Ward created the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the Golden Gloves amateur boxing tournament, and the College All-Star Football Classic (an annual game between professional and college players).[4] In 1941, he was offered the role of Commissioner of the National Football League (NFL), but turned it down.[5] He later started the rival All-America Football Conference (AAFC). He was quoted as being an "idealist", one that felt the NFL was a "cheap-john minor league outfit" which needed a major pro league like the AAFC to force the NFL to pay their players better.[5][a] Ward helped set up the first meeting of the organization that would become the AAFC on June 4, 1944, with word getting out about the league in late August of that year before a formal announcement on September 2, 1944.[6] The league lasted four seasons, with the sudden heart attack suffered by Benjamin F. Lindheimer in late 1949 (who owned three of the eight AAFC teams) being a key point of the demise of the league, with various members involved with the league saying that Ward turned the NFL into a major league in spite of itself.[7]
Ward published several collections of light content ("notes, verses and comments") from the Chicago Tribune entitled In The Wake Of The News Book and edited an anthology called The Greatest Sports Stories From Chicago Tribune. He also was the author of three sports-related books:[4]
Ward was involved in conservative political causes and as well as the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Described as affable and mild mannered,[8] he was considered a dynamo with powerful contacts in American politics, church matters, and journalism.
Ward died in his sleep in 1955 at the age of 58, at his home on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago;[9] his death was attributed to a heart attack.[8] He was survived by his wife, Helen, and a son; a daughter had predeceased him in 1940.[8] His funeral took place the same day as the 1955 MLB All-Star Game.[4]
