American Football and the Great White Fleet

The Great White Fleet left Hampton Roads, Virginia, in December 1907, sailing the ocean blue and stopping in twenty ports on six continents over the next fourteen months. The journey was one part goodwill tour, a second part display of the Big Stick, and a test of America's naval technology. The sixteen participating battleships and support vessels collected at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in early December, allowing time for celebrations and castoff ceremonies that included a football tournament among the battleship crews. 

Athletic contests between ships' crews in port were common in the U.S. Navy, including lifeboat races, boxing, baseball, and football games. The earliest football game involving a ship's crew appears to have been a March 1892 contest between the U.S.S. Charleston and San Francisco's Olympic Club, then the top football-playing athletic club on the West Coast. Like the athletic clubs, Navy cruisers and battleships had more young men in their crews than male students at most colleges and universities, and they dotted college football schedules on the coast until the late 1920s. Although policies regarding participation shifted at times, the team often included a mix of officers and enlisted men, including Marines, with former Naval Academy players numbering among the premier players on the fields.

The 1908 team represented the U.S.S. Colorado. The 1907 team was the Pacific Fleet champion, and its record included a 16-4 loss to USC.