Digital Bob Archive

High school football returned to Juneau this fall after an absence of many years, but it was not the first time it was played here, as reported in some news stories. High school football in Juneau actually dates back more than 80 years and has made periodic appearances since then.

What was said to have been the first football game in Juneau, and perhaps the first in Alaska, was between the Juneau High School and the Douglas Island Athletic Association, on January 1, 1903. Conditions were less than ideal: the temperature was around 15 degrees, there was a foot and a half of snow on the ground, and a Taku wind was blowing. They played on the beach below Evergreen Cemetery, where baseball was played in summer. Only one kick was attempted. The ball sailed out into Gastineau Channel and the game was delayed while a skiff was found to retrieve it. The teams were fairly evenly matched for weight, the Juneau team averaging 95 pounds and the Douglas team 93 pounds, but Douglas scored all four touchdowns and won the game 20-0.

After that game, no report of Juneau football has been found until 1912, but from then through 1917 there seems to have been a Juneau High School team every year. In 1912 the team called itself the High Brows and played at least one game against a pick-up town team known as the Outlaws. The high school won 11-0.

The high school wasn't alone in the field. In 1913 the Alaska Gastineau Mine and the Treadwell Mine played two games. On November 16, Thane won 21-0, but on Thanksgiving Day the two teams battled to a 7-7 tie. After that year both baseball and football games were played at Recreation Park in Last Chance Basin. The football games were often played in deep mud, but at least the ball did not go into the channel.

The Juneau High School team sometimes had difficulty finding opponents in their own weight class. In an Alaska Day game in 1916 they defeated the Douglas Kamera Club by a 31-0 score, but the next year they were trounced by a pick-up team of Douglas Natives, with a 45-12 score. The first game that season was between the high school juniors and seniors, the latter winning 36-0. Players still around from those high school years are J. Simpson MacKinnon and Donald MacKinnon, Sr.

Because of World War I and influenza epidemics, there was no local football in 1918 and 1919, but in 1920 It was revived at the high school. The school team was defeated by the Douglas Firemen both that year and the next. On October 1, 1921, the high school played a heavier and more experienced team from the Coast & Geodetic Survey ship Explorer and managed to hold the sailors to two touchdowns. \"It had been raining for two weeks and the field was knee deep in mud and water,\" said a newspaper story of the game.

The last football game known to have been played here until the recent revival was the First (and only) Annual Gold Bowl game on Thanksgiving Day, 1939, won by the Baranof Bears 6-0 over the Sourdoughs.