PEABODY — When you picture thousands of people flocking to a stadium to watch football on a Sunday night, the bright lights of the NFL probably come to mind. But at one point, in order to get those massive crowds and a showcase of top-tier football talent, you didn’t have to travel any farther than Peabody.
Just about 100 years ago to the date, athletes, some just graduating from high school, others having played in college and still hungry for some time on the gridiron, turned to the University of Peabody to scratch the itch.
The team’s name in itself was a bit misleading. The university had no campus, no buildings, no classes and no students, just high-performing athletes — and that was enough for the locals to eat it up.
“It was really a group of guys that played high school ball and, for the most part, never went to (college),” said Nora Bigelow, assistant curator of the Peabody Historical Society and Museum. “Their guise was calling themselves a university to attract teams to play them.”
And the team didn’t just attract opponents. They often beat them.
The football “university” played games from 1921 to 1936, winning state semi-professional football championships in 1923 and 1924.
They did it all playing out of a stadium that was located on Central Street. The site of the field is now located behind the Peabody Housing Authority building. It’s still in use by local youth teams and is enveloped by a track.
But 100 years ago, that field would be surrounded on Sundays by thousands of fans eager to watch some of the area’s top athletes and coaches. At the helm for most of it was head coach Edward Brawley, who had a professional career himself that included playing under legendary athlete Jim Thorpe with the Cleveland Indians.
Old newspaper clippings from the Boston Globe tell the tale of one of Peabody’s games against the Pere Marquettes, another semi-pro team based out of Boston.
That single game boasted an attendance of 10,000 people and because of a late start was played until darkness overcame the field. The game ended up being a scoreless tie, with a reporter writing that it got so dark in the last quarter, “hardly anyone could see the forwards that were being passed.”
Besides those few clippings found by the historical society, the remnants of the 100-year-old team are mostly stories passed down from generations — stories told by people like Andy Mitropoulos, a former history teacher who attended Peabody High in the 1950s. Mitropoulos recalls many of his former teachers, including Brawley, who was the head of Peabody High’s history department at the time, being a part of the team and telling tales of its success.
“The way people talked about it, the University of Peabody was really some hot stuff when they played,” Mitropoulos said. “It was the local joke that they were called a university. The locals knew it wasn’t, but some teams thought they were coming to Peabody to play a college team.
“I just think it was such an interesting time in Peabody’s history,” Mitropolous added. “I heard about the team all the time when I was younger. Nate Masterson, our librarian when I went to Peabody High, played on the team. They won a lot of their games back then.”
It’s hard to imagine any local team gathering that much attention or outshining the pros today, but back then watching local talent was enough in Tanner city. They’re probably days the local sports scene will never see anything like again, even if some still hold out hope.
“I didn’t know anything about the University of Peabody until I saw the Historical Society’s email, but I think it is such a great story,” said Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt. “I’m ready to bring the University of Peabody back. I love it.”
Dan Kane can be reached at [email protected].
