The Eagles owner was training for WWII when his team merged with the Steelers on this week in Philly history
Eagles owner Alexis Thompson had orchestrated the ‘Steagles’ deal by phone from a U.S. Army training ground for officer candidates in North Carolina.
NFL team owners gathered at a gilded Chicago hotel in April 1943, and under a cloud of cigar smoke, lamented the rippling effects of confronting monstrous tyranny.
Except for Alexis Thompson. The millionaire playboy, and owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, was more than 900 miles away at a U.S. Army training ground for officer candidates in rural North Carolina.
The major topic at the owners’ meetings concerned manpower. Many of the league’s best players were overseas fighting in World War II. The owners approved the Cleveland Rams folding for the duration of the war, leaving the remaining nine franchises with an uneven schedule.
The Steelers brass approached the Eagles general manager, who was standing in for Thompson, about a possible merger. The Steelers only had six players under contract, while the Eagles were well-stocked.
The Eagles GM had to talk it over with the owner.
From playboy to private
In 1930, “Lex” Thompson inherited a steel fortune estimated at $3.5 million (now nearly $70 million) — at about age 20.
After graduating from Yale University, and competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics as part of the U.S. field hockey team, he started a successful drug company with classmates. He became a fixture of the New York cafe society before deciding around age 30 to invest in professional sports.
He bought the Steelers in 1939 for a reported $165,000, but after a complicated merger involving competing interests in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, he ended up owning the Eagles in 1941.
He had enlisted in the Army in October 1942, partly for love of country, partly for the adventure, and partly for the raw competition, according to Matthew Algeo’s book, Last Team Standing: How the Steelers and the Eagles — “The Steagles”— Saved Pro Football During World War II.
“It was a game in which he wanted to play,” Algeo wrote.
The dashing socialite was now a buck private, or a soldier with the lowest possible rank.
The ‘Steagles’ are born
The Eagles GM would call Thompson at the Army camp, at least once or twice a day, to help facilitate the delicate negotiation.
Thompson had a few demands: This merged team would be called simply the Eagles, the uniforms would be kelly green and white, and they would still play a majority of the home games in Philly. He agreed to splitting expenses and any meager profits.
» READ MORE: The Steelers and Eagles were once the same team. Here’s the history of the short-lived Steagles.
And on June 19, 1943, the owners voted to adopt the merger, giving birth to a Frankenstein team fans later nicknamed “the Steagles.” But it only lasted one season.
The Steelers would merge with the Cardinals the following year, but got back on their feet by the end of war. And Thompson returned home as a captain.