Duke Slater’s legendary football story as told by author Neal Rosendaal

Author Neal Rosendaal joins us today to talk about one of the greatest players in football history, a real pioneer and trailblazer, Duke Slater, and his career with Iowa and in the NFL with the Rock Island Independents as well as the Chicago Cardinals. Neil's coming up in just a moment.

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This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And we have a episode on store for you. We have a great topic in the player of Duke Slater, a very interesting figure in football history.

And we have an author that's wrote a book about him. Neil Rosendahl is his name. And we'll welcome into the Pig pen right now. Neil Rosendal. Welcome to the Pig Pen.

Hey, thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

We really appreciate you taking the time to talk about some great football history and especially one man named Duke Slater that was very important to that football history. But before we do that, like to learn a little bit about you.

You know what, what got you particularly interested in football and maybe in particular about Duke Slater.

Yeah. Well, I'm a Hawkeye fan. I grew up in the state of Iowa and attended the University of Iowa.

So I, I've always loved the Hawkeyes and I've loved sports history.

That's something that has always sort of appealed to me and that's why I love podcasts like this because I really love delving into the history of the sport and kind of making it especially for, for current fans to kind of bring it to life, especially stories of people that they may not remember or may have been before their time.

And it's, it's kind of interesting because I know you guys here do a lot of, you're connected with this sports dispatch and you do a lot with, with Jersey numbers. And actually the first book that I ever wrote, I co authored a book called Hawkeye Greats by the Numbers.

And basically, it mentioned the greatest Hawkeye football or men's basketball player by the jersey numbers they wore.

So we picked the greatest Hawkeye football or men's basketball player that Wore Jersey number one, jersey number two, all the way up through jersey number 50. And we selected what we consider to be the greatest Hawkeye football or men's basketball player to wear each specific jersey.

And then for that player, we wrote a short chapter about him, and that was the book. And chapter 15 came along, and the greatest Hawkeye player, football player, who Wore jersey number 15, in our estimation, was Duke Slater.

And I had been interested in Duke Slater for a while. I had heard about his story, and it's.

Duke Slater is one of these stories that when you hear a little bit about him, you just hear more and more and more stories. And I just became increasingly fascinated by this guy.

And I was fortunate enough to write the chapter on Duke Slater for that book, Hawkeye Grace by the Numbers. But it was. He had one of these stories where I just said, you know what? I could write a whole book just about him.

And, you know, one of the things about writing the book was he'd kind of been forgotten. He'd kind of been overlooked, and I wanted to get him more recognition. I want to kind of bring him back into the public eye.

And I'm so thankful and grateful to be able to say that really, over the last decade, we have really elevated Duke Slater's legacy sort of in the public consciousness.

He's been honored in a number of ways, which have been really outstanding, and it's been great to see, because I think more and more people have heard this story and learned about Duke Slater, and. And it's just an incredible story. So it was really an honor for me to tell.

Well, he is definitely a great player. And I had the honor and the privilege last year to be at the Pro Football hall of Fame for the induction ceremonies.

I'm from Western Pennsylvania, so there was a bunch of Steelers going in, and you had two different years.

Quite an honor to sit There, even though he wasn't present, you know, it was, it was a great honor to just have the legacy and have the chat and some of the things popping up on the screen, some scenes and pictures of him and you know, his presenter. So it was great feeling there.

Yeah, it was actually one of the, the best weekends I've had, honestly, because I actually. And you know this because you were there, but because, because of the way it was set up.

So when I wrote the book on Duke Slater, one of my main goals was to try to lobby for him to get into the Pro Football hall of Fame. And of course it's a lobby for someone to get in the Pro Football hall of Fame. It is.

And so here we were. He was going to get his long awaited induction and then Covid hits and it postpones it at least for a year.

The way that they handled that was they had sort of induction ceremony before the main induction ceremony just for the guys who were going in posthumously.

People like Duke Slater who were deceased who were going in, they sort of had a special ceremony for them earlier just so they could kind of, I guess control the numbers in a lot of ways. So I was actually able to be invited to that hall of Fame ceremony that recognized the players who were going in posthumously like Duke Slater.

After writing the book, I was able to connect with Sandra Wilkins, who is Duke Slater's niece. She's still alive, she's still around. And she invited me as a guest of the family to this hall of Fame induction. And it was an incredible weekend.

It was amazing to see him be honored in that way and to get his bus in Canton, Ohio where he belongs so that he can be there for all time.

It was, it was an amazing weekend, an amazing event and it was, it was really thrilling to be there as sort of the culmination of, of almost a decade long campaign that I tried to put together to get him recognized in Canton. And to see it come to fruition was, was really, really meaningful.

Well, as the guy said used to say on the A team, you got to love it when a plan comes together. You're a great part of that. And we app appreciate you preserving that football history.

And I think everybody in the football community applauds you and everybody else that, you know, fought for getting Duke Slater in there, because he's definitely worthy of being there, that's for sure.

So he definitely is. And. And, you know, it's all about sort of preserving his legacy.

You know, I think John Madden was the one who said it in his induction speech like he always envisioned, when the lights go down, that all the bus stop, sort of talk to each other at night, you know, football. And I just, I always felt so strongly that Duke Slater needed to be part of that conversation.

And I think as people come to visit Canton, Ohio, a year from now, 10 years from now, 50 years from now, they'll be able to see his bus there and be able to say, hey, who is he? And learn more about him and discover his story. And that's an amazing thing, that that'll be preserved for history.

I think that's just so meaningful and so wonderful.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I guess I apologize, I have not announced the name of your title of your book, and we're going to do it here a bunch of times, but the title of your book is Duke sl, Pioneering Black NFL player and judge Neil Rosendal as the author. So I'll make sure we mention that. Now, why don't you let us know where that's available, where people can get that.

Absolutely.

It was published by McFarland Co. Back, like I said, about 10 years ago, so you can get it, and I think there are some bookstores that carry it, but the best way to get it generally is online. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, any. Any online retailer can really get it for you. Or of course, maybe the.

The best way, from my personal viewpoint, if you want to do it this way, is you can go to Dukeslator.com which is my website, and if you go to Dukeslator.com it will take you to a page where you can order it right off the website directly from me and helps me out a little bit more as an author. But.

But honestly, however you get the Book, if you want to go out and get the book, however you get the book is fine by me because I just want people to hear the story and, and. And learn more about this amazing guy.

Well, very well said. Well, why don't we go back to the beginnings of Duke Slater. We sort of jumped ahead, told, told everybody the outcome.

He's in the Pro Football hall of Fame, and we alluded to earlier, you know, Iowa, and that's how you became associated with him and got gained a lot of interest on him. So why don't you tell us how what happened before he was at Iowa? It got, you know, him involved in football.

Well, he actually was raised on his. Born in Normal, Illinois, but he grew up on the south side of Chicago, and he spent his childhood years there on the south side of Chicago.

And he loved the sport of football from the very beginning, from being a young kid. And the interesting thing about it was he loved the tackle, he loved being alignment.

And the thing was, whenever there was a neighborhood game going up, there was always a place for Duke Slater because there was always people who wanted to be the ball carriers. They wanted to carry the ball and, you know, catch the ball, do all that stuff, but they always needed linemen.

So he always had a game, the ability to find a neighborhood game. And that's where he learned the game of football was on the streets of the south side of Chicago. And his father, George.

George Slater was a strong, strong influence in Duke Slater's life. George Slater was a. A minister, an AME minister.

And he actually, George Slater became the pastor, the head pastor at an AME church in Clinton, Iowa, when Duke Slater was 13 years old. And that's what had Duke Slater relocate from the south side of Chicago to the state of Iowa, to Clinton, Iowa. Clinton is a Mississippi river town.

It's a little city on the shores of the Mississippi river, just on the Iowa side there.

And that wound up being where Duke Slater attended high school and then being in the state of Iowa, that wound up leading him to the University of Iowa and on to his football fame. But that was sort of his upbringing.

And again, his father was a huge influence on his life, not only from a football perspective, but obviously off the field. He made a real imprint on Duke Slater and raised him right. And he became an upstanding man and of course, an amazing person.

So this is really at the grassroots of football here that he's, he's playing even on the sandlots.

Yeah, a true, honestly a true pioneer in terms of, you know, the time period he was.

And even that was fairly unusual to be the third because most football programs, even up north, a number of football programs, had not even had a black player by that time point. So he really was a pioneer for black players in a very early era of football.

And he wound up becoming one of the most, honestly, without exaggeration, one of the most dominant football players that, that college football had ever seen in his career. And he just carried that into the NFL.

And I'm assuming this is back of single platoon football. So he's playing both sides of the line, offense and defense.

Duke Slater was actually known, well, particularly in the NFL for playing all 60 minutes of the game.

You play offense, defense, special teams, he would run punts down, he would, you know, he blocked for the, for the kickoff team, you know, for the kick returners. He, he would never leave the field for his time in Rock Island. He, I think had.

He played all 60 minutes, which was not unheard of in those days, but he would play all 60 minutes of every game for an entire season. And then he did that season after season for almost every game that he played in Rock island for years and years in a row.

And that was particularly unusual to. It wasn't unusual to play all 60 minutes, but to do it game after game, season after season was, was highly unusual.

And he was a tackle, he, he played offensive tackle while on offense and then on defense he played defensive end. So he was someone who, obviously both an offensive tackle and a defensive end. Someone who had a very strong impact on the game.

Although again, not as someone who didn't carry the ball. Maybe someone who might be overlooked by some, but, but he had a dramatic impact on the game from, from those positions.

And just a phenomenal two way player.

Well, you know that especially the era and the positions that he's playing in to play every minute of every game, season upon season. And that is quite a testament to the guy.

Must have been one tough hombre to be able to Take that, because it was a lot more brutal than the football that we know today. Even, you know, by today's standards. It's, it's pretty brutal.

Well, and also you, you imagine the fact that as a black player, and there weren't a ton of documented stories about this, but you know, as a black player, that he was subject to cheap shots, late hits, you know, all those kinds of things. So yes, to be able to, to play and to stay in there and to, to do it game after game, season after season was incredible.

And it's funny because, you know, I tell this story and I mentioned how his father had had such a huge influence on him. His Duke Slater only played three seasons of high school football. And the reason for that was his father did not want him playing football.

His father thought that football was a game for roughnecks. And his father was legitimately afraid that he'd be seriously hurt. And, you know, and this was an era where people were dying on the football field.

So it wasn't an ill founded sort of fear that his father had.

Well, his father eventually relented and allowed him to play, but he did so by forcing Duke Slater to promise that he would take every precaution to not get hurt. And it's, it's interesting to, you know, hear that. What happened was in his high school days, he would come home beat up, sore, whatever else.

Duke Slater worked very hard to conceal his injuries, to basically, if he had a bump or a bruise or a limp or whatever else, he would hide it from his father because he didn't want his father to become so worried about the physical nature of the game that he would sort of pull Duke Slater from the sport. He didn't want his dad to essentially say, okay, you're done because you're going to get hurt out there.

So Slater, you know, Duke Slater kind of became, it became ingrained with him to, you know, hide his injuries. And he continued that even through college, even through the pro level.

And it almost added this sort of, this sort of aura to him of being invincible, of like being impervious to pain. Like, people would be like, you can't, you can't hurt him. You can't shake him, you can't rattle him.

You know, it was, it was, he was one of those guys where a lot of guys, if they were shaken up, they would kind of take a timeout, you know, just not an official timeout, but just sort of a timeout to catch their breath on the field and whatever. And it was known that the game Rarely stopped because Duke Slater was hurt, because it was one of these.

He was one of these guys who, you know, almost put on this aura like, I can't be hurt.

And, you know, that was something that I think helped fuel him and kind of added this sort of, you know, mythology to almost the way that Duke Slater played the game. That was really impressive. And, and, and it's, it's interesting to look back on now. You know, that's how, how regarded he was in that day.

Yeah, it's making me a little bit of embarrassed. I get up every morning and complain about, you know, sore elbow or something.

This guy's, you know, getting this snot kicked out of him and, you know, pounding away at some other big, big guy for, you know, they're playing more than one game a week sometimes, especially when he was at Rock island. And, you know, just to take that punishment and to hide it from people, especially your father, and keep on playing. That's. Wow.

That's quite a testament to who he is. So amazing. Thank you for sharing that with us. Now let's go back into his Iowa team. So he, he's. Did he play all four years at Iowa?

They won the outright Big Ten championship for the first time in school history. And they have a legitimate claim for the mythical national championship of that year.

Notre Dame hadn't lost a football game in three years. They lost that one. And it's, it's. What's fascinating about that is that Notre Dame's head coach was Newt Rockne.

And Newt Rockne said later in the season he said we had heard about the great strength of Duke Slater and knowing his great strength we decided to throw three guys at him. On any given play we'd send three guys after Duke Slade. He's like sometimes Newt Rockne said this in a quote.

He said sometimes we were able to slow him down but more often than not he just ripped wide holes in our, in our line that allowed the, the fullbacks to pick up yards and eventually Iowa to, to pick up the 10 to 7 upset over Notre Dame.

It's, it was really notable because Duke Slater was really the, the first black player in the history of college football to play a, a, a, a prominent role on a, a team that was, could be considered a mythical national championship contender. And so Duke Slater was, had an incredible legacy in football.

And being obviously so successful in college, that's really what opened the door for him to go into the NFL which obviously NFL was not open to very many black players at that time. But Duke Slater's widespread fame for his collegiate career is really what helped launch his NFL career and he went on from there.

Well, that's great, great stories and Great memories to have of a great player at Iowa. So was his first team in the what's now NFL Rock Island, Was that his first team?

Yes, it was the Rock Island Independence.

And they were an NFL team that was located in Rock Island, Illinois, which is just on the other side of the Mississippi river from Iowa, so fairly close to Iowa. And he played five seasons with the Rock Island Independence.

It's, you know, he actually on October 1st of this year was the 100th anniversary of Duke Slater's debut in the NFL. When Duke Slater made his debut in the NFL, he was the first black lineman in the history of the National Football League.

When he broke through on Green Bay's final drive of the game. He broke through twice and twice swatted down Green Bay passes from packers quarterback Curly Lamba.

And then he spent his final five plus years of his career with the Chicago Cardinals, who of course are now known as the Arizona Cardinals. But that's how he started his career. And I want to mention too what's interesting about his time in Rock island was you mentioned the work ethic.

One of the things that's amazing about Duke Slater is the work ethic that he had. He graduated from the University of Iowa and then he enrolled at University of Iowa Law School.

And one of the things he would do was he would attend the University of Iowa College of Law. He'd attend law classes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, early in the week.

And when he was done with that, then he'd make the trek out to Rock island, which is in the Quad Cities about an hour's drive away today, probably a little longer back those days.

But he'd go out to Rock island and then he practiced with the Rock Island Independence for a few days, then play it an NFL game on Sunday and on a Monday he'd be right back in Iowa City, first law classes again. And you know, you think about a guy like that who's, you know, attending law classes and going to NFL games. And, you know, you mentioned it.

It's like some days I, you know, I have a hard time getting motivated to get out of bed in the morning. And here's a guy who's in the NFL and in law school at the same time. It's incredible the work ethic that he had. And that's definitely a big story.

And a big part of his legacy is just that he was someone who is always working extremely hard, not only for himself, but also to give people a good impression of his family and to stand up for his race and to stand up for what black athletes could do in that era and what black athletes could be and set a good example for the guys that followed. And yeah, again, it's. He had some amazing days in Rock island and yep, that's where he got to start.

Wow, that's really inspirational to hear that. And it had to be an inspiration to younger people, not only of African American descent, but even anybody that heard his story.

Boy, that had to, you know, you're working real hard, you're playing football and you're going to school and making that journey. That's a lot of. Lot to do. That's a pretty good, good role model to be. So, okay, so he.

With Rock island, he moved to the Cardinals, as you said, and he had some good success with the Cardinals, too.

And then Rock island had a game down in Kansas City against an expansion team called the Kansas City Blues. And because it was in Kansas City, Duke Slater was not allowed to play.

They had a gentleman's agreement that black players did not play in NFL games in the state of Missouri, which was a state that was very hostile toward African Americans. And so Duke Slater sat out that game.

Rock island lost that game despite the fact that 10 of their 11 starters were in that game that had started the previous games. The only starter who's had to sit that game out was Duke Slater by rule. And they. Rock island suffered an upset loss in that game.

And a few weeks later, Kansas City had to go to Rock island, had a return match in Rock Island, Illinois. Because the game was played in Rock Island, Duke Slater was allowed to play. And he was a dominant force for them again in that game.

It was a really meaningful game. And Rock island wound up shutting Kansas City out 17, 0. But unfortunately the damage was done.

Rock island ended the year with two losses, which was one more than, than the NFL champion Canton Bulldogs that year. So that, that was the one thing that kept him out. And, and what I tell people is Duke slater in a 10 year NFL career.

We talk about how durable he was. The only game he missed in a 10 year NFL career was that game.

It was not due to injury, it was not really because he was sidelined by rule, by that gentleman's agreement that existed back then. And, and Duke Slater wound up, ironically enough, wound up playing 99 professional football games in the NFL and AFL combined.

He was one game short of playing 100 football games in his pro football career. And it was because of the one game that they made him sit out. So, so yeah, he, he had some great moments in Rock Island.

And the Chicago Cardinals, for listeners who don't know or don't remember, you know, back in the day, the Chicago Cardinals were the other NFL team in Chicago alongside the Chicago Bears. And the Bears and Cardinals had sort of a Cubs, White Sox type of hold on pro football.

The, the, the Bears were the north side, the Bears were like the Cubs, they were on the north side, kind of white collar, you know, maybe a little more affluent. And then like the White Sox, the Chicago Cardinals were the South Siders.

You know, they were blue collar, a little scruffier, a little, you know, a little more hard hat. And the other thing about that was the south side of Chicago, there was a huge black metropolis. And in fact, that was where Duke Slater had grown up.

He'd grown up on the south side of Chicago. So Chicago Cardinals signed Duke Slater. Duke was able to return to the city where he grew up, the city where he had been raised.

And the Chicago Cardinals loved it because now they had a box office draw where a lot of the black football fans, a lot of those, those fans in that black metropolis, those black citizens on the south side of Chicago, they came to Cardinals games because they wanted to see one of their own. They wanted to see Duke Slater on the line playing for the Cardinals. And so it worked out sort of both ways. The Cardinals got a really good player.

Duke Slater got to go to, to his, his old hometown and, and the Cardinals got a box office draw that appealed to the black football fans there. So it kind of worked all around.

And that's where Duke Slater finished out his career in the final few years of his career and had tremendous success there, too.

Wow, that's great to have a hometown hero come in and play it for you. So I had to be a great draw, like you said, so tremendous. And it had to be good for him, too.

Had to, you know, you're a little bit long in a tooth coming in there, and maybe that gives you a little bit of burst of energy. You have some people that you know in the stands and really cheering for you because they, they helped developed you into the player you are.

So that's great stuff. Okay, so got his finishing up law school already when he finished that up with Rock island. Or do you still continue now when he's with the Cardinals?

And a large part of that was the fact that Duke Slater had been an all pro the last, you know, four years running. He had been one of the best, not only black players, one of the best players, period. One of the best linemen in football. And, you know, he was.

You know, there's a quote in the book biography that I wrote on Duke Slater where they said if, if, if owners had had blackballed Duke Slater, fans would have questioned not only the, the owner's integrity, but also their sanity because Duke Slater was so good. He was one of those guys that they couldn't blackball. And so Duke actually lobbied for, for the Chicago Cardinals to sign another black player.

So that tells you how good he was while he was sort of, he really held the door open. He kept a ban on black players from coming down.

Most points in a single game by any player. 40 Points by Ernie Nevers in that game. It's a record that stood for, what was it, 90 years now. Duke Slater played the entire game.

He's the only Cardinal lineman to play all 60 minutes of the game. And a number of the post game accounts credited Duke Slater with being the, the man who, who kept the Bear front wobbly.

As they said, a lot of Nevers, his gains came behind Duke Slater's blocking and that was probably maybe his single greatest game or a single greatest moment in the NFL. But he, he, he played 10 seasons and then retired from the NFL.

And then he used his law degree to start sort of the next chapter of his professional life. But, but he had some incredible moments and, and again he retired as a seven time All Pro having played 10 seasons.

Well, that is quite a lot of accolades and definitely deserves to be in the Pro Football hall of Fame.

Just last year, the University of Iowa named their field at Kinnick Stadium, Duke Slater Field after Duke Slater.

And now if you watch Hawkeye football games on television, you'll see emblazoned on the field at Kinnick Stadium, you'll see Duke Slater Field on the field at Kinnick Stadium where the Hawkeyes play football. And it's just a tremendous honor, collegiate honor for him.

And so it's really, I think, given him a lot of exposure for Big Ten fans who, if you watch a Hawkeye football game at the University of Iowa, you'll see on television, you'll see Duke Slater Field on the field. And it's caused more than one person to say, who's Duke Slater? Who's, you know, who's that?

And it's been a great opportunity for people to learn his story that way, too.

So again, the honors that he's been receiving over the past five, 10 years have been just so exciting and so thrilling to me personally and again, just so worthwhile for, for a man with the achievements that he had.

Well, that's, that's great. And you just to think you're, you're a part of that, of helping people recognize that legacy.

So, you know, speaking of that, let's get the opportunity to. Let's tell the name of your book and where people can pick it up at.

Yeah, again, you said it's Duke Slater, pioneering nf, Pioneering black NFL player and judge. I believe it's the. Published by McFarland Company. They picked the subtitle, which is Throws a lot in there at you.

But, but, but obviously all worthwhile. Just search for Duke Slater and, and you'll find the book.

You can find it on Amazon, you can find it on Barnes and Noble, or you can find it on my website. I'd love it if you came and visited my website and bought it off there.

But it's DukesLater.com just, just type in DukesLater.com and it'll get you there and you'll find a. All the information on Duke Slater and a way to purchase the book. And again, just. And an amazing guy.

Again, I've talked with you for this whole time and I feel like I throw a lot of information in there.

There's just, there's so many facets of his life and so much you could talk about with the amazing man that he is that it's just a thrill to tell his story.

There's just so much to say about this incredible guy and I love it when people have an opportunity to learn more about him because he's really someone who lived a life that's, that's very much worth remembering.

Well, very well said.

And folks, we will have the information if you're in a car and don't have a writing utensil on you in the show notes of this podcast and on pigskindispatch.com with the corresponding posts that we're going to have on there, we will have Neil's website to get you connected to him and to his book.

And again, he's, he's touched a lot of the highlights of Duke Slater's career, but there's a lot of goodies inside there that you'll really enjoy and appreciate. This man that played football almost 100 years ago.

So, Neil Rosendal, thank you very much for joining us and spending time and sharing this great story about Duke Slater.

No, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it and really appreciate it.

Peeking up at the clock, the time's running down. We're going to go into victory formation. Take a knee and let this baby run out. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you back tomorrow.

For the next podcast.

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