The
Northwest War Industries League
and
American Football League
were two closely related
professional football
minor leagues
based on the
West Coast of the United States
that played for two nonconsecutive seasons during
World War II
.
[1]
1942 NWIL season
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The Northwest War Industries League (NWIL) played one season in 1942, with the Seattle Shipbuilders,
Portland Boilermakers
(later Portland Rockets), and teams in
Spokane, Washington
and
Vancouver, Washington
, while plans for team in
Tacoma
fall through. The league
commissioner
was Chester "Cotton" Wilcox, and the plans were that 52% of all league profits would go to military servicemen's funds. As a result of players shortage, the league allowed the teams to play with college students.
[2]
Information regarding league demise has mostly been lost to time, but is known that only Seattle played in 1943, and that plans to append the league to the
Pacific Coast Professional Football League
as a semi-autonomous Northern Division fell through.
1942 Standings
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Team
|
W
|
L
|
T
|
Pct.
|
PF
|
PA
|
Seattle Shipbuilders
|
6
|
1
|
0
|
.857
|
137
|
23
|
Portland Boilermakers
|
4
|
2
|
0
|
.666
|
187
|
16
|
Vancouver Warcos
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
.250
|
29
|
136
|
Spokane Manlowes
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
.250
|
33
|
93
|
1944 AFL season
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In 1944, Portland returned to play. At the same time, the PCPFL revoked the membership of the
Los Angeles Mustangs
to protest owner Bill Freelove’s raiding of Jerry Corcoran’s
Los Angeles Bulldogs
roster. Freelove responded by reorganizing the old Northwest Industries league into a "new" league, the American Football League (with famous Hollywood lawyer
Jerry Giesler
as president). In 1944, an unprecedented five Los Angeles area teams were competing in one of the two rival leagues.
Both leagues had undefeated champions (the PCPFL San Diego Bombers had won their third consecutive title). AFL members San Diego Gunners, Los Angeles Wildcats (no relation to the
1926 AFL team
), and Oakland Hornets folded before the end of the season. All three San Francisco Clippers losses were to the
Hollywood Rangers
.
On December 21, 1944, PCPFL league president J. Rufus Klawans announced a merger between the two leagues. Immediately afterward, the AFL champion Hollywood Rangers and PCPFL champion San Diego Bombers scheduled two games, one at each team’s home, to decide the “unified” Pacific Coast championship. Hollywood swept San Diego, winning 42-7 and 21-10, for the bragging rights.
However, what was trumpeted as a merger was in fact not much of a merger at all. Seattle and Portland, the two teams that had formed the basis of the original league on which the AFL had been built, declined to play in the new league. The PCPFL also demanded that the Rangers merge with the PCPFL's Hollywood Bears, something the Rangers were unwilling to do since the Bears had not played football in two years and the Rangers were the defending champions. Nonetheless, the Bears ended up restocking themselves mostly on the Rangers' players. One major point of contention between the two leagues went unaddressed: even though the leagues had agreed on a merger, they again refused entry to the Los Angeles Mustangs. In the end, of the five teams in the AFL at the end of the season, only one team ever played in the PCPFL, the San Francisco Clippers.
[3]
The Rangers and Mustangs, having their league (that they organized) ripped out from under them, continued play as independents for 1945 and quietly folded.
1944 Standings
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References
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Major
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Predecessors
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Junior
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Current
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Defunct
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On hiatus
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