The NFL kicked off its 100th season on Sept. 5 by pitting the Chicago Bears against the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field.
It was a predictable matchup in a season that’s going to be heavy on the league’s history. For Rockford, opening night was special because the NFL’s longest rivalry featured Boylan graduate Dean Lowry starting on the defensive line for the Packers.
It was Lowry’s 48th game and 20th start. As much as he’s become a fixture in the league, Lowry has a long way to go to match Rockford football pioneer Laurie Walquist.Walquist was a 1918 Rockford High School graduate who, after serving briefly in the U.S. Army, went on to star at the University of Illinois in football and basketball and then play for the Chicago Bears from 1922 to 1931. He appeared in 111 games.
The George Halas Bears of the 1920s and 1930s are an iconic group and Walquist, who played quarterback and halfback in the old single-wing offense, lined up alongside some of the league’s legends. His Hall of Fame teammates included:
* George Halas from 1922 to 1928.
* Red Grange from 1925 to 1931.
* Paddy Driscoll from 1926 to 1929.
* Bronko Nagurski in 1930 and 1931.
While Walquist wasn’t at their level, he was undoubtedly a major contributor. He started 77 games and played a part in 18 touchdowns in a time when the league leader in touchdowns usually scored between six and eight times a season.
In the single-wing, any backfield player could run, throw or go out for a pass. Walquist passed for four touchdowns, rushed for 10 and had four receiving. Perhaps more importantly, Walquist was a winner at every level. Rockford High School was 12-4-1 in his two seasons on varsity (1916-1917), Illinois was 14-7 in his three years (1919, 1920 and 1921, when he was captain of the squad), and the Bears were 73-36-16 in his time in Chicago.
This includes the 1926 season when the Bears went 12-1-3, outscoring their opponents 216-63. That year 22 different teams played between four games (the Louisville Colonels and Hammond Pros) and 17 games (the Frankford Yellow Jackets). Frankford is listed as the champion because it went 14-1-2. The Yellow Jackets handed the Bears their only loss that season, 7-6, on Dec. 4.
Walquist started 15 of the 16 games that season and had two touchdown passes, a rushing touchdown and a receiving touchdown.
Of course, pro football in the 1920s wasn’t a very lucrative profession. Walquist stayed busy in the early part of the year playing professional basketball. At Illinois, he played hoops for three years and was named All-Western Conference in 1922.
According to probasketballencyclopedia.com, Walquist played for the Harvard Marvels in 1921-1922, the Rockford Thomas Cats in 1922-1923, and for Halas’ Chicago Bruins in 1924-1925 and 1925-1926. Walquist was the coach of the 1925-1926 team, which played in the first year of the American Basketball League. The ABL was the first attempt to form a major basketball league and it included several of the NFL’s pioneering owners, including Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall.
Looking at Register Star archives, the pro basketball site is missing some information. In 1923-1924, he played for the Milwaukee Badgers. He was still with the Bruins for the 1926-1927 and 1927-1928 seasons. The 1928 season is the last time Walquist appears to have played pro basketball.
After the 1931 football season, Walquist transitioned to an assistant coaching role and part-owner of the team. Walquist had earned an economics degree at Illinois and worked with Halas in the bond business in the 1920s. He finally left the Bears in the mid-1930s to become sales manager at Chicago Furnace & Supply Co. He settled in Glenview and retired for good in 1970.
Rockford newspapers dutifully reported all of Walquist’s movements in the 1920s and 1930s. He was still a big enough name to have his second wedding be in the local news in 1941 even though it was in Chicago, and in 1948 there was a story about his son, Laurie Jr., bidding for a starting halfback role with the Illinois football team. Walquist had four children.
He faded from Rockford view in the 1950s and was so disconnected from the area that when he died in 1985, the Register Star ran a four-paragraph brief about his passing. He has yet to be added to Rockford Public Schools athletics hall of fame.
