STL All Sports

The Chicago Daily News of Nov. 24, 1913, commenting on the numbering of Chicago players, stated: "Numbering football players, the plan tried by Coach Stagg of the University of Chicago, proved a great success in its try-out in the Wisconsin game Saturday at Marshall Field. The Maroon players bore big white numbers on their backs and it was easy for spectators to distinguish which man took the ball on each occasion. Spectators were more than pleased with the manner in which the plan worked out." Despite the action at Chicago and Pittsburgh, which delighted the patrons, the idea of numbering players was rejected for quite a few years by major colleges and did not become a general practice until the early 1920's.

Football moved along in popularity, gradually, until the first World War. Play during the progress of the conflict was abbreviated. At the war's conclusion, football became a prime favorite and the enormous crowds that turned out for stellar contests soon piled up sufficient treasury reserves to enable many colleges to build huge stadiums, which cost from $500,000 into the millions. But the sustained interest in the sport, even though seat prices were doubled and tripled in some instances, made it possible for colleges to pay all indebtedness, and to have enough surplus annually to support many other forms of sport in colleges which sports, because of small attendance, could not pay their own way.