Abstract
Club Atlético de Cuba (Atlético or CAC) operated as an amateur athletic club in Havana from 1909 to 1961. For most of its existence, Atlético fielded American football teams and competed on the gridiron against local and U.S. opponents. Drawing from print accounts of the games that appear in U.S. and Cuban newspapers and other publications, this article explores the connection between the CAC’s American football team and national identity, as well as how the club’s accomplishments resonated over time. In this light, Atlético’s success in international play promoted a form of Cuban national identity associated with Havana’s political and social elite and its achievements entered into the cultural memory of that group prior to the overthrow of the prerevolution order.