With football season well underway, members of the Creighton University student body are talking about something that comes up every fall: why doesn’t Creighton have a football team? This question isn’t new to campus — it’s one that Jays have been wondering about for decades since the team disbanded, and a student-led prank in the ‘80s even temporarily brought football back to campus.
From 1891 to 1942, Creighton did have a football team. In December 1891, a hastily thrown-together group of students — with no team uniforms and no coaches — faced off against a much more organized team from the Omaha Medical College (now the University of Nebraska Medical Center) in Omaha’s first organized football game, according to an article published by Creighton University Alumni and Friends. Despite only two of the players on Creighton’s team having seen a game of football before this matchup, the Bluejays, known as the Hilltoppers at the time, still managed to win; the Creightonian reported they won 12-0 and the Omaha World-Herald reported they won 6-0.
Creighton’s team had humble beginnings, playing against teams like Omaha High School and Lincoln Medical School. In the early 1900s, it finally became an official intercollegiate team.
Before the team met its end in the ‘40s, it had multiple ups and downs. Creighton football went 8-1 in both 1902 and 1918, with a 3-0 winning streak in 1918 until the season was cut short by World War I, according to an Alumni and Friends article. The team even won three conference titles — two in the North Central Conference and one in the Missouri Valley Conference.
In 1925, a stadium was finally built for the Creighton football team. Creighton Stadium was Omaha’s largest structure at the time, able to seat approximately 15,000 people. It was situated south of Burt Street and west of the Old Gym, where the Eppley Building and Criss Complex are now located. The stadium was demolished in the ‘60s.
On Nov. 21, 1942, the Bluejays would play their last football game, and they didn’t even know it yet. They lost 33-19 to Tulsa. The season was suddenly cut short, with Creighton suspending both the football and basketball seasons due to World War II. According to an Alumni and Friends article, the teams were suspended because of the difficulties of wartime travel, the government using equipment and facilities for their physical fitness program, and the athletes getting drafted. The Omaha World-Herald reported that 28 players from Creighton’s 1942 football team were obligated to service in the military, and at least two of the players died in action.
While the team was suspended, the Creighton community assumed football would return to campus after the war. It wasn’t until 1946 that students learned the team was gone for the foreseeable future. Then-university president, the Rev. William H. McCabe, S.J., wrote a letter explaining that the financial burden of the team was too great. Basketball, however, did return.
“The decision is based on Creighton’s reasonable unwillingness to accept the scholastic and financial hardship unfortunately involved in intercollegiate football competition in our day,” McCabe’s letter stated. “If and when these hardships are eliminated, I predict the university will gladly welcome back the virtues of intercollegiate football rivalry. We will continue basketball.”
A couple years later, in 1948, Creighton’s football team officially left the Missouri Valley Conference — and, with it, left the hopeful rumors of the team’s return, which had been previously prominent on campus, according to the Alumni and Friends article.
Although the official team was disbanded, football had not left Creighton for good. In 1983, Creighton’s football team had several games scheduled, a segment televised by CBS and even a prominent female player. But the resurrected football team wasn’t exactly real. It was a joke orchestrated by the Creightonian staff.
On Sept. 16, the Creightonian published an article about the history of Creighton football, but with no mention of a make-believe team. Soon thereafter, the student newspaper published a joke article recapping a fake football game. By October, updates about Creighton’s revived football team — a team that never actually existed and never played any games — were routine in the paper.
But what, or rather who, was real? The players and coach included in each game recap. Actual Creighton students were said to be athletes on the football team and the university president of the time, the Rev. Michael G. Morrison, S.J., was reported to be the team’s coach.
The articles were written by Bob McDonald, who, at the time, was a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences and contributing editor of the Creightonian.
The satirical articles were intended to be light-hearted and humorous. In one, published on Oct. 14, 1983, McDonald wrote, “With Mark Stenner and Mark Weber combining a rush for 318 yards and Lewis Hofmann passing for three touchdowns, the Creighton Bluejays routed Penn State 31-14 Saturday atop Interstate 480. … A crowd of six crammed onto the Interstate, with its brand new pink artificial turf, to witness the Jays’ mauling of Penn State, despite worries that Hofmann may not play. Hofmann blew up the Rigge Science building Friday night during a physics experiment. Unhurt by the explosion, Hofmann said the experiment was designed to test ‘the effect of massive explosions on large buildings.’”
One recurring star of the articles was student Kristi Swanson, the team’s first female player. She was reported by the Creightonian as the only female major football player in the country.
Underneath the byline with McDonald’s name, each football article read, “The following story is entirely fictional.”
Additionally, alongside the article published Oct. 14 that recapped a fictitious game, a box explained that the articles and team weren’t real.
“Creighton’s fictional football team was created by Arts senior Bob McDonald,” the informational box said. “McDonald saw a football roster, printed by Heileman’s Old Style, during registration. According to McDonald’s first account of the Jays, the team has been undefeated for the last 41 years.”
It had been 41 years since Creighton played their last official football game in 1942.
The informational box also said, “Team members discovered that they were football players while reading the first article in the Creightonian. Senior flanker Kristi Swanson said, ‘The article came as quite a shock.’ She said she is not sure how she became the team’s only female football player. ‘It was fate,’ she said.”
According to an article published by the Alumni and Friends, McDonald was helping put together an issue of the Creightonian and, thinking of the roster he saw, had the idea to write a last-minute sports article about a fake football game so the newspaper staff had another article to fill space on their pages. From there, it took off. The fictional story was meant to be a one-time joke, but the positive feedback it received turned it into a season-long bit for the Creightonian staff and the broader Creighton community.
The joke was so well-received that it was picked up by national media, which led to CBS televising a Creighton football practice.
In November 1983, a CBS producer called McDonald and asked if they could film a segment about the team to air during a Husker game. McDonald then assembled enough students to play a scrimmage game and recruited two professors to act as assistant coaches. Morrison even showed up to step into his role as the head coach and scored a touchdown.
They played on the lawn by Kiewit Hall, a now-demolished building that was located on the west end of campus, and between 200 and 300 students were spectators. The crowd was full of excitement and came with signs that said things like “Go Big Blue.”
According to a Creightonian article published on Nov. 11, 1983, about the CBS segment, a student named Tim Gostkowski, who played on the team with his shoelaces untied, said, “I only wish students would show that much enthusiasm for a basketball game.”
The event was recorded by CBS and WOWT news crews for a real segment about the fictitious team.
In another Creightonian article also published on Nov. 11, McDonald thanked everyone for supporting the fake football team and wrote about how much fun he had bringing the team to life.
“With only one day’s notice and less than an hour to actually prepare, the ‘team’ put on a show that won’t soon be forgotten. … Yet everything came off without a hitch. As the filming time drew near, there was a distinct tension in the air, but also a growing enthusiasm,” he wrote. “ … The enthusiasm was infectious and hit a fever pitch once the team began running plays. I could attempt to describe some of them (such as the Hi Mom! play, or Walter Tomasino’s catch of a length-of-the-field Lewis Hofmann pass, or Fr. Morrison’s touchdown run around left end) but I won’t. I have tried that this week, but it just isn’t the same. Not to overuse an already overused cliche, but you just had to be there. …What happened Saturday was not fictional. And to be honest, it came off better than anything I could have ever dreamed of. Thanks, everybody.”
The fictional 1980s Creighton football team lasted only one season. Now, 42 years later, it remains as much of a memory as the university’s actual team.
While some students might wish for the Creighton football team to be resurrected — for real this time — that isn’t likely. However, the Bluejays are about to return to the court for the sport that did make a comeback to the university after their WWII suspension: basketball. The first regular season game for the men’s team will be on Wednesday against the University of South Dakota Coyotes, and the women’s team will play their first regular season game against the South Dakota State Jackrabbits on Monday.