For over a century, school traditions, pride, and rivalries have fostered a sense of community within college football, contributing to its popularity and making it one of America’s favorite sports. As the popularity of college football grew in America during the interwar period, newsreels started covering the sport as part of their regular news releases. The first collegiate football game covered by Universal Newsreel was the October 1929 meeting of Army and Boston University when Army beat Boston 26-0. Newsreel reporters often collected the program from each sporting event they attended. It was a helpful way to remember player and coach names and game statistics and served as a place to take notes. Universal producers kept many official programs, now part of the collection’s production files. The programs highlighted here are mostly from the 1930s and are just a sampling of those found in production files.
1933 Army 12-7 Navy
1936 University of Pittsburgh 26-0 Notre Dame
1935 California 14-2 UCLA
1933 Yale 2-27 Princeton
1935 Northwestern 10-3 Illinois
1933 Army 12-13 Notre Dame
1936 Fordham 7-6 Saint Mary’s
1941 Intercollegiate Colored All-Stars vs Yankee All-Stars
In addition to regular season games, Universal covered special games such as all-star matches and bowl games. One special game covered by Universal was the 1941 All-Star Game. Not much information is available about this game beyond what is provided in the program and Universal’s release sheet. The release sheet reads.
“Colored All-Stars Defeated – New York, N.Y. 22,000 grid fans whoop it up at the Polo Grounds as the Yankee All-Stars stop a determined attack by the Colored team. Sidat-Singh stars for the losers.”
Both teams for this game comprised the top collegiate players nationwide. Many players playing against each other in this game were teammates on their college teams. However, while many white players featured in the game would go on to be drafted into the NFL, none of the black players were, despite their equal talents. In the 1920s, during the NFL’s first decade of existence, there were some black players, such as Fritz Pollard and Frederick Slater, but owners banned Black players from the league starting in 1933. The ban lasted until 1946 when the Cleveland Rams moved to Los Angeles and were required to integrate as a condition of their lease at Memorial Coliseum.
This newsreel can be viewed in NARA’s catalog Universal Newsreel Volume 14, Release 38.