The Author


R.C. Christiansen is an educator with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University Moorhead. He is a member of the Professional Football Researchers Association and has more than 30 years' experience as a journalist, technical writer, creative writer, editor, and publisher.














Author R. C. Christiansen speaks and signs copies of his books at the 2023 Professional Football Researchers Association biannual convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.


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Nate Barrager played for the Minneapolis Red Jackets (1930)

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  Nathan Robert Barrager, center Nathan Robert Barrager from Los Angeles, California, played football for the University of Southern California (1927-29) and captained the team. Barrager is seen here in Trojans uniform from a photograph published in the Oakland Tribune. In the National Football League, he played center for the Minneapolis Red Jackets (1930) and he played for the Frankford Yellow Jackets (1930-31) and Green Bay Packers (1931-32, 1934-35). After football, Barrager worked in Hollywood as an assistant director, production manager, and actor. He worked on films, including Hondoand Sands of Iwo Jima, and on television series, including Bonanza, the Rifleman, the Roy Rogers Show, the Gene Autry Show, and the Adventures of Superman. Born June 3, 1907, Barrager passed away on August 10, 1985. Read more in  Mill City Scrum , the history of Minnesota's first team in the National Football League.
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Fred Chicken played for the Minneapolis Marines (1913, 1915-17)

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Fred Samuel “Chick” Slepica, a.k.a. “Fred Chicken” from Minneapolis, Minnesota, used the last name Chicken throughout his lifetime. In the Czech language, “Slepica” means “hen.” A Minneapolis North athlete, he played football, basketball, and baseball for the high school. He went on to manage and play forward on the Ascension Parish independent basketball team. Chicken also played baseball for the North Minneapolis Creams, the Crystals, East Side Eagles, J. C. Donahues, and Olsons. After high school, Chicken went on to play two seasons of baseball for the Lethbridge Miners (1909-1910) and one season for the Calgary Bronchos (1911) in the Western Canada League (WCL). He then played football for Bobby Marshall’s Hennepins (1911) alongside his brother, Joe Chicken. Fred then played baseball for the Seattle Giants and Tacoma Tigers in the Northwestern League (1912). He also continued to play basketball with the Ascension Parish team, which found a sponsor in Dakota Business College in Farg
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Pecky Rhoades, the founder of the Minneapolis Marines

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From 1913-16, Henry Harrison “Pecky” Rhoades played professional baseball in the affiliated minor leagues. On Baseball Reference, he is referred to as Harry Rhoades, and for the most part, he's just another forgotten player from Minneapolis. But did you know that without Pecky Rhoades, there might never have been a Minneapolis Marines football team in the National Football League? (The Marines played in the NFL from 1921-24 and from 1929-30 as the Red Jackets.) That's because in 1905, sixteen-year-old Pecky Rhoades decided to start a baseball team in south Minneapolis, and he named the team the Marines. That same year, some members of the Marines baseball team decided to start a football team, too. (Because rosters for the Marines are incomplete in 1905-06, it's not clear whether Pecky might have played football, too.) A few future NFL players played alongside Pecky on his Minneapolis Marines baseball team, which folded after eight seasons, one year after Rhoades left the M
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