Ryan Christiansen, NDSU lecturer of English, recently published the book, “Mill City Scrum: The History of Minnesota’s First Team in the National Football League.”
A member of the Professional Football Researchers Association, this is Christiansen's second book about professional football. His first book, “Border Boys: How Americans from Border Colleges Helped Western Canada to Win a Football Championship,” was published in January 2022.
In his latest book, Christiansen outlines the rise of the first professional football team in Minnesota.
In the flour milling city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a group of first-generation American teenagers teamed up to play football in the sandlots. They called themselves the Marines, and with no high school or college experience, they learned to dominate their opponents using the same offense as the University of Minnesota Gophers.
The Marines later emerged as an independent professional team, and claimed city, state and regional championship titles, but World War I sent Marines players across the globe. When they returned, the Marines face player defections, bad publicity, and low fan support. A former player and team captain and the manager of the Marines decided to bet his own fortune and the team’s future on a new National Football League. The Minneapolis Marines, later named the Minneapolis Red Jackets, played six years in the NFL and left their mark on the history of pro football in Minnesota.
In this definitive history of an early National Football League franchise, readers will discover how independent football flourished in Minneapolis and how the University of Minnesota Gophers' winningest coach, Henry L. Williams, influenced the trajectory of a group of teenagers from south Minneapolis, who found their way to the biggest professional football stages in the nation.
“Mill City Scrum” follows the entire history of the Minneapolis Marines, from their first game in 1905, through their last game in 1930, when they were called the Minneapolis Red Jackets. And just like the U.S. Marine Corps, which has a motto, "Once a Marine, Always a Marine," many Marines players who left the team found their way back or remained within the team's circle of influence.
This book follows their careers and the interconnected lives of players from the University of Minnesota and other local colleges, especially the University of St. Thomas, but also the lives of men who never played organized football until they joined the Marines. Long before Minnesota had the Minnesota Vikings, they had the Minneapolis Marines.
