Intercollegiate Football at the
University of Illinois at Chicago

During the 1880's, the new sport of football began to sweep across college campuses in the United States. In his history of the University of Illinois,Winton Solberg claims that "By 1894 football had become the great American college sport."

With intercollegiate teams at the University of Chicago, Northwestern, the University of Illinois, and Rush Medical School, the students at the predecessor of the UIC College of Medicine, (then known as the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago or "P&S") were not about to be left behind. In October 1895, they formed an Athletic Association to "promote the athletic spirit in the college, to equip the base ball and foot ball teams to represent the college away from home, and to give men who need exercise an opportunity to develop physically as well as mentally." A football team was organized almost immediately. Charles Wynekoop from the class of 1898 was elected to be the captain and the team began practicing in the Cook County Hospital Grounds the same month.