Professional football (gridiron) oldest existing professional football club is the Arizona Cardinals, a current member of the National Football League. The Cardinals organization, which was originally based on Racine Street in Chicago, has operated near-continuously since 1913, but counts an earlier team that played from 1898 to 1906 as part of its history. The Watertown Red & Black is the oldest semi-professional club, tracing its history to 1896. While the practice of professional and semi-pro teams playing college and amateur teams was common in the 1890s, the Amateur Athletic Union began pressuring and threatening college teams with the loss of amateur status if
Louisville Cardinals football not participate in the 1917–1921 seasons. When the Cardinals did rejoin football they came back into the SIAA which was going through reorganization losing most major state schools and thus became a small college conference. The Cardinals would face mostly Kentucky state schools such as Eastern Kentucky, Murray State, Western Kentucky, and Morehead State, along with private state schools like Centre, Transylvania, Kentucky Wesleyan, and Georgetown College. Tom King was the first coach to attempt to build a program at Louisville. King played college football at Notre Dame (1915–1916) under Coach Palmer and Knute Rockne. King was an undersized end