Ted St. Germaine

Thomas Leo "Ted" St. Germaine (February 2, 1885 - October 4, 1947) was a professional football player who played in the National Football League during the 1922 season. That season he joined the NFL's Oorang Indians, a team based in LaRue, Ohio, which was composed solely of Native Americans, and coached by Jim Thorpe. St, Germaine was qualified to play for the Indians since he was a Chippewa.^[1]

He attend the University of Wisconsin, but found the atmosphere more friendly at Dickinson College (Carlisle Indian School), located in Pennsylvania, where he played football and earned his bachelor’s degree. He then furthered his education at Howard and Yale Law School where, in 1914, he acquired a law degree. However even with a degree from Yale, St. Germaine knew that he was more likely to find a job on an Indian college coaching staff than in a white lawyer's office. He was recruited to play for the Oorang Indians, in 1922, at the age of 37, by Jim Thorpe. He is believed to have been the first attorney at law to play for an NFL team.

After his football career ended, St. Germaine became a tribal judge and, in 1932, was the first Native-American admitted to the bar in Wisconsin. When President Franklin Roosevelt ended the Native-American assimilation policies, St. Germaine served as the spokesman for the Lac du Flambeau delegation at the Hayward, Wisconsin, hearings. At these hearings, St. Germaine argued for Indian self-government and tribal control of natural resources as stipulated in the treaties of the 19th century. Some of these concepts were incorporated into the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.^[2]

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