116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
A shot at pro football in Cedar Rapids
Sports Time Machine: Gophers were the first to give it a go in 1929
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Just a month before the 1929 Stock Market Crash, Cedar Rapids invested for the first time in professional football.
Backed by soon-to-be-convicted Ponzi scheme architect George E. Huckins, the Cedar Rapids Gophers embarked on a debut campaign. The team included former collegiate and high school players, mostly from Iowa and the Midwest. The team president was longtime Gazette circulation manager and boxing official/promoter Alex Fidler. The coach was Otto Wilkerson.
The National Football League, originally known as the American Professional Football Association, was nine years old in 1929. Many other pro teams had been functioning for several years, some in the Quad Cities area.
The fledgling local franchise’s first game was documented by Gazette and Republican sports editor Earl Coughlin on Sept. 29, 1929, in his Red Peppers column:
‘’Professional football will make a bid for recognition this afternoon when the newly formed Gophers engage the experienced Moline Indians. This marks the first time that either football or basketball has been tried here on a professional basis and it remains for the fans to decide whether or not they are sufficiently interested to make it a permanent thing.’’
That game was played at Bunny Park, also known as Hill Park and home to the Cedar Rapids baseball Bunnies. The park was located on the grounds of the old Roosevelt High School at 13th Street and E Avenue NW. According to newspaper reports, the fray attracted a crowd of more than 3,000 spectators. They paid 50 cents admission - the equivalent of $9.40 in today’s dollars – and an extra 25 cents for a box seat.
The game ended in a scoreless tie. The Gophers roared to eighth straight victories, all by shutout. They were scheduled to finish the season against the Des Moines White Lines. It was scheduled for Thanksgiving Day at Drake Stadium, but postponed due to weather and moved to Cedar Rapids. No record could be located to confirm the game was played.
Gophers ‘lineup’
Complete rosters for the 1929 and 1930 Cedar Rapids Gophers have not been located.
However, newspapers during that time regularly published starting lineups. Often times, only last names were used in stories. More than 30 names of Gophers players have been identified as having played on those two teams.
Starting lineups for the first professional game Sept. 29, 1929, were published as follows:
Linemen: Bunk Rick (captain), Frank Stepanek, John Turnbull, Frank Messinger and Bud Stoll.
Backs and Ends: Jim Fitzpatrick, Bob Snyder, Dick Zvacek, Heinie Groth, Ike Jackson and Martin.
Others who were listed in lineups and stories: Carlton Bird, Ed Vaughn, Ralph Clymer, Bill Scarpino, Chuck Delmage, Joe McCarthy, Chuck Hill, Kip Halladay, Gil Roberts, Archie Johnson, Rufus Zvacek, Ed Barrows, Lew Fitzpatrick, Dick Nesbitt, Jack Urban, Wendell Schrader, Ed Hines, John Fuhrmann, Homer Kaupp, Ford Shoudy, Bill Babcock, Hahn, Sears, Cramer, Bishop and Fulton.
The unquestioned star for the Gophers was Dick Zvacek.
At 6-foot, 170 pounds, Zvacek was a starting halfback, punter and kicker. He scored three touchdowns in routs of Fort Des Moines and Clinton in 1929 and notched the only score in wins over Muscatine and Des Moines.
His pedigree was prodigious. In a 1980 Gazette poll of readers, Zvacek finished third in voting for best all-around athlete in local history.
Zvacek attended Grant Vocational School before becoming one of five westsiders to transfer to Washington. He was on national championship football and track teams at Washington. He won Iowa state titles in the high jump and pole vault in 1924 and repeated in the high jump in 1925.
He distinguished himself in football, basketball and track at Drake. In addition to running the football, he could punt 40 yards with either leg. In track, he ran the hurdles and the mile while also logging time in all the field events.
He also was an expert swimmer, credited in “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” with rescuing 715 swimmers in a 15-year period as a lifeguard on Ellis Park beaches.
He was selected for the 1928 U.S. Olympic track team, but declined because he was working, married and had a child.
“It was one of the dumbest decisions I ever made,’’ Zvacek said in a 1983 story.
Zvacek played recreational volleyball into his 70s and was a three-handicap golfer, shooting his age multiple times in the mid-1970s. He died at age 87 in 1993.
Some may remember Zvacek as the proprietor of a Cedar Rapids grocery store. He owned and operated the Nite Owl (4th Avenue and 1st Street SW) from 1954 to 1972 with his wife Bessie, the sister of legendary Marion coach Les Hipple. Zvacek also was boys’ basketball coach at St. Patrick’s High School for 20 years and once ran for city safety commissioner.
After concluding the 1929 season with eight shutout wins, the Gophers sought one final foe that was regarded among the best in the Midwest. Fidler, also president of the Cedar Rapids Athletic Club, was unsuccessful in booking Valley Junction, Estherville or the Chicago Cardinals.
Another notable Gopher was Charles Alexander “Heinie’’ Groth, also a former Washington High star. After starring as a back with the team, he played three years at Virginia Tech and seven seasons with various professional teams.
Groth was behind a rebirth of pro football in Cedar Rapids in the late-1930s when the Crushers were formed. Groth was the player-coach for two seasons before the Northwest pro football league disbanded. The Crushers’ debuted the 1938 season with an exhibition against the four-time NFL champion Green Bay Packers in Ironwood, Mich. The Crushers were paid $300 but absorbed a 75-0 defeat.
The Gophers returned for one last year in 1930, when Zvacek was again joined by his brother, Rufus. The squad was not as successful on the field (6-3), attendance waned and financial support was lacking.
George E. Huckins owned the Cedar Rapids Bunnies and financed the Gophers in 1929. Huckins and his father, Earl, were the subject of a nationally publicized get-rich-quick scheme that bilked investors out of thousands. In December 1929, George was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for obtaining money under false pretenses.
Trial testimony at the time revealed Gophers players and coaches had not been paid.
Cedar Rapids fielded “semi-pro’’ teams in the 1970s with the Rapid Raiders, Buccaneers and Falcons. But, like the Gophers, those teams fell victim to inadequate financial backing.
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