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Jim Ailinger

American football player, coach, official; basketball player and coach; dentist (1901-2001)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2025
Entity authorityQ6193339
Source-derived summary

James Joseph Ailinger (July 10, 1901 – March 27, 2001) was a dentist, an American basketball and football player for the University of Buffalo, a football player for the Buffalo Bisons of the National Football League (NFL) and long time college football linesmen.

Ailinger played center and tackle for the University of Buffalo football team and was captain of the basketball team for one year.

He played as a reserve on the line during the 1924 Buffalo Bisons (NFL) season. He was part of an initiative to boost gate attendance for the Buffalo, New York franchise, mixing local talent such as Ailinger with big-name stars such as Benny Boynton, Eddie Kaw, Pete Calac and Swede Youngstrom. He was paid $50 U.S. for each game he was on the roster. After the 1924 NFL season, Ailinger swiftly retired despite an offer to return to the team in 1925. (As a future dentist, he was fearful of hurting his hands.) Ailinger put his NFL earnings toward tuition for dental school at the University of Buffalo.

In addition to running a successful dental practice for over 60 years, Ailinger remained involved in sports. He served as an assistant football coach and assistant basketball coach at the University of Buffalo. He was once considered the dean of eastern collegiate football officials, officiating in over 425 college football games from 1925 to 1960.

Editorial summary

“Jim Ailinger” enters the record as american football player, coach, official; basketball player and coach; dentist (1901-2001). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ailinger, American and football can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1901, 2001, 1924, 1925—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1901-07-10. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Ailinger, American and football.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Jim Ailinger” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ailinger, American and football provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6193339. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 2001, 1924 and 1925.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Jim Ailinger”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Jim Ailinger primary sources, Jim Ailinger archive and Ailinger research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Jim Ailinger”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Jim Ailinger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.