The high school football game that drew 110,000+ fans to soldier field

With news of the Bears’ possible move to Arlington Heights, Chicago remembers the anniversary of the sporting event that drew one of the largest crowds ever to Soldier Field. On Nov. 27, 1937, 110,000 to 120,000 fans jammed the stadium to watch Chicago public high school football champions Austin and Catholic League champs Leo battle in Mayor Edward Kelly’s annual Chicago’s Own Christmas Benefit fundraiser for underprivileged children.

The game’s big draw was Austin’s halfback Bill DeCorrevont, the most nationally highly publicized high school athlete of his generation. Newspaper articles for weeks before the game were devoted to his feats. The blonde, 5-foot-10-inch, 180-pound senior was a force from his first scrimmage as a freshman, when he scored four touchdowns against the varsity. In the regular 1937 season. he scored 35 touchdowns in 10 games, of which he estimated about half were on runs of 50 yards or more. In a 93-0 rout of McKinley, he scored nine of the 10 times he had the football. He was the nation’s highest scoring football player - prep, collegiate or professional - that year.

Johnny Galvin, a tailback and punter, was Leo’s star. While his fans conceded DeCorrevont was a better ball carrier, they boasted their guy was a superior kicker and passer.

Another reason for the large crowd was that professional football had not yet become a national craze. The day after the Austin-Leo game, only 4,188 fans were at Wrigley Field to watch the Bears defeat the Cleveland Rams. And the $1 Austin-Leo ticket was more affordable than the $2.50 Bears entry fee during the Great Depression.

Soldier Field seating capacity at that time was around 75,000. The game was oversold with the city officials mistakenly expecting many people would buy tickets to support the charity with no intention of attending.

At the 1:30 pm start of the game all seats were already filled, people were standing seven deep on the “U” around the top of the stadium and more were sitting on the steps of each aisle. Some even crammed themselves between rows in the bleachers. DeCorrevont recalled for the Tribune in 1987 his thoughts while he watched the stadium fill up. “I couldn’t imagine there would be this many people coming to see a high school football game. All I could say to myself was, ‘Don’t louse things up now.’” Just before the start of the second quarter, thousands of fans who were standing in the aisles and sitting in the northeast stand seats rushed the field and formed a horseshoe. Police quickly put up ropes and kept them back 10 yards from the sidelines. Crowds kept streaming through the gate throughout the quarter.

DeCorrevont was later told that non-paying fans watched the game from the windows of the Park District Administration building on 14th Street. “I don’t know what they could have seen from there,” he told the Chicago Tribune.

DeCorrevont need not have worried about lousing things up. Midway in the second quarter he rushed 47 yards for a touchdown, followed a few minutes later by a high dive over his right guard for another. Al Bauman added two field goals. DeCorrevont threw a pass to quarterback Sonny Skor in the end zone in the fourth quarter. He stopped Leo’s only scoring threat by knocking down Galvin’s first-quarter pass in the end zone. Galvin was forced to leave the game in the second half in pain from the shoulder separation he had suffered during the regular season. Final score was 26 -0.

DeCorrevont was offered a movie and a radio contract but turned them down saying he was not cut out for such roles, and they would make him a professional and ineligible to play college football. College offers poured in: cars, a new car for his mother and $250 a week when the average weekly wage was $21. But he chose Northwestern University, to stay close to home and to be with his four teammates also headed there. At Northwestern he led the Wildcats in total offense in 1939 and 1940 and in rushing in 1941.

After serving in the Navy in World War II, DeCorrevont played with the Washington Redskins, Detroit Lions, Chicago Cardinals and ended his career with the Bears in 1949. “Since then, I’ve had nothing to do with football except watch the Bears home games,” he told the Tribune in 1982. He married, raised a family and owned a Chicago furniture and rug cleaning business before retiring. He died on Sept. 8, 1995, at age 76.

The annual city championship is now called the Prep Bowl. The last game was played in pre-Covid 2019 where a crowd of about 1,200 watched suburban Burbank’s St. Laurence in their stadium defeat Simeon 35-34.

While many who have played on Bears teams over the years are still famous and others have faded from memory, it is a group of high school football players and the star halfback that Chicago still remembers as one of the largest sporting draws ever to Soldier field.

by Stella Kapetan