played football during his first years in the sport he was obsessed with, using aliases to avoid getting caught by his strict parents. Not that football was a safe endeavor in these times. Players were constantly being severely injured including a running national death toll in newspapers! Earlier in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt called for an emergency meeting with football heads to discuss the violent nature of the game and what could be done.
During his first 2 seasons on the Rochester "Jeffs", Leo would become obsessed with the game of football. He often complained to his brothers and friends, who were big "big league" baseball fans, collecting baseball cards and colorful pennants. Leo would continually comment that there should be a pro football league like baseball. When the 1910 season approached, Leo Lyons took control of the Jefferson team with the help of another player, Bill Caufield. Leo was 18 years old, working 2 to 3 jobs while playing amateur baseball, managing a basketball team and the "Jeffs".
Dutch Mellody
Leo
Lyons
Bill Caufield
Leo Lyons
Henry C. McDonald
Born in Port-Au-Prince , Haiti 1890
One of the first black professional football players in history
His parents send their 5 year old son to America for a chance to escape poverty, through a friend who was an importer/exporter of produce to the U.S.
He grows up in a boarding house on Main St., Canandaigua, NY, not far from
Rochester. Young Henry excels at his studies and becomes a star football player for Canandaigua Academy
He transfers to East High in Rochester, 1908, to complete his schooling. In doing so, he becomes the first black student in Rochester's history to graduate from high school.
After high school, he joins the Oxfords sandlot football team as a speedy half back. During the 1911 season , the "Jeffs' play the Oxfords 2 times. Leo witnesses a troubling pattern, both games featured big plays from Henry but was being called "blackboy" and other names by his own Oxford teammates. After their final game against each other, Leo had seen enough and walked over to the opposing sides bench where Henry sat, after the game. In short, Leo offered him a starting halfback position on the "Jeffs", along with no racial slurs from his own teammates, ever! Henry accepted and was in Leo's lineup at the end of 1911 season. The two would become life long friends.
1910 becomes the year football changed in Rochester forever. To everyone's shock, the city high schools ban football ( for 30 more years) for "unseemly conduct" which included gambling by crime circles, fans and even players. East and West high football programs are shuttered.
This in turn improved the sandlot teams and new team manager and owner Leo Lyons and Bill Caufield loaded their roster with as many high school stars as they could.
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Henry McDonald
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Leo Lyons
1911
Standing, left to right: ADRIAN GROOT, RAY RICE, HAROLD DRISCOLL, BILL McCARTHY, ED BURKE, POP MORRISON, CHARLES McCLELLAN, HENRY McDONALD, CHARLES McFADDEN, DUTCH MELLODY, CHUCK MORRISON
Sitting, left to right: HOWARD "MIKE" PFAUDLER, LEO LYONS (with football), JACK SLATTERY, BEN ZIEGLER, CHARLES ASHTON, LAURENCE ANGEVINE.
<photo taken at Sheehan's Field, Monroe and Elmwood, 1911>
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Display with Henry McDonald at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Henry is one of the first black professional football players in documented history.
