College All-Star Game
| First played | 1934 |
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| Last played | 1976 |
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The Chicago Charities College All-Star Game was a preseason American football game played annually (except in 1974) from 1934 to 1976 between the National Football League champions and a team of star college seniors from the previous year. It was also known as the College All-Star Football Classic. After the AFL-NFL Championship was introduced, including for the two seasons before the "Super Bowl" designation was officially adopted and the remaining two seasons before the NFL/AFL merger, the Super Bowl winner was the professional team involved, regardless of which league the team represented. Thus, the New York Jets played in the 1969 edition, although still an AFL team. The second game in 1935 involved the hometown Chicago Bears, runner-up in 1934, instead of the defending champion New York Giants.
The game was the idea of Arch Ward, the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune and the driving force behind baseball's All-Star Game. The game originally was a benefit for Chicago-area charities and was always played at Soldier Field, with the exception of two years during World War II (1943 and 1944) when it was held at Northwestern University's Dyche Stadium in Evanston.
The Chicago game was one of several "pro vs. rookie" college all-star games held across the United States in its early years (the 1939 season featured seven such games, all of which the NFL teams won in shutouts, and the season prior featured eight, with some of the collegiate players playing in multiple games); Chicago's game had the benefit of being the highest profile, with the NFL champions facing the best college graduates from across the country (as opposed to the regional games that were held elsewhere). Because of this, the game survived far longer than its contemporaries.
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