A Footballer at the Indy 500

The only man to ever play professional football and race in the Indianapolis 500.

There is only one man who both played professional football in the NFL, and also competed in the Indianapolis 500.

Jimmy Snyder, nicknamed The Flying Milkman, was a real milk deliveryman from Chicago, Illinois. He was born James Leroy Snyder on March 10, 1909. Snyder reportedly bought a helmet and a pair of goggles and decided to go racing in 1932.

The pole position for the 1939 race was won by Snyder at 130.1 mph, setting a new track record. He finished in second place to Wilbur Shaw and earned $16,100. Snyder was already a somewhat famous man in that he had played football in the National Football League.

The NFL was formed in September of 1920. The Milwaukee Badgers joined the league in 1922, and played their home games at Athletic Park. The Park was constructed in 1888 and became the home field for baseball’s Milwaukee Creams. This team then became the Milwaukee Brewers.

In addition to Milwaukee being known as Brew City, it is also known as Cream City because of the cream-colored bricks that were produced from local clay deposits. The field was renamed Brewer’s Field, and later renamed Borchert Field.

Borchert Field also hosted baseball’s Milwaukee Bears of the Negro National League, and the Milwaukee Chicks of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Even the NFL’s Green Bay Packers used the field in 1933.

Snyder had played one game, at the age of 16, for the Milwaukee Badgers in 1925. He was recruited by the Chicago Cardinals owner to play for Milwaukee. The Badgers, owned by Ambrose McGuirk, were known to have had a number of Black players on their roster before other teams moved in that direction. Snyder is considered the youngest player in NFL history.

The Badgers disbanded in 1926 after being fined $500 by the NFL for using four high school players in a game against the Chicago Cardinals in 1925. The game was scheduled after the Badger’s season was complete. The Cardinals were still in contention for the championship against their rival the Pottsville Maroons from Pennsylvania. So, the Cardinals enlisted games against Milwaukee and also the Hammond Pros from Indiana.

Snyder and his buddies had played football at Englewood High School, and played under assumed names. The Chicago Cardinals won the game 59–0 against the orange sweater clad Badgers.

The Cardinals owner, who told the high school boys it was a practice game, was fined $1000 and barred from football for life, and the Badgers were ordered to disband within 90 days. Fortunately, the high schoolers had their amateur status returned.

The Pottsville Maroons also played an illegal exhibition game during the season. NFL Commissioner Joseph Carr suspended Pottsville and awarded the title to the Cardinals. The Maroons defeated the Cardinals 21–7 on December 6, 1925. Cardinals owner Chris O’Brien refused to accept the title for his team.

The fines and penalty were rescinded and McGuirk sold the team to another player but the team folded in 1926. The Chicago Cardinals eventually became the Saint Louis Cardinals, and now the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL.

Jimmy played football his freshman year at the University of Illinois. Then he transferred to Oglethorpe University in Georgia before becoming a milkman and playing professional football for the St. Louis Gunners.

Snyder led 92 laps in the 1938 race, and led 65 laps in 1939 but won neither race. The Wheeler restaurant chain sponsored an award for the race’s leader at the 300-mile mark. In 1938 the winner of the award was Snyder.

What did he receive? Snyder received a free meal ticket for the year at their eateries. In June 1939 he drove at Soldier Field in a midget race. The track was a high banked board track listed at a quarter mile long, but he didn’t win.

Sadly, Snyder would be killed in a midget car crash less than a month after the 1939 Indianapolis 500 race. He was thirty years old, and had a wife, Grace, and 3 children. His car flipped, throwing Snyder out, and then landed on top of Snyder on a quarter mile dirt track in his native Illinois. Then another car plowed into him. He died of a broken neck.

The track was a quarter mile dirt oval near East Saint Louis, Illinois. It was called the Cahokia Midget Speedway. The track was renamed Snyder Memorial Speedway in his honor. The track then closed down during World War II and never reopened.