The Carlinville-Taylorville Scandal Of 1921

Under ordinary circumstances, America would not pay attention to a football game played the Sunday after Thanksgiving between Carlinville and Taylorville, Illinois, but the 1921 Carlinville-Taylorville game was extraordinary. Sitting forty-four miles apart, each town had fewer than 6,000 residents, and their semi-pro football teams had become rivals, with Carlinville winning at home 10-7 in 1920.

The teams were scheduled to battle again in 1921, and like the prognostications in regional newspapers, everything about the game appeared normal. The day after the game, the Decatur newspapers mentioned 3,000 to 4,000 fans attending Taylorville’s 16-0 win but described a run-of-the-mill game otherwise.

In hindsight, only one line stands out:

“The lineup of each team was almost entirely changed after the half.”

'Taylorville Wins Annual Battle From Carlinville,' Decatur Daily Review, November 28, 1921.

That line took on significance two months later when reports leaked that each town had bet heavily on the game and engaged the services of college football players to ensure they won those bets.

The whole thing started when the enterprising citizens of Carlinville developed a scheme to ensure a repeat victory in the big game. A local lad, Dick Seyfrit, was a substitute end on the Notre Dame team that finished the 1921 season 10-1, and he presumably was the conduit for engaging a group of Notre Dame players to travel to Central Illinois a few days before the contest.