Bemidji State’s football team began its first season 100 years ago with a loss to a high school squad, a fact that still surprises some fans today. The fledgling college team, then called Bemidji State Teachers College, traveled to face Cass Lake High School and suffered a 33-0 shutout in their inaugural game. The Daily Pioneer’s October 3, 1926, edition described the team’s situation: Coach Mendenhall had to practice scrimmage drills with the local high school players because there weren't enough college athletes to form two lines.
This early loss was part of a humble start for the program, which didn’t yet have the "Beavers" nickname. Newspapers of the time referred to the players simply as "teachers," reflecting the college’s focus. Football wasn’t yet a major draw in Bemidji; front pages were dominated by the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees, highlighting baseball’s popularity over local college football.
Despite the rocky beginnings, Bemidji State quickly bounced back. Four days after losing to Deer River High School, the teachers recorded their first win on home turf against Cass Lake High, claiming a 13-0 victory. The game took place on a Wednesday, an unusual scheduling choice by today’s standards. Early seasons featured lopsided shutouts both ways: in 1927, Bemidji State shut out Park Rapids High School 44-0, only to lose 69-0 to Hibbing Junior College two weeks later.
As the program evolved, Bemidji State began to play more college teams regularly. St. Cloud State, Duluth State (now Minnesota Duluth), Moorhead State (now MSU Moorhead), and Winona State became frequent rivals. These five schools formed the Northern Teachers Athletic Conference, though the announcement of the new conference received little fanfare since they already competed against each other regularly.
Bemidji State’s first conference game was a 13-0 loss at Winona State. In 1939, just as the war in Europe became front-page news, the college received a federal grant to develop sports facilities, including a new football field. This venue, later named Chet Anderson Stadium in 1996, has a murky origin date for its first game. While the Bemidji State website claims the first game was on September 27, 1940, against Concordia College, the stadium was incomplete at that point. The official record book names a September 19, 1941, game against Jamestown as the first full game in the stadium. However, Pioneer archives reveal the earliest game on the partially built stadium’s south stands was on September 13, 1940, a 20-6 win over Mayville College.
Tickets to that first game cost 40 cents, roughly $9.50 today. The north stands, completed the following year, remain part of the stadium today.
The program’s history includes a canceled game caused by the Armistice Day Blizzard on November 11, 1940. Bemidji State was stranded in Wahpeton, North Dakota, after a late-season game against Wahpeton College of Science was called off due to heavy snow and impassable roads. The storm was deadly, killing 49 people across Minnesota. This was the last canceled game for the Beavers until the 2020 season was wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic.
World War II paused the Northern Teachers Athletic Conference from 1943 to 1945. During that hiatus, Bemidji State played a variety of opponents, including North Dakota State and St. Thomas. One of the more unusual matchups came on October 27, 1945, when the Beavers faced the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. At that time, the Blue Bombers were a rugby team competing for Grey Cups and are now part of the Canadian Football League.
The game was reportedly a mix of football and rugby rules. Bemidji State’s coach Jolly Erickson told the Daily Pioneer, "We were evenly matched in the football portion of the contest." The match remains a unique footnote in the program’s early history, reflecting the fluid nature of football and rugby rules during that period.
As Bemidji State’s football team celebrates its centennial season, the story of those early years offers a glimpse of a program that has grown from playing local high schools and hybrid rugby games into a recognized college football team with a dedicated stadium and conference history.
According to Yahoo Sports.
