Jackies: George Halas and the 1918 Naval Station Great Lakes Bluejackets Football Team

Over a century ago, college football was expanding in popularity in the United States but war in Europe raged. By 1917, the U.S., a nation with over 100 million people but only 130,000 active military members at the outbreak of World War I, was brought into the conflict. Millions of Americans were called into service, and training grounds and bases became home to football teams that competed with the best college programs in the nation. Told through the voices of the past, historians of the present, and narrated and produced by a Navy veteran once stationed at Great Lakes, Jackies is the story of the most prominent of these service teams, the Naval Station Great Lakes Bluejackets, located just north of Chicago. This three-part podcast not only describes how the Jackies were led on the field by a future Pro Football Hall of Famer in George Halas, but intertwines the story of the Bluejackets through the Great War, the origins of service football, and how shortly after the 1919 Bluejackets Rose Bowl appearance, service teams like Great Lakes propelled the game to launch into what is now the present-day National Football League.

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Jackies: George Halas and the 1918 Naval Station Great Lakes Bluejackets Football Team