Akron Pros

The Akron Pros were granted their APFA/NFL Franchise on September 20, 1920. Who were the Akron Pros? In this episode of our exploration of the early teams of professional football we have football historian Ken Crippen once again visit the Pigpen to tell the story of the Akron Pros.

According to Ken Crippen the Akron Pros actually started in the year 1908 but they were a semi-pro squad called the Akron Indians. They were pretty good too as they won the Akron city championship and stayed consistently as one of the best teams in their immediate area.

The image above is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the 1908 Akron Indians football team.

As football expanded, the powers that be, felt that the team needed to improve at the leadership portion of the squad so they hired the very experienced George Watson "Peggy" Parratt. When he arrived to coach Akron in 1912, one of Peggy Parratt's first moves was to change their name to Parratt’s Indians. They had a strong squad but the little known Elyria Athletics ended up winning the championship. Parratt looking for roster improvement while eliminating competition began to raid the Elyria team's championship roster subsequently his team posted a 9-1-2 record to become the top team in the area. The following season of 1914 also saw the Akron eleven post a very successful year. That run seemingly ended as the team was losing players to other local competition such as Canton and Massillon. The team was in shambles in 1915 so much so that Parratt packed up soon thereafter and joined the Cleveland Tigers football franchise.

That was by no means the end of the Akron professional football team though.

Into the picture came some key figures to rekindle the Akron magic of the gridiron. The Welch brothers "Suey" and "Chang", well known in the world of boxing history, along with their other brother Howe Welch brought a breath of fresh air to pro football in the rubber city. The first gathered a sponsor for the team, the Burkhardt Brewing Company. This beer manufacturer was owned by Bill and Gus Burkhardt. For the 1916 season the team was called the Akron Burkhardts and posted a respectable 7-4-1 record. However, that sponsorship only lasted one season as Stephen “Suey” Welch and Vernon “Mac” McGinnis bought the team and renamed them the Akron Pros. 

The image above is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the 1920 Akron Pros football team posing after a game.

The team was reassembled in 1919 with some changes. Suey had left the ownership group but McGinnis brought in new partners such as Ralph “Fat” Waldsmith, Art Ranney and Park “Tumble” Crisp to join him in the venture. They also branded themselves once again as the Akron Indians. New players such as Bobby Marshall and young man that had recently played for and graduated from Brown University, Fredrick Douglas Fritz Pollard joined the roster of Akron as some of the first African American players to play at this level of professional football.

The ownership group changed hands again after 1919's season ended when Art Ranney, a local businessman teamed up with cigar store owner Frank Neid to buy the team. Suey Welch bought the Indians nickname from Ranney and Neid and the team once more was called the Pros. Both Ranney and Neid attended a preliminary meeting to better organize professional football conducted at Ralph Hay's automobile showroom in Canton on August 20, 1920. The two Akron owners were in talks with threee other Ohio top pro teams. Canton of course was represented by Hay and his star player Jim Thorpe, Jimmy O’Donnell and Stanley Cofall of the Cleveland Tigers, and Carl Storck of the Dayton Triangles. The group decided to move to the next of orgainzation of a formal league so they scheduled another meeting on September 17 of that same year, at the same venue but also sent out invitations to even more teams from New York to Illinois. We all know what happened next, the American Professional Football Association was formed.

The image above is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the Akron Pros won the first NFL Championship. This is a team photo of that 1920 team.

The Akron Pros featuring Fritz Pollard played a rugged schedule in 1920 including both League and independent games. They handled them selves quite well too as they blanked the Canton Bulldogs twice that season as well as laying waste to the Dayton Triangles acouple of time and tying the Cleveland Tigers 7-7 and later the Buffalo All-Americans 0-0. In December they entered a tough contest against the Decatur Staleys who were neck and neck in the standings with the Pros. The winner of this game with undoubtedly be the first APFA champions. Decatur knew what a tough matchup it would be so their player/coach George Halas hired the services of Chicago Cardinals star Paddy Driscoll to play for the Staleys to improve Decatur's chances of winning against Akron. Despite the roster stacking the game ended in a scoreless tie, and Akron at 8-0-3 and Decatur sporting a record of 10-1-2 both claimed themselves as the new Leagues' champs. A league meeting on April 30, 1921 would settle the score via membership vote and give the first title to the Akron Pros.

The image above is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of Rip King, Al Nesser, Charlie Copley, a woman identified only as Miss Thomas, Elgie Tobin and Russ Bailey celebrating the Akron Pros' 1920 championship season.

The Pros roster was once again robbed of its top players including Pollard but yet still held their own for seasons to come. Finally in 1927 the team was forced to fold due to poor finances caused by a number of factors including a rival league to the NFL that was Red Grange's American Football League. We should never forget this storied franchise though from Akron. They were the first champs and one of the founding member teams of the NFL.