Musings on "Casey" Gildea and Coaldale Football

MUSINGS ON “CASEY” GILDEA and COALDALE FOOTBALL

by Jack Evans, August 16, 2026

I have been reviewing and researching old newspapers about Coaldale football. I want to share some of my thoughts and conclusions.

Jim "Casey" Gildea was an extremely organized individual and had superior leadership qualities. He was the manager/coach of the Coaldale pro football program, and he was a manager to the boxing men of town. He swayed the old members of the Anthracite League to form a new league called the Eastern Pro League. More on that later.

A little background on the area in that time period (1912-1930). Coaldale had a population of about 7,000 whereas Shenandoah had the highest population of 35,000 and was the largest town in Schuylkill County. Pottsville was the wealthiest city in the county. More on that later.

Casey took great pride in fielding the Big Green with entirely players from the borough of Coaldale who were residents. It should be noted that most of the Anthracite teams had B squads at the time, and the Coaldale contingent was the Summit Hill Tigers. This enabled them to move players up and down the rosters.

After defeating the Shenandoah Presidents and the Pottsville Maroons for the Anthracite Championships in 1921-23, both Shenandoah and Pottsville started to recruit players from all over the East and Mid-West. This importing of players, supported by the wealthy residents of the city of Pottsville, allowed the Maroons to capture championships going forward that, culminating with them winning the 1925 NFL championship which was ultimately taken away from them for playing a collegiate all-star team and then awarded to the Cardinals. By the way, the Cardinals have not had a championship since then.

In 1926, Casey put a challenge to Pottsville to play a game with strictly players who were residents of Coaldale and players from the city of Pottsville. He went into detail by providing a list of players for both teams listing the residents of the respective squads. The Maroons did not accept this challenge.

Gildea then met with the Maroon manager, Striegel, and their business manager, Stewart Seltzer, and proposed playing the Pottsville team on a home and away basis. He wanted the Maroons to come to Coaldale on November 11th and play them again on Thanksgiving Day in Pottsville. Striegel turned down both requests because he stated that he did not want to risk injury to his players in a game that meant nothing and spoil his chances against the NFL teams on their schedule.

Casey was so irked that he assembled a meeting with the Coaldale Athletic Association in order to start the process to raise funds in order to get Coaldale a franchise in the NFL. Just imagine if you can if Coaldale landed an NFL franchise.

At the time, the Athletic Association was dealing with a large debt due to the installation of new bleachers on the field. They were planning a banquet to be held in either Tamaqua or Mauch Chunk along with a benefit dance at the Coaldale high school to raise money.

The association informed him that they could not meet his request. Casey then went on to form the Eastern Pro League and had many members of the former Anthracite league join him in forming the league. Call that leadership.

At the same time in 1926 Casey was so disillusioned with the whole thing that he sought out a coach for the team so that he could just be the manager and more involved in the league duties. This man was way before his time.

Some notable residents of the town stepped up to coach, but Casey was not far in the background. What an incredible man.

The depression of 1929 was the bitter pill which led to the downfall of this glorious time.