The Chicago Charities College All-Star Game was an annual game played by a team of College All-Stars against the defending NFL Champion. For 42 years, the game launched the football season, and for a period of time, it was one of the most popular sporting events in the country, attracting more than 90,000 spectators on several occasions. Some of the greatest football players ever appeared in the game. Originally created to help promote Chicago's World's Fair, its main mission was to help raise money for local Chicago Charities and to help bolster the popularity of the NFL, which paled in comparison to college football at the time. It was a hotly contested game that NFL teams did not want to lose. However, the Collegians prevailed nine times, the biggest upset coming in 1963 when the All-Stars stunned the football world by defeating Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers 20-17. This book covers the entire history of this notable and beloved interleague game. While the NFL won 31 of the 42 games played, several games could have gone the other way, and the All-Stars dominated many of them.

The present work looks back at the series' history, how football and the NFL evolved during the series, who the stars were, the risks players faced by playing, and some of the game's most surprising participants.