Nobody walking into Soldier Field on July 23, 1976, knew they were about to witness the final College All-Star Game.
There was no farewell ceremony. No retrospective celebrating more than four decades of history. No announcement that this would be the last time the best players coming out of college football would challenge the champions of professional football.
As far as everyone knew, there would be another game in 1977.
Instead, a tradition that began in 1934 would end that night in a driving rainstorm, with the Pittsburgh Steelers leading 24–0, players retreating to their locker rooms and fans storming the field and tearing down a goalpost.
It was a crazy ending to one of football's most remarkable traditions.
And perhaps a fitting end to a game that belonged to another time.
One More Shot at the Champions
The opponent awaiting the College All-Stars could hardly have been more intimidating.
The Pittsburgh Steelers weren't simply the defending Super Bowl champions. They were on their way to becoming one of the NFL's greatest dynasties, a team that would ultimately win four Super Bowls in six years.
Chuck Noll's team had defeated the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IX and the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl X, giving Pittsburgh consecutive championships. The roster was loaded with players who would eventually be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, Jack Ham and Mel Blount.
Standing across from them was another extraordinary collection of talent.
The College All-Stars were coached by Ara Parseghian, who had retired from Notre Dame following the 1974 season and returned to the sideline specifically to coach the All-Stars.
And there was plenty for him to work with.
His roster included two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin, along with Chuck Muncie, Mike Pruitt, Joe Washington and Tony Galbreath in the backfield. Future Hall of Fame offensive tackle Jackie Slater was there. So were Oklahoma defensive stars Lee Roy and Dewey Selmon, along with Greg Buttle, Kim Bokamper and several other players who would go on to long professional careers.
The talent was there.
But Parseghian understood the problem.
The All-Stars had been assembled for only a matter of weeks. The Steelers were a finely tuned championship team.
Parseghian knew his team couldn't afford mistakes. Pittsburgh simply had too few weaknesses to exploit.
Unfortunately for the All-Stars, the problems started before the game even began.
A Quarterback Problem
Parseghian had hoped to build an offense around Richard Todd, the Alabama quarterback selected sixth overall by the New York Jets in the 1976 NFL Draft.
Todd, however, never signed his contract to participate.
That left Boston College quarterback Mike Kruczek, ironically a second-round draft choice of the Steelers themselves, along with San Diego State's Craig Penrose. Tulsa quarterback Jeb Blount was brought in after Todd declined to participate.
The weather complicated things further.
A torrential downpour hit Soldier Field before kickoff. Although the rain temporarily subsided, the artificial playing surface was left slick.
Then Kruczek was injured during the first quarter and had to leave the game.
Against Pittsburgh's Steel Curtain defense, the margin for error had already been microscopic.
Now it was disappearing altogether.
The Steelers Take Control
Pittsburgh didn't immediately overwhelm the collegians on the scoreboard.
Roy Gerela kicked a 29-yard field goal late in the first quarter to give Pittsburgh a 3–0 lead.
Then the Steelers' defense began creating opportunities.
Jack Lambert recovered a Penrose fumble at the All-Stars' 15-yard line, setting up another Gerela field goal.
On the next All-Star possession, Lambert intercepted Blount.
Terry Bradshaw followed with a 30-yard completion, but the All-Star defense held, forcing Gerela to kick his third field goal.
Pittsburgh led only 9–0 at halftime.
The score, however, didn't tell the entire story.
The Steelers had gained 154 yards and eight first downs. The College All-Stars had managed only 54 yards and two first downs.
Parseghian was frustrated.
His team wasn't simply being beaten by the better team. It was struggling with basic execution.
The situation deteriorated in the third quarter. A snap sailed over punter Rick Engles' head and through the end zone for a safety, 11–0.
On the ensuing free kick, Jack Deloplaine returned the ball to the College All-Stars' 26. Shortly afterward, Franco Harris broke loose for a 22-yard touchdown, 18–0.
Then Bradshaw ran the ball into the end zone from two yards out to make it 24–0.
The defending Super Bowl champions had taken complete control.
Then the weather took control of everything.
And Then the Sky Opened
Rain began pounding Soldier Field again, and the wind intensified.
With 1:22 remaining in the third quarter, the conditions had deteriorated dramatically. Fans began leaving their seats and running onto the artificial turf, splashing and sliding across the field as the storm intensified. Officials sent the teams to their locker rooms.
Instead of leaving the field, more spectators joined in. What initially looked like spontaneous fun became increasingly chaotic. Fans surrounded the playing field. Then some went after the goalposts. One of the uprights came crashing down. Fortunately, no players or game officials were injured.
ABC was televising the spectacle nationally. Frank Gifford, calling the game, described what was unfolding as a "carnival."
And then the NFL Commissioner stepped in. There would be no more football that night. He called the contest. Pittsburgh 24, College All-Stars 0.
The third quarter hadn't even ended, and neither had anyone planned for what had just happened to become the final chapter of the series.
But it was.
There Would Be No 1977 Game
The storm didn't kill the College All-Star Game by itself. The game had been losing its place in football for years. The NFL no longer needed the College All-Star Game to establish its credibility. By 1976, professional football had become a television powerhouse, the Super Bowl was rapidly becoming one of America's biggest sporting events, and the NFL had grown to 28 teams.
College football had changed, too.
Players and their professional teams were becoming increasingly reluctant to risk injury in an exhibition. Insurance costs were rising along with NFL salaries. Recruiting the best college players for the game was becoming more difficult. Attendance was declining. In fact, the 52,095 who came to Soldier Field for the 1976 game represented the smallest crowd ever to attend a College All-Star Game there.
The contrast with the game's glory years was impossible to ignore.
There had been nights when more than 100,000 people packed Soldier Field to see the college stars challenge the pros. Now thousands of seats were empty.
In December 1976, the decision became official. There would be no College All-Star Game in 1977.
Chicago Tribune Company president Robert Hunt cited difficulties recruiting players and increasing expenses, particularly insurance costs, which he said had doubled during the previous year because of rising player salaries. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle acknowledged what the game had meant to his league, saying that the College All-Star Game had played an important role in promoting the growth of the NFL, but was no longer economically practical for Chicago Tribune Charities to sponsor.
After 42 games, the series was over.
The NFL champions finished with a 31–9–2 advantage over the College All-Stars. The collegians' final victory had come 13 years earlier, when they stunned Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, 20–17, in 1963.
There was one other historical footnote from that final night.
At halftime, Steve Bartkowski, who had starred for the College All-Stars against Pittsburgh the previous summer, received the MVP award for the 1975 game. The MVP of the game always came from the college side. Because the 1976 contest never reached its conclusion, no MVP was awarded for the final game, meaning Bartkowski was the last to be named MVP.
A Strange Ending to a Remarkable Tradition
There is something almost cinematic about the way the College All-Star Game disappeared.
It began in 1934 before an enormous Soldier Field crowd with the defending NFL champion Chicago Bears unable to score against a group of college players who had practiced together for only a few weeks. The game ended in a 0–0 tie, helping validate the very idea behind Arch Ward's experiment.
42 years later, the competitive balance had changed dramatically. The NFL no longer needed to prove itself against college football. And on this stormy July night in 1976, the defending Super Bowl champions were leading the college stars 24–0 when the skies opened, the field flooded, and the crowd took over Soldier Field.
There was no final whistle. There was no ceremonial goodbye. There wasn't even a fourth quarter.
The players simply walked off the field, and one of the most unusual traditions in American sports history never came back.