Canton Bulldogs Puns

10 win seasons for the Bulldogs = 2

10 win seasons for the Browns since 1999 = 1

The 4-0 Canton Bulldogs continue the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 3-0 defeat of the Youngstown Patricians at Wright Field in Youngstown, Ohio.

The Youngstown Patricians entered the 1917 season with aspirations to win the Ohio League.

Instigated as part of Father Charles Martin’s promotion of sport as a building block for young men, and another way for the church to become closer with its community, the team took its name from St. Patrick’s Parrish on the southside of Youngstown. Apparently the Patricians are the only professional football team ever to be founded out of a church. For a time every player was in walking distance of the church.

In 1914 after defeating crosstown rival Crescent A.C., they claimed the Mahoning Valley title. This set the stage to take a step up and play tougher competition in a nine-game schedule for 1915.

They kept four of their opponents from 1914 and added three teams from the Ohio League, the Columbus Panhandles, the Akron Pros, and the McKeesport Olympics; perhaps the toughest team in the Pittsburgh area, the Pitcairn Quakers; and the self proclaimed World Champions, the Washington, D.C. Vigilants. That year the Patricians went 8-0-1, the only mar on their record a scoreless tie against the Panhandles. To settle the question of who had the better team the Patricians offered to play Canton, Massillon and Toledo, all of whom denied the game. The Patricians were World Champs.

For 1916, long-time coach Ray Thomas, who would later become mayor of Cleveland, decided to stop playing and so Tommy Hughitt was brought in at quarterback while Thomas continued as manager.

Feeling the need to better establish their championship, the Patricians expanded their schedule again, this time to 11 games, adding a home and home against Massillon. The Patricians were 5-0 going into the first game but lost 3-0. Two games later they lost again to eventual champ Canton, 6-0. In the second game against Massillon they were swamped 26-0 and ended the season with a disappointing loss to the Panhandles. The dream of defending the title of World Champion had died, even though they again defeated the Vigilants, this time 10-9.

The Vigilants had called themselves World Champions since 1907, losing only three games over that timeframe, all to college all-star teams. While these titles are rendered “mythical” by historians, you can bet they were important to the players and owners of the time.

“Ohio League

The 2-0 Canton Bulldogs continue the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 54-0 defeat of the Columbus Panhandles at League Park in Canton in front of 2,000 fans.

This would be the worst loss in the storied history of the Panhandle franchise.

Not far from where this game was played, the NFL opened its Hall of Fame in 1963, inducting “the first 17 immortals.”

Of course the coach and star player for Canton, Jim Thorpe, is among that group, but he is joined by the owner of the Columbus Panhandles, Joe Carr.

Imagine that, two of the NFL’s immortals facing off a hundred years ago.

Before the game, Carr telegraphed his friend Canton owner Jack Cusack, saying, “It has been our ambition for years of the Columbus aggregation to win from Canton.”

Columbus played all of their games on the road, although this term would not have been in use given professional football teams were travelling by rail. Early football teams enjoyed a close relationship with the nation’s railroad network, none more than the Panhandles.

The Columbus Panhandles trace their roots to 1901 and the Panhandle shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Carr, a Columbus native, purchased the team in 1907.

The Panhandles are famous for the Nesser Brothers, who worked for the railroad and played for the team. At one time or another seven different brothers suited up for the team.

The 1917 season ate at Carr, as Al Nesser had taken more money to play for the Akron Pros.

A week before this humiliating defeat at Canton, Columbus had lost 3-0 to Akron, with Frank Nesser missing three field goals in the last game he would play with his brothers, as he had also accepted more money to play for Detroit, and would later suit up for Akron and Massillon.

Other than a 13-0 win over Toledo the Panhandles were unable to score the rest of the season in losses at Youngstown, Massillon, Fort Wayne and Detroit.

Al Nesser hung around long enough to be part of the New York Giants first NFL Championship in 1927, at age 35. In the lineup, under the heading SCHOOL, where his teammates listed their college, Nesser wrote “Hard Knocks.”

Carr knew in a stronger league he would not have to watch his best players leave just because he couldn’t afford to keep them.

While the Panhandles never won an Ohio League or NFL title, Joe Carr became an NFL immortal through his role as president, a job he assumed in 1921 and held until his death in 1939. For this he is remembered as the Fathe

The 3-0 Canton Bulldogs continue the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 41-0 defeat of the Rochester Jeffersons at League Park in Canton, Ohio.

The name Jefferson is testimony to the team’s beginnings as a sandlot team, many of which popped up across the country during the late 1800s and into the early part of the century. These sandlot teams were limited in how far they could travel, leaving them to play crosstown rivals. As these rivalries unfolded, the teams began calling themselves and each other by the street name or avenue near where the team played, in this case Jefferson Avenue in Rochester.

The Rochester Jeffersons, under the leadership of owner Leo Lyons who started playing for the team at age 16 in 1908, grew from the sandlot and won the New York Professional Football League (NYPFL) title in 1915 and 1916.

On this day a hundred years ago, Leo Lyons didn’t just put his team on a train to Canton, he put them on track to become a charter member of the NFL.

Some researchers go further, arguing this game more than any other led to the creation of the NFL itself, seeing the new league as essentially a merger of the NYPFL into the Ohio League.

Leo Lyons, tireless promoter of professional football, had sparked a national interest, even in defeat.

He forced football players around the country, even old sandlot teams, to make a gut check: do you have what it takes to play the best?

The Rochester Jeffersons proved they did October 28, 1917, the first NYPFL team to challenge Ohio’s place as the center of the professional football universe. Teams with humble beginnings were competing all over the country. There was only one way to find who had the best football team, and that was to create a nation-wide league.

By age 18 Lyons was already involved with the team’s finances, promoting games, managing the team, a role he would maintain until the team ceased operations after the 1925 NFL season. Hall of Fame Immortal George Halas mentioned Lyons in his acceptance speech, as Halas had modeled his stewardship for the Bears. Lyons is credited as being “manager, owner, photographer, doctor, counselor, financier, field worker, game booker, agent, and scout.”

Talking with Jim Thorpe after the blow-out, Lyons remained upbeat, predicting that one day pro football would be the biggest sport in America.

After the war when the invitations went out from Canton to create the NFL, one arrived in Rochester addressed to Leo Lyo

Biggest high school football rivalry in the country, both with exceedingly proficient bands to accompany the teams on the field.

The NFL is about five years away from it's 100th anniversary. A lot of players have come and gone in that time and so have a lot of teams. Much of what fans would have recognized as The NFL in the 1920's is gone. Some of these teams were NFL champions, or champions of the leagues that existed before the NFL. I wondered what teams like the Canton Bulldogs or Dayton Triangles would look like if they had survived to modern days.

Just like the Bears, Lions and Packers don't wear exact copies of what they once had as uniforms, these teams too would incorporate clues from the past. These would be filtered through the League's history down to now. Some would get radical redos, in others the graphic linage would be still be strong.

Along the way I'm going to look at the teams. Why they were notable, why they failed and what they added to the game.

A good portion of what I'm posting here was posted before on Something Awful and on the Sportslogo.net forum. I'm posting it here because it will give you folks a chance to see it. I'm also going through and adding to what I've done.

First up was literally the founding team in the NFL, The Canton Bulldogs.

The NFL was born out of the teams from the Ohio leagues. These were a group of semi-pro teams that played informal schedules (at best) Guys who wanted to stick around after playing college (or sometimes where still in college) for some weekend dough. A lot of them started as athletic clubs that slowly evolved into something more serious. The Arizona Cardinals started this way. They were originally the Morgan Athletic Club.

The Canton Bulldogs were created with the intention of beating the Massillon Tigers, the best of the pro teams of the time. In 1905 Canton paid heavily to recruit star players form other teams to beat Massilon but lost to them in the last game of the season. The team fell into a cheating scandal the next year surrounding a series of three games with Massillon. Rumors began to spread that the Bulldogs had deliberately thrown their game, tried to pay off the Massillon players to lose, or conspired with the Tigers to force a third game in the series to increase gate revenue. The team ran into financial problems and ceased operations until 1911.

In 1915 they signed Jim Thorpe. He's going to feature in the history of a few of these teams. He was (and may yet be) one of the greatest athletes ever to play football. In 1916 they went 9-0-1, followed by going 9-1-0 in 1917. Like a most teams they

The 7-0 Canton Bulldogs seal the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 14-3 defeat of the Massillon Tigers at League Field in Canton, Ohio.

Canton is the largest city in Stark County; Massillon, less than ten miles away, is the second largest.

According to the US Census Bureau, the population of Stark County has remained remarkably steady at around 375,000 people for over fifty years.

Imagine that the rivalry between these two nearby football teams would grow into the NFL, which books $16 billion, or about $40,000 a year for every one of Stark County’s 375,000 residents.

A hundred years ago, 175,000 called this county home, growing rapidly from 123,000 in 1910.

At the turn of the century, when Stark County took its first steps towards becoming the heartland of professional football, there were less than 100,000 people living there.

Canton is immortalized and Massillon mostly forgotten, but it’s easier to understand the era 1903-1919 by studying Massillon, as Canton represented the future. When the athletic clubs in western Pennsylvania started to fold, Massillon became the first club west of the border to go pro, and in what would be a longstanding Massillon tradition, they tried to sign as many players from these teams as possible. Massillon played its last game in 1919, the season before the NFL formed. The Tigers defined their era.

The game of American football goes back to 1862, when some kids in Boston, bored with soccer and rugby, decided to combine the best part of one, kicking goals, with that of the other, running the ball across the line for a score.

To better understand the infancy of the game, by 1869 when Princeton and Rutgers faced off for the first ever college football game, they joined the Boston Oneida Football School as the only three teams in the country.

By the 1880s other universities had signed on, along with more athletic clubs, and there were about 30 total teams.

These clubs were careful not to jeopardize their amateur status, as they often specialized in other sports that would also be affected if the AAU decided to penalize them, and for the football players, that would mean there were be no one left to play, as there were no pro teams at all.

As the years passed the desire to seeing a winning football team on the field became a point of pride for both the university and their alumni, as well as the often wealthy members of the big city athletic clubs.

Universities were smart enough t

The Canton Bulldogs commence the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 12-7 win over the Pitcairn Quakers at League Park in Canton, Ohio.

The Hall of Fame chose Canton as its home because of this great team, which won the Ohio League in 1916, ‘17 and ’19 (the war caused a suspension of operations in 1918, and the Spanish Flu didn’t help; somehow the stalwarts in Buffalo managed a six-game season).

In 1918, owner Jack Cusack returned to his roots in the oil industry of Oklahoma, selling the team to Ralph Hay, a 27-year-old Hupmobile dealer in Canton. After the 1919 season, Hay convened representatives from three other Ohio League teams at his dealership in part to discuss taking the league nation-wide, and the rest is NFL history.

These first owners had the sense to name Jim Thorpe President of the new league.

Eight years after winning gold in both the decathlon and the pentathlon at the Oslo Olympics, Thorpe was still the biggest name in pro football.

According to his obituary in The New York Times, Thorpe ran the 100-yard dash in 10 seconds flat; the 220 in 21.8 seconds; the 440 in 51.8 seconds; the 880 in 1:57, the mile in 4:35; the 120-yard high hurdles in 15 seconds; and the 220-yard low hurdles in 24 seconds. He could long jump 23 ft. 6 in. and high-jump 6 ft. 5 in. He could pole vault 11 feet; put the shot 47 ft. 9 in.; throw the javelin 163 feet; and the discus 136 feet. In 1912 he cruised to the intercollegiate ballroom dancing championship, not long after scoring a touchdown and kicking four field goals as tiny Carlisle Indian School upset Harvard 18-15.

Perhaps America’s most mythological sports figure, in the decathlon Thorpe fared no worse than third, even though he picked up the javelin for the first time only months before. In the pentathlon he also placed third in the javelin, but won the other four events. Someone stole his shoes before the finals so he pulled a pair out of the rubbish and won his medals in them. A busy schedule, he made the finals of two other events, placing fourth in the high jump and seventh in the long jump.

At the closing ceremony, Sweden’s King Gustav V told Thorpe, “You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world,” to which he responded, “Thanks, King.”

The world’s greatest athlete chose to play the game of professional football. To relate, it might be like watching Aaron Judge hit the buzzer on American Ninja Warrior . . . LeBron shooting darts, Usain Bolt speeding throug

THEY SHOULD HAVE TAKEN TEBOW WHEN THEY HAD THE CHANCE!

That is specifically referring to time spent on official rosters

#The 411 on Peterson

Back in 2017, the injury-plagued Peterson left his long-time Vikings to join the New Orleans Saints RB corps. Unfortunately, he wasn't all that effective, competing with Mark Ingram, Alvin Kamara for play time and his diminished skill lost out. He was traded to Arizona and achieved modest success with them, but was still a far cry from his MVP prime. Some questioned if he'd even have a place in the NFL after that point...

...He has appeared on four separate teams since that point.

This rapid stretch of RB-for-hire work has ushered All-Day into a very exclusive club in terms of Canton recognition.

Firstly to make things clear, Peterson is most certainly going to make the HOF. He currently ranks 4th in Rushing TDs and 5th in Rushing Yards and he stands as the only non-QB to earn MVP since 2007. That in addition to an unanimous All-Decade appearance, 4 First-Team All-Pros, 7 Pro Bowls, 3 Rushing Yard titles and 2 Rushing TD titles makes him a HOF lock, even in spite of a less-than stellar off-the-field presence.

Over his career Adrian Peterson has appeared for the...

• Minnesota Vikings (2007-2016)

• New Orleans Saints (2017)

• Arizona Cardinals (2017)

• Washington Football Team (2018-2019)

• Detroit Lions (2020)

• Tennessee Titans (2021)

• Seattle Seahawks (2021 - Pending Elevation from Practice Squad)

IF Peterson is elevated from the practice squad, he will become the second HOF-caliber player to appear for seven different teams during his career. But just who is the other player who holds that distinction...

#Joe Guyon

To find another HOF player with such a diasporic career, you will have to venture to the early days of the league. To a man by the name of Joe Guyon. Guyon played during the early days of the NFL back, when teams folded left and right

Guyon's career was spent among the:

Canton Bulldogs (1920)

Washington Senators (1921)

Cleveland Indians (1921)

Oorang Indians (1922-1923) - Which were a completely separate team from the Cleveland Indians and mainly just created as a marketing stunt to advertise the owner's dog kennel business and used an all-native roster as a drawing point. Very bananas but still an official NFL team.

Rock Island Independents (1924)

Kansas City Cowboys (1925)

New York Giants (1927)

#Conclusion

Usually when a player makes the HOF, it's mainly due to the role they played for 1-3 teams.

That’s the highest for any coach in the last 90 years, or the highest for anyone who coached 90 games (Guy Chamberlain with the Canton Bulldogs, Frankford Yellow Jackets and Canton Cardinals from 1922-1927). Tom Brady has won 76.4% of his regular season games.

He was such an amazing broadcaster and larger than life figure later that, along with the video game franchise, his immense success with the Raiders was overshadowed, at least for me who just found out how good his teams were. RIP.

The recent passing of NFL legend John Madden has prompted many observers to note that John Madden has the second-highest winning percentage of any coach in NFL history (behind only Guy Chamberlain, who coached the Canton Bulldogs in the 1920s) and the highest winning percentage of any NFL coach in the modern era.

Madden's head coaching career only lasted ten seasons, but his Raiders never had a losing season, made the AFC Championship game seven times, and won a Super Bowl. He won an amazing 75% of his games despite playing in the same division as the legendary Steelers and Dolphins teams of the 70s.

Despite this, amazingly, Madden never won the AP Coach of the Year Award during his tenure between 1968 and 1978. He did not even win the award for the Raiders forgotten but absolutely dominant 1976 campaign, which saw the Raiders go 13-1 and culminated in a dominant win over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI. Instead, the award that year went to Forrest Gregg, whose Cleveland Browns went 9-5 and finished 3rd in the AFC Central, missing the playoffs.

I find it hard to believe that he didn't deserve the award at least once during this period. Then again, his peer Chuck Noll never won the award at all, despite leading the Steel Curtain and Terry Bradshaw to four Super Bowls.

Funny how things work out.

I know some people might be a little sick of seeing these pop up, but I like doing these to get some discussion going. Now that we're looking at scores, we'll actually be able to go as far back as the leagues inception for this list.

Apologies in advance that this one is beefier than before, but I felt that including a few extra statistics would help paint a better picture for how these guys played.

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

SCHOOL NAME, MASCOT, ABBREVIATION, CONFERENCE, PRIMARY HEX COLOR, SECONDARY HEX COLOR, PRESTIGE, HOME STATE, PIPELINE STATES (separated by .); Brockton, Boxers, BROCKT, Division 1, 000000, FF0000, 90, MA, MA; Lawrence, Spartans, LAWREN, Division 1, FF0000, 0000FF, 90, MA, MA; Lowell, Red Raiders, LOWELL, Division 1, 800000, 808080, 90, MA, MA; Taunton, Tigers, TAUNTO, Division 1, 000000, FF8C00, 90, MA, MA; Boston Latin School, Wolfpack, BOLASC, Division 1, 800080, FFFFFF, 90, MA, MA; Greater Lowell Tech, Gryphons, GRLOTE, Division 1, 0000FF, FFD700, 90, MA, MA; Lexington, Minutemen, LEXING, Division 1, 0000FF, FFD700, 90, MA, MA; Framingham, Flyers, FRAMIN, Division 1, 000080, FFFFFF, 90, MA, MA; Greater New Bedford, Bears, GRNEBE, Division 1, 008000, FFD700, 90, MA, MA; Newton North, Tigers, NEWNOR, Division 1, FF8C00, 000000, 90, MA, MA; Wachusett, Mountaineers, WACHUS, Division 1, 008000, FFFFFF, 90, MA, MA; BMC Durfee, Hilltoppers, BMCDUR, Division 1, FF0000, 000000, 90, MA, MA; Brookline, Warriors, BROOKL, Division 1, FF0000, 0000FF, 90, MA, MA; Springfield Central, Golden Eagles, SPRCEN, Division 1, 000000, FFD700, 90, MA, MA; Revere, Patriots, REVERE, Division 1, FF0000, FFFFFF, 90, MA, MA; Everett, Crimson Tide, EVERET, Division 1, 800000, FFD700, 90, MA, MA; Cambridge Rindge, Falcons, CAMRIN, Division 2, 808080, 000000, 88, MA, MA; New Bedford, Whalers, NEWBED, Division 2, FF0000, FFFFFF, 88, MA, MA; Methuen, Rangers, METHUE, Division 2, 0000FF, FFFFFF, 88, MA, MA; Weymouth, Wildcats, WEYMOU, Division 2, 800000, FFD700, 88, MA, MA; Newton South, Lions, NEWSOU, Division 2, 0000FF, FF8C00, 88, MA, MA; Barnstable, Red Hawks, BARNST, Division 2, FF0000, FFFFFF, 88, MA, MA; Haverhill, Hillies, HAVERH, Division 2, 8B4513, FFD700, 88, MA, MA; Shrewsbury, Colonials, SHREWS, Division 2, 000080, FFD700, 88, MA, MA; Acton-Boxborough, Colonials, ACTBOX, Division 2, 0000FF, FFD700, 88, MA, MA; Malden, Golden Tornados, MALDEN, Division 2, 0000FF, FFD700, 88, MA, MA; Braintree, Wamps, BRAINT, Division 2, 0000FF, FFFFFF, 88, MA, MA; Franklin, Panthers, FRANKL, Division 2, 0000FF, FFFFFF, 88, MA, MA; Andover, Golden Warriors, ANDOVE, Division 2, 000080, FFD700, 88, MA, MA; Boston Latin Academy, Dragons, BOLAAC, Division 2, 000000, FFD700, 88, MA, MA; Natick, Redhawks, NATICK, Division 2, FF0000, 0000FF, 88, MA, MA;

Lynn English, Bulldogs, LYNENG, Division 2, 800000, 808080, 88, MA, MA; Westford Academy, Ghosts, WESACA, Division 3, 800000, 808080, 86, MA, MA; Att

Do your worst!

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

They’re on standbi

Pilot on me!!

Nothing, he was gladiator.

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

The Canton Bulldogs continue their Ohio League professional football title defense with an 80-0 defeat of the Altoona Indians at League Park in Canton, Ohio.

While old-time football is remembered as a low-scoring affair, this was not always the case, much like you might see at the high-school or college level when one team is unable to stop the other’s most basic plays.

Assuming it would be a low-scoring affair, teams would kick off after being scoring upon.

The team receiving the kick off would look for the best opportunity to punt, regardless of down, trying to win the field position battle that way. Defense and special teams ruled the day, and it was no surprise to see the best players do all the kicking.

However, if the offense is able to move the ball, you get a game like this.

The score is also an indication of how tough-minded and business-like this Canton team had become since owner Jack Cusack offered Jim Thorpe $250 a game in 1915.

Cusack bought the team in 1911 when he was 21, at a time when the sport was still suffering from the betting scandal with the Massillon Tigers that marred the 1906 Ohio League Championship.

By making the Olympian professional football’s highest paid player, Cusack staked a return to Ohio as the stronghold of the sport, a title some argue had shifted to Michigan and Indiana in the years prior.

As the NFL blossomed the power spread to places like Chicago and Green Bay, over to the east coast and up to Buffalo and Detroit. No team from Ohio has ever won a Superbowl, yet Ohio teams won four of the first five NFL championships.

According to the U.S. Census, Canton’s population increased from fifty thousand in 1910 to more than 87,000 in 1920. It was also a railroad hub; remember that in all of these early football games the teams are travelling by train. In other places you might be able to go watch college football, but places like Canton that sprang up on the landscape needed to have their own team, and that helped save professional football when the war was over.

The returning soldiers had been exposed to a variety of athletic activities as part of their military training, and with this appetite they created the Golden Age of Sport. Jack Dempsey is world champion from 1919-1927. He shares the stage with Babe Ruth. The NHL has already been founded. There is room for pro football to grow.

The opportunity arose in 1925, when Red Grange signed with the Bears. At Illinois, Grange played in what was then called the

The 9-0 Canton Bulldogs conclude their 1917 Ohio League championship season, losing to the Massillon Tigers 6-0 at League Field in Canton, Ohio.

While Canton assumed the championship had been secured when they defeated Massillon 14-3 the week prior, the loss gave the Tigers cause to claim the title for themselves, as the tradition in the Ohio League had always been to assign more importance to games later in the season. At 5-3, Massillon had lost to Akron and Youngstown, and of course Canton. Canton stood at 9-1, having defeated Massillon, Akron, and Youngstown twice.

The league determined Canton deserved the 1917 championship more than Massillon based on the head-to-head games, with the combined score of 14-9 providing the final justification.

While the Tigers were surely frustrated by the decision, there must have been some satisfaction on the field and back at home when the final gun sounded and Jim Thorpe and the mighty Canton Bulldogs had finally been defeated.

For Stan Cofall and the core group of players who migrated from Youngstown to Massillon the game would be the fourth meeting with Thorpe’s Bulldogs since November 4.

A hundred years ago today, Cofall made a play in the second quarter that injured Thorpe and he limped through the rest of the game. Cofall would connect on both his field goal tries to provide all of the scoring and give Massillon the win. Years later, in 1920, at the first meeting that led to the founding of the NFL, Jim Thorpe and Stan Cofall were the only players present.

Researcher Bob Gill analyzed 14 big games in Jim Thorpe’s pre-NFL Canton career (1915-19) to see what kind of a player he really was. Fortunately, today’s game is on the list.

Gill also compiled cumulative statistics from these games.

What Gill found is that Jim Thorpe deserves the accolades accorded to him over the years, and certainly a place in the Professional Football Hall of Fame, despite not doing much while he was in the NFL. There are but few enshrined in Canton who can make such a claim.

A hundred years ago today, Thorpe would rush for 70 yards, including a 36-yarder, but he also had a punt and field goal blocked.

Canton quarterback Milt Ghee, whose record 17 touchdown passes in the 1917 season stood for a decade, had five interceptions, including two by Cofall.

Canton outgained Massillon on the day 194 to 51, but the miscues were too much to overcome.

While some of the data could not be gleaned from the play-by-play information, Gi

The 6-0 Canton Bulldogs continue the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 13-0 win over the Youngstown Patricians in front of 6,000 fans at League Park in Canton, Ohio.

In a rematch of the November 4, 1917 game held in Youngstown, Canton officially ends any hopes the title would return to Mahoning County.

Canton great Jim Thorpe, after scoring both touchdowns in a 14-0 defeat of Akron the week prior, is forced to sit out.

Today’s Youngstown team featured some of the game’s greats, Stan Cofall, Bart Macomber, Tommy Hughitt, Bob Peck. The Patricians had been built to win a championship. The 3-0 defeat two weeks prior had been a setback, but while Canton played Akron, Youngstown defeated 4-0 Massillon 14-6, renewing hope that a win in the rematch against Canton would put them back into contention.

Judged by the score alone, Canton fared better than when Thorpe played. The outcome shows this pro football dynasty out of Canton, a town featured so prominently in the history of the NFL they chose it for their most sacred site, were accustomed and capable of performing without Jim Thorpe.

Bulldog owner Jack Cusack, in addition to making Jim Thorpe the highest paid professional player in 1915 at $250 a game, built the first real football team in the sense that the players stuck together. By Cusack’s own count, at least ten of the players from the 1917 team would still play for Canton when the NFL opened its doors in 1920, and even seemed certain to win the new league’s first title, and all this after Cusack had sold the team in 1918 when it was clear there would be no team and many of the players went off to war. This core group, if they showed up for a game, they played. In other football programs when a ringer came in, that meant the regular starter had to sit out, meaning less pay, and more of an incentive to seek work elsewhere. It also meant less cohesion at a time where the game had been elevated to a point where that attribute now mattered.

Not to say Cusack did not bring in great players when needed, and with Thorpe out a hundred years ago today, he turned to Gus Welch.

Welch had been Thorpe’s quarterback at Carlisle Indian School, and against Youngstown he broke the game open in the second quarter with an 89-yard touchdown run.

Welch, a Chippewa, is one of professional football’s first scholar-athletes, as he would rise to the rank of Captain during the war and earn a law degree from American University. One of

The 5-0 Canton Bulldogs continue the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 14-0 defeat of the Akron Indians in Akron, Ohio.

Akron, known as Rubber City, had long fielded a competitive football team, going all the way back to the East Ends in 1894.

Akron differed from its neighbors in the Ohio League in that they had a college team in town. This reality cut both ways: while a pool of ex-players were handy, both in school and out, football fans had the option of going to watch a “real” game. Throughout the 1912-1919 period the best professional football team in Akron operated at a loss.

As the size of the city allowed it to field multiple teams over the years, this served to dilute the strength of each team. Even after the Akron Pros became the first NFL champion in 1920, one of the owners from this 1917 team, Suey Welch, had the rights to a semi-pro football team called the Akron Indians.

Welch and his brothers featured prominently in the 1917 Akron Indians, and Suey would later be inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame for his work as a promoter.

When the Welch brothers became involved the team retook the name "Indians" as that was the name of the team from Akron that had won the Ohio League Championship in 1908, 1909, 1913 and 1914, and they planned to return to that glory this season.

After the 1915 season both Canton and Massillon raided Akron’s best players and the season is best forgotten in Rubber City. Akron played the 1916 season as the Burkhardts in honor of their new sponsor, a local brewer.

In 1917 the new owners were eager to show their seriousness with more than just a name change, bringing in some big-name players, including perhaps the best of the Nesser brothers, Al, who left the Columbus Panhandles to suit up against his own kin.

The 1917 Akron Indians went 6-2, including this loss a hundred years ago today, before disbanding because of the war.

There were fears the Akron team would not be re-formed as rumors swirled the large Goodyear plant would field its own team.

After the war the football men agreed to work together and put forward the city's best team. This new ownership group included Art Ranney and Frank Nied, founders of the NFL, who were among a small group at the August 20, 1920 meeting that led to the league’s creation. The minutes to the second, larger meeting held a month later were written on Akron Pros stationery by Ranney, who was nominated Treasurer and Secretary of t

EXCLUSIVE TO REDDIT

The 8-0 Canton Bulldogs, having sealed the Ohio League title on Sunday, defeat the Detroit Heralds 7-0 on Thanksgiving Day in front of 8,000 fans at historic Navin Field (Tiger Stadium), in what could be considered the first professional football national championship game.

The fact that Detroit still hosts a game on Thanksgiving reflects the clout of Lions' owner and radio executive George Richards, who negotiated a deal with NBC to carry the game nationwide when he moved the team from Portsmouth in 1934. A hundred years ago today marks the first game in the long holiday tradition the sport shares with the city.

The Heralds stood at 8-1, Michigan state champions, losing only their first contest against a strong military team out of Camp Custer, in what might have been the most attended professional football game in 1917.

The 1917 Detroit Heralds defeated teams from Ohio, Indiana and New York. During the 1916-17 period the Heralds were one of the best teams in the country, and they proved it against the Ohio League. The war would derail the team and after posting a 3-8-4 record in the NFL, the team disbanded.

Like many teams from the era, the Heralds became inseparable with their coach and captain. For Detroit, it was Billy Marshall, a student at the University of Detroit in 1905 when the Heralds first formed because the school could no longer afford their football program who was still coaching the team 15 years later when they joined the NFL.

Fans will recognize the Heralds’ story: beginning as amateurs, progressing to semi-pro, and ultimately testing themselves against teams from Ohio. The reason these stories are so similar is that this was the path of success.

The Heralds peaked in 1916-17 in part because players from the 1905 amateur team were getting old and needed to be replaced. As the team had enjoyed some success over the years, they recruited top pros to fill the ranks.

This included Norb Sacksteder, who the team brought over from the Dayton Triangles. At 5’9”, 172, Sacksteder is recognized as one of the game's first breakaway runners. While the Canton defense prevented the long runs Sacksteder had managed earlier in the season, the 0-0 score at half showed the Heralds had come to play.

The Bulldogs played the first half without Jim Thorpe. When he took the field in the second half, alongside his old teammate from the Carlisle Indian School, Pete Calac, they led the way on Canton’s only scoring drive, whic

The 6-0 Canton Bulldogs continue the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 13-0 win over the Youngstown Patricians in front of 6,000 fans at League Park in Canton, Ohio.

In a rematch of the November 4, 1917 game held in Youngstown, Canton officially ends any hopes the title would return to Mahoning County.

Canton great Jim Thorpe, after scoring both touchdowns in a 14-0 defeat of Akron the week prior, is forced to sit out.

Today’s Youngstown team featured some of the game’s greats, Stan Cofall, Bart Macomber, Tommy Hughitt, Bobl Peck. The Patricians had been built to win a championship. The 3-0 defeat two weeks prior had been a setback, but in between Akron Youngstown defeated 4-0 Massillon 14-6, renewing hope that a win in the rematch against Canton would put them back into contention.

Judged by the score alone, Canton fared better than when Thorpe played. The outcome shows this pro football dynasty out of Canton, a town featured so prominently in the history of the NFL they chose it for their most sacred site, were accustomed and capable of performing without Jim Thorpe.

Bulldog owner Jack Cusack, in addition to making Jim Thorpe the highest paid professional player in 1915 at $250 a game, built the first real football team in the sense that the players stuck together. By Cusack’s own count, at least ten of the players from the 1917 team would still play for Canton when the NFL opened its doors in 1920, and even seemed certain to win the new league’s first title, and all this after Cusack had sold the team in 1918 when it was clear there would be no team and many of the players went of to war. This core group, if they showed up for a game, they played. In other football programs when a ringer came in, that meant the regular starter had to sit out, meaning less pay, and more of an incentive to seek work elsewhere. It also meant less cohesion at a time where the game had been elevated to a point where that attribute now mattered.

Not to say Cusack did not bring in great players when needed, and with Thorpe out a hundred years ago today, he turned to Gus Welch.

Welch had been Thorpe’s quarterback at Carlisle Indian School, and against Youngstown he broke the game open in the second quarter with an 89-yard touchdown run.

Welch, a Chippewa, is one of professional football’s first scholar-athletes, as he would rise to the rank of Captain during the war and earn a law degree from American University. One of his ances

The Canton Bulldogs continue their Ohio League professional football title defense with an 80-0 defeat of the Altoona Indians at League Park in Canton, Ohio.

While old-time football is remembered as a low-scoring affair, this was not always the case, much like you might see at the high-school or college level when one team is unable to stop the other’s most basic plays.

Assuming it would be a low-scoring affair, teams would kick off after being scoring upon.

The team receiving the kick off would look for the best opportunity to punt, regardless of down, trying to win the field position battle that way. Defense and special teams ruled the day, and it was no surprise to see the best players do all the kicking.

However, if the offense is able to move the ball, you get a game like this.

The score is also an indication of how tough-minded and business-like this Canton team had become since owner Jack Cusack offered Jim Thorpe $250 a game in 1915.

Cusack bought the team in 1911 when he was 21, at a time when the sport was still suffering from the betting scandal with the Massillon Tigers that marred the 1906 Ohio League Championship.

By making the Olympian professional football’s highest paid player, Cusack staked a return to Ohio as the stronghold of the sport, a title some argue had shifted to Michigan and Indiana in the years prior.

As the NFL blossomed the power spread to places like Chicago and Green Bay, over to the east coast and up to Buffalo and Detroit. No team from Ohio has ever won a Superbowl, yet Ohio teams won four of the first five NFL championships.

According to the U.S. Census, Canton’s population increased from fifty thousand in 1910 to more than 87,000 in 1920. It was also a railroad hub; remember that in all of these early football games the teams are travelling by train. In other places you might be able to go watch college football, but places like Canton that sprang up on the landscape needed to have their own team, and that helped save professional football when the war was over.

The returning soldiers had been exposed to a variety of athletic activities as part of their military training, and with this appetite they created the Golden Age of Sport. Jack Dempsey is world champion from 1919-1927. He shares the stage with Babe Ruth. The NHL has already been founded. There is room for pro football to blossom.

The opportunity arose in 1925, when Red Grange signed with the Bears. At Illinois, Grange played in what was then

The 8-0 Canton Bulldogs, having sealed the Ohio League title on Sunday, defeat the Detroit Heralds 7-0 on Thanksgiving Day in front of 8,000 fans at historic Navin Field (Tiger Stadium), in what could be considered the first professional football national championship game.

The fact that Detroit still hosts a game on Thanksgiving reflects the clout of Lions' owner and radio executive George Richards, who negotiated a deal with NBC to carry the game nationwide when he moved the team from Portsmouth in 1930. A hundred years ago today marks the first game in the long holiday tradition the sport shares with the city.

The Heralds stood at 8-1, Michigan state champions, losing only their first contest of the year against a strong military team out of Camp Custer, in what might have been the most attended professional football game in 1917.

The 1917 Detroit Heralds defeated teams from Ohio, Indiana and New York. During the 1916-17 period the Heralds were one of the best teams in the country, and they proved it against the Ohio League. The war would derail the team and after posting a 3-8-4 record in the NFL, the team disbanded.

Like many teams from the era, the Heralds became inseparable with their coach and captain. For Detroit, it was Billy Marshall, a student at the University of Detroit in 1905 when the Heralds first formed because the school could no longer afford their football program who was still coaching the team 15 years later when they joined the NFL.

Fans will recognize the Heralds’ story: beginning as amateurs, progressing to semi-pro, and ultimately testing themselves against teams from Ohio. The reason these stories are so similar is that this was the path of success.

The Heralds peaked in 1916-17 is part because players from the 1905 amateur team were getting old and needed to be replaced. As the team had enjoyed some success over the years, they recruited top pros to fill the ranks.

This included Norb Sacksteder, who the team brought over from the Dayton Triangles. At 5’9”, 172, Sacksteder is recognized as one of the game's first breakaway runners. While the Canton defense prevented the long runs Sacksteder had managed earlier in the season, the 0-0 score at half showed the Heralds had come to play.

The Bulldogs played the first half without Jim Thorpe. When he took the field in the second half, alongside his old teammate from the Carlisle Indian School, Pete Calac, they led the way on Canton’s only scoring drive, which ended with a

The 4-0 Canton Bulldogs continue the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 3-0 defeat of the Youngstown Patricians at Wright Field in Youngstown, Ohio.

The Youngstown Patricians entered the 1917 season with aspirations to win the Ohio League.

Instigated as part of Father Charles Martin’s promotion of sport as a building block for young men, and another way for the church to become closer with its community, the team took its name from St. Patrick’s Parrish on the southside of Youngstown. Apparently the Patricians are the only professional football team ever to be founded out of a church. For a time every player was in walking distance of the church.

In 1914 after defeating crosstown rival Crescent A.C., they claimed the Mahoning Valley title. This set the stage to take a step up and play tougher competition in a nine-game schedule for 1915.

They kept four of their opponents from 1914 and added three teams from the Ohio League, the Columbus Panhandles, the Akron Pros, and the McKeesport Olympics, as well as perhaps the toughest team in the Pittsburgh area, the Pitcairn Quakers, and the self proclaimed World Champion since 1907, the Washington, D.C. Vigilants. That year the Patricians went 8-0-1, the only mar on their record a scoreless tie against the Panhandles. To settle the question of who had the better team the Patricians offered to play Canton, Massillon and Toledo, all of whom denied the game. The Patricians were World Champs.

For 1916, long-time coach Ray Thomas, who would later become mayor of Cleveland, decided to stop playing and so Tommy Hughitt was brought in at quarterback while Thomas continued as manager. Feeling the need to better establish their championship, they expanded their schedule again, this time to 11 games, adding a home and home against Massillon. The Patricians were 5-0 going into the first game but lost 3-0. Two games later they lost again to eventual champ Canton, 6-0. In the second game against Massillon they were swamped 26-0 and ended the season with a disappointing loss to the Panhandles. The dream of defending the title of World Champion had died, even though they again defeated the Vigilants, this time 10-9.

The Vigilants had called themselves World Champions since 1907, losing only three games over that timeframe, all to college all-star teams. While these titles are rendered “mythical” by historians, you can bet they were important to the players and owners of the time.

“Oh

The 2-0 Canton Bulldogs continue the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 54-0 defeat of the Columbus Panhandles at League Park in Canton in front of 2,000 fans.

This would be the worst loss in the storied history of the Panhandle franchise.

Not far from where this game was played, the NFL opened its Hall of Fame in 1963, inducting “the first 17 immortals.”

Of course the coach and star player for Canton, Jim Thorpe, is among that group, but he is joined by the owner of the Columbus Panhandles, Joe Carr.

Imagine that, two of the NFL’s immortals facing off a hundred years ago.

Before the game, Carr telegraphed his friend Canton owner Jack Cusack, saying, “It has been our ambition for years of the Columbus aggregation to win from Canton.”

Columbus played all of their games on the road, although this term would not have been in use given professional football teams were travelling by rail. Early football teams enjoyed a close relationship with the nation’s railroad network, none more than the Panhandles.

The Columbus Panhandles trace their roots to 1901 and the Panhandle shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Carr, a Columbus native, purchased the team in 1907.

The Panhandles are famous for the Nesser Brothers, who worked for the railroad and played for the team. At one time or another seven different brothers suited up for the team.

The 1917 season ate at Carr, as Al Nesser had taken more money to play for the Akron Pros.

A week before this humiliating defeat at Canton, Columbus had lost 3-0 to Akron, with Frank Nesser missing three field goals in the last game he would play with his brothers, as he had also accepted more money to play for Detroit, and would later suit up for Akron and Massillon.

Other than a 13-0 win over Toledo the Panhandles were unable to score the rest of the season in losses at Youngstown, Massillon, Fort Wayne and Detroit.

Al Nesser hung around long enough to be part of the New York Giants first NFL Championship in 1927, at age 35. In the lineup, under the heading SCHOOL, where his teammates listed their college, Nesser wrote “Hard Knocks.”

Carr knew in a stronger league he would not have to watch his best players leave just because he couldn’t afford to keep them.

While the Panhandles never won an Ohio League or NFL title, Joe Carr became an NFL immortal through his role as president, a job he assumed in 1921 and held until his death in 1939. For this he is remembered as the Fathe

The 7-0 Canton Bulldogs seal the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 14-3 defeat of the Massillon Tigers at League Field in Canton, Ohio.

Canton is the largest city in Stark County; Massillon, less than ten miles away, is the second largest.

According to the US Census Bureau, the population of Stark County has remained remarkably steady at around 375,000 people for over fifty years.

Imagine that the rivalry between these two nearby football teams would grow into the NFL, which books $16 billion, or about $40,000 a year for every one of Stark County’s 375,000 residents.

A hundred years ago, 175,000 called this county home, growing rapidly from 123,000 in 1910.

At the turn of the century, when Stark County took its first steps towards becoming the heartland of professional football, there were less than 100,000 people living there.

Canton is immortalized and Massillon mostly forgotten, but it’s easier to understand the era 1903-1919 by studying Massillon, as Canton represented the future. When the athletic clubs in western Pennsylvania started to fold, Massillon became the first club west of the border to go pro, and in what would be a longstanding Massillon tradition, they tried to sign as many of the great players from these great teams as possible. Massillon played its last game in 1919, the season before the NFL formed. The Tigers defined their era.

The game of American football goes back to 1862, when some kids in Boston, bored with soccer and rugby, decided to combine the best part of one, kicking goals, with that of the other, running the ball across the line for a score.

To better understand the infancy of the game, by 1869 when Princeton and Rutgers faced off for the first ever college football game, they joined the Boston Oneida Football School as the only three teams in the country.

By the 1880s other universities had signed on, along with more athletic clubs, and there were about 30 total teams.

These clubs were careful not to jeopardize their amateur status, as they often specialized in other sports that would also be affected if the AAU decided to penalize them, and for the football players, that would mean there were be no one left to play, as there were no pro teams at all.

As the years passed the desire to seeing a winning football team on the field became a point of pride for both the university and their alumni, as well as the often wealthy members of the big city athletic clubs.

Univ

The 3-0 Canton Bulldogs continue the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 41-0 defeat of the Rochester Jeffersons at League Park in Canton, Ohio.

The name Jefferson is testimony to the team’s beginnings as a sandlot team, many of which popped up across the country during the late 1800s and into the early part of the century. These sandlot teams were limited in how far they could travel, leaving them to play crosstown rivals. As these rivalries unfolded, the teams began calling themselves and each other by the street name or avenue near where the team played, in this case Jefferson Avenue in Rochester.

The Rochester Jeffersons, under the leadership of owner Leo Lyons who started playing for the team at age 16 in 1908, grew from the sandlot and won the New York Professional Football League (NYPFL) title in 1915 and 1916.

On this day a hundred years ago, Leo Lyons didn’t just put his team on a train to Canton, he put them on track to become a charter member of the NFL.

Some researchers go further, arguing this game more than any other led to the creation of the NFL itself, seeing the new league as essentially a merger of the NYPFL into the Ohio League.

Leo Lyons, tireless promoter of professional football, had sparked a national interest, even in defeat.

He forced football players around the country, even old sandlot teams, to make a gut check: do you have what it takes to play the best?

The Rochester Jeffersons proved they did October 28, 1917, the first NYPFL team to challenge Ohio’s place as the center of the professional football universe. Teams with humble beginnings were competing all over the country. There was only one way to find who had the best football team, and that was to create a nation-wide league.

By age 18 Lyons was already involved with the team’s finances, promoting games, managing the team, a role he would maintain until the team ceased operations after the 1925 NFL season. Hall of Fame Immortal George Halas mentioned Lyons in his acceptance speech, as Halas had modeled his stewardship for the Bears. Lyons is credited as being “manager, owner, photographer, doctor, counselor, financier, field worker, game booker, agent, and scout.”

Talking with Jim Thorpe after the blow-out, Lyons remained upbeat, predicting that one day pro football would be the biggest sport in America. After the war when the invitations went out from Canton to create the NFL, one arrived in Rochester addressed to Leo Lyon

The 9-0 Canton Bulldogs conclude their 1917 Ohio League championship season, losing to the Massillon Tigers 6-0 at League Field in Canton, Ohio.

While Canton assumed the championship had been secured when they defeated Massillon 14-3 the week prior, the loss gave the Tigers cause to claim the title for themselves, as the tradition in the Ohio League had always been to assign more importance to games later in the season. At 5-3, Massillon had lost to Akron and Youngstown, and of course Canton. Canton stood at 9-1, having defeated Massillon, Akron, and Youngstown twice.

The league determined Canton deserved the 1917 championship more than Massillon based on the head-to-head games, with the combined score of 14-9 providing the final justification.

While the Tigers were surely frustrated by the decision, there must have been some satisfaction on the field and back at home when the final gun sounded and Jim Thorpe and the mighty Canton Bulldogs had finally been defeated.

For Stan Cofall and the core group of players who migrated from Youngstown to Massillon the game would be the fourth meeting with Thorpe’s Bulldogs since November 4.

A hundred years ago today, Cofall made a play in the second quarter that injured Thorpe and he limped through the rest of the game. Cofall would connect on both his field goal tries to provide all of the scoring and give Massillon the win. Years later, in 1920, at the first meeting that led to the founding of the NFL, Jim Thorpe and Stan Cofall were the only players present.

Researcher Bob Gill analyzed 14 big games in Jim Thorpe’s pre-NFL Canton career (1915-19) to see what kind of a player he really was. Fortunately, today’s game is on the list.

Gill also compiled cumulative statistics from these games.

What Gill found is that Jim Thorpe deserves the accolades accorded to him over the years, and certainly a place in the Professional Football Hall of Fame, despite not doing much while he was in the NFL. There are but few enshrined in Canton who can make such a claim.

A hundred years ago today, Thorpe would rush for 70 yards, including a 36-yarder, but he also had a punt and field goal blocked.

Canton quarterback Milt Ghee, whose record 17 touchdown passes in the 1917 season stood for a decade, had five interceptions, including two by Cofall.

Canton outgained Massillon on the day 194 to 51, but the miscues were too much to overcome.

While some of the data could not be gleaned from the play-by-play information, Gi

The 5-0 Canton Bulldogs continue the defense of their Ohio League professional football championship with a 14-0 defeat of the Akron Indians in Akron, Ohio.

Akron, known as Rubber City, had long fielded a competitive football team, going all the way back to the East Ends in 1894.

Akron differed from its neighbors in the Ohio League in that they had a college team in town. This reality cut both ways: while a pool of ex-players were handy, both in school and out, football fans had the option of going to watch a “real” game. Throughout the 1912-1919 period the best professional football team in Akron operated at a loss.

As the size of the city allowed it to field multiple teams over the years, this served to dilute the strength of each team. Even after the Akron Pros became the first NFL champion in 1920, one of the owners from this 1917 team, Suey Welch, had the rights to a semi-pro football team called the Akron Indians.

Welch and his brothers featured prominently in the 1917 Akron Indians, and Suey would later be inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame for his work as a promoter.

When the Welch brothers became involved the team retook the name "Indians" as that was the name of the team from Akron that had won the Ohio League Championship in 1908, 1909, 1913 and 1914, and they planned to return to that glory this season.

After the 1915 season both Canton and Massillon raided Akron’s best players and the season is best forgotten in Rubber City.

Akron played the 1916 season as the Burkhardts in honor of their new sponsor, a local brewer.

In 1917 the new owners were eager to show their seriousness with more than just a name change, bringing in some big-name players, including perhaps the best of the Nesser brothers, Al, who left the Columbus Panhandles to suit up against his own kin.

The 1917 Akron Indians went 6-2, including this loss a hundred years ago today, before disbanding because of the war.

There were fears the Akron team would not be re-formed as rumors swirled the large Goodyear plant would field its own team.

After the war the football men agreed to work together and put forward the city's best team. This new ownership group included Art Ranney and Frank Nied, founders of the NFL, who were among a small group at the August 20, 1920 meeting that led to the league’s creation. The minutes to the second, larger meeting held a month later were written on Akron Pros stationery by Ranney, who was nominated Treasurer and Secretary of

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

When I got home, they were still there.