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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/ZappaOMatic on 2023-09-21 01:59:35.

With all the “FBI raiding Halas Hall” hullabaloo today, here’s a fun(?) fact: it was legit, it wouldn’t be the first time the Bears were investigated by the feds.

This is a repost of a piece I wrote in 2018, but now seemed like a good time to republish it because… yeah.

1943 was a strange year for the NFL. As the war raged on, the draft and enlistment claimed hundreds of players, coaches, and owners. It reached the point where the Cleveland Rams lost so many players, including their owner, forcing them to go on hiatus for the 1943 season, and the Eagles and Steelers merged to form the Steagles. The Bears and Cardinals came close to also merging, but a coalition of owners led by Redskins’ George Preston Marshall opposed the move, saying it was an easy way for the teams to solve their roster problems instead of rebuilding on their own.[1]

The NFL also reduced roster sizes from 33 to 25 players, hoping the eight players cut would be allocated to other teams to maintain a balance along with reducing costs. Other rule changes included permitting unlimited substitution, removing the 22-player minimum requirement, making helmets mandatory, and even renaming the NFL Draft to the “preferred negotiations list” to prevent confusion with the military draft (not like it mattered as only five percent of players selected in the 1943 NFL Draft were in Training Camp that year).[1]

In September, the regular season slowly approached. Although George Halas was in the South Pacific with the Navy, interim President and lifelong friend Ralph Brizzolara was leading the team. The Bears also convinced legendary fullback Bronko Nagurski to come out of retirement after six years to play offensive line.[1] On the heels of a spoiled undefeated season, the Bears were ready to take on the Packers in Week 1.

Well, assuming the government doesn’t ruin everything.

The War Manpower Commission, a government wartime agency that oversaw the nation’s labor force, grew suspicious when five Bears players – center Clyde “Bulldog” Turner, running backs Dante Magnani and Harry Clark, end Hampton Pool, and tackle Al Hoptowit – suddenly left their offseason war plant jobs to gear up for the NFL season.[2] After all, with the war going on, the United States needed all the help it could get from the home front.

The WMC launched an investigation into the Bears, ordering the players to provide their certificates of availability; these certificates, required for anybody playing sports and provided by their war plants, stated the worker’s main employer and other jobs. If the players’ certificates listed the Bears as their primary company, they would be free to play without problem. However, if it was a war contractor that was written as the main occupation, the Bears would be considered a “vacation employer” and this would cause some problems. Should the latter occur, the players would either be forced to return to “essential industry” or they would be automatically eligible to be drafted into the military.[1][2]

“There has been no formal complaint filed against the Bears, but there have been public inquiries since a publicity release about a week ago told of five men who left war work to play football,” WMC regional director William H. Spencer said. “We are acting upon these inquiries. This is a novel case.”[3]

Although this investigation targeted the Bears in particular, other league were not safe. Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League were also threatened, and if the Bears situation went against them, it would have harmed pro sports as a whole as every athlete would be ordered to drop their career to join the war.[1][2]

“It goes without saying, of course,” New York Herald Tribune writer Arthur E. Patterson wrote, “if these men were frozen to their war jobs, there just wouldn’t be any baseball in 1944.”[1]

Some teams like the Steagles and other baseball clubs already required their players to work, but the hopes of playing sports would be gone should this investigation go poorly for Chicago.[1]

“We turned our practices upside down to make sure that the men would not let their war work suffer,” Steagles general manager Harry Thayer commented, alluding to the Bears investigation. “I venture to say that by the time we open our regular season … every man on the squad will in fact be a full-time worker and a part-time football player.”[1]

The Bears maintained they were not breaking any rules, and Brizzolara added co-head coaches Luke Johnsos and Hunk Anderson had war-related jobs of their own. From the NFL, Commissioner Elmer Layden was more worried as he allowed the WMC to inspect league offices for documents.[1]

“The league clubs have always cooperated in the war effort,” Layden stated. “If there were any irregularities, we would want to know about them too and they will be corrected. The war comes first.”[1]

On September 23, just three days before the Bears kicked off the season in Green Bay, Spencer met with Brizzolara in Chicago, followed by a meeting with Layden the next day. After further review, Spencer eventually announced the five accused players had the Bears listed as their main employer, meaning they were free to play football.[1]

The Bears decided to help the war effort anyway. On October 8, the team officially announced four players would be joining the Navy: running backs Bill Geyer and Bill Osmanski, tackle Bill Steinkemper, and defensive end John Siegal.[1] In November, MVP quarterback Sid Luckman declared he would be joining the Merchant Marine after applying for a commission in the summer, but remained with the Bears until the end of the 1943 season.[4] On D-Day, he worked on a tanker that moved Allied troops to the beaches; Luckman was one of four Pro Football Hall of Famers who served in Normandy, the others being future Browns players Frank Gatski and Dante Lavelli, and future Eagle Pete Pihos.[5]

With the WMC out of the way, the Bears mounted another push for the NFL Championship, beating the Redskins 42–21 to win their third title in four years and establish themselves as the NFL’s dynasty of the 1940s.

References

[1] Last Team Standing: How the Steelers and the Eagles—“The Steagles”—Saved Pro Football During World War II by Matthew Algeo

[2] WMC Plans to Investigate Chicago Bears by Davis J. Walsh, The Dispatch, September 23, 1943

[3] WMC PROBES GRID LEAGUE by the Associated Press, The News Leader, September 24, 1943

[4] Luckman Joins Merchant Marine from The Tennessean, November 16, 1943

[5] Chicago Bears Legend Sid Luckman Part of Normandy Invasion in WWII by Bill Zimmerman, Bears Goggles On