Although Leo Alumni of all ages have long considered the storied school to be a wellspring of History of a variety of types, it is always nice when an authority recognizes some particular event the school has been involved in in its historic context. In this case the Authority is the Journal of Illinois History which is an official quarterly publication of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. The event is the Historic 1937 Prep Bowl Game between Leo High School and Austin High School which had the largest fan attendance of any high school football game (and possibly any football game of any type) in history, in excess of 120,000 people in attendance.
Among the people we know we can thank (other than those who were involved in 1937) for our current honor are William B. Tubbs an Editor of the Journal, who contacted our Association for whatever data we may have to contribute, along with a local historian and Teacher at Libertyville High School – Kevin O’Neil – who saw fit to devote his time and efforts to write the current article, a well documented historic treatise and lament on the demise of the Prep Bowl to its current attendance state entitled “When The Game Was King”. It appears that Mr. O’Neil was motivated in part by the stories he was told by his Father, a graduate of Mt. Carmel High School, another storied Chicago Catholic High School, about the great feats that that school achieved when his father was in attendance.
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