campus, St. John's staged their home games on makeshift fields at the Prospect Park Parade Grounds. Playing at the absolute smallest of levels, most competition came local athletic clubs and even local high schools. This included Fordham Prep which went 2-0 against St. John's during their early football years. Simply fielding a team itself proved somewhat difficult as St. John's spent those early years sporadically dropping and restarting their program. Finally, in 1923 the school made a more sincere effort to build a true football program. Although continuing play at a small level, new schedules against secondary Catholic schools like Providence and Niagara were an improvement to previous ones featuring high school teams. Saint John's moved their home games to 30,000 seat Ebbet's Field and despite only averaging about 3,000 fans per game, they did schedule a few intriguing contests against more established programs like Fordham and Holy Cross. Even defeating Fordham in 1923 and playing Holy Cross close in 1925 did little to create much in public support and in 1929 St. John's moved their home games to Dexter Field, a minor league baseball park in Woodhaven, Queens. Although attendance improved to about 5,000 per game, football continued to lose money and the program was discontinued following the 1931 season. In 1956 the entire university moved to a large, green campus in Hillcrest, Queens. Set on what had previously been a golf course, the new campus suddenly offered St. John's the space to build an authentic campus. In 1965, a year after Fordham students created a club team, St. John's students did the same. Their first game back came against Manhattan College, who coincidentally, had also served as St. John's last opponent before eliminating football in 1931. Manhattan had won that 1931 encounter, 8-7, but 34 years later, St. John's avenged that loss with a 19-8 victory. The team remained mostly successful at the club level and played for a regional championship in 1974 before finally receiving varsity status prior to the 1978 season. Playing at the D-III level, St. John's again remained mostly successful. Although they never advanced to the D-III playoffs, they did qualify into regional ECAC bowls in 1983 and again in 1989. In 1993 the "Dayton Rule” disallowed D-I schools from playing lower level football. Instead, these schools, including St. John's, were forced into the I-AA (now FCS) level despite not truly being able to