Canton Bulldogs part 1

One early pro football team that we have not recorded much on is the Canton Bulldogs. We start our multi episode look at this extremely important team in Gridiron history with their origin.

The Canton Bulldogs may be the most well-recognized of all the now-defunct National Football League franchises. After all, a former owner of theirs hosted a series of meetings in 1920 that ultimately started the League. But how did the Canton eleven come about, and what is their story?
The story of the Bulldogs starts back in 1903. If you remember back to some previous articles we posted, it was right about this time in history when professional football started migrating across the Pennsylvania State line into Ohio. Before gridiron players got paid in Canton, the city sported a powerful amateur team. A PFRA 1987 post names the ""Cantons"" as playing some good football as early as 1892. The same PFRA post shows that the Canton Athletic Club sent out its first football team in 1895. From the late 1890s to about 1902, this Stark County eleven-team competed with the Akron East Ends for the Ohio Independent Championship. However, the success of these amateurs faded when the Massillon Tigers arrived on the football scene and soon went professionals.
 
The athletic clubs and associations providing avenues for young men to spend their disposable income and extra leisure time were now escalating competition in the how a region with each other to see who had the more dominant team on the gridiron. These contests transitioned from bragging rights to all-out gambling incursions, which put pressure on team managers to fuel getting better players to send out to represent their clubs. Massillon sitting not too far from Canton, had a spirited high school rivalry with their neighbors, as we discussed with historian and local Canton resident George Bozeka in a 2021 interview on Pigskin Dispatch.

Massillon Tigers the early Rival

Massillon was the first to flex their muscle in the local area. They gained superiority over Akron, Canton, and others by hiring gridiron mercenaries such as Pittsburgh professionals like Bob Shiring. 
Some say there were paid players for the Athletic Club as early as 1903 but officially, Canton established on November 15, 1904, a pro gridiron association as the Canton Athletic Club. Canton AC was designed to operate baseball and football teams. A public announcement stated that the football team was to be a "professional organization," complete with a "professional coach."
The Massillon Tigers had won the Ohio League championship in 1903 and 1904, which did not sit well with folks in Canton. Local Canton businessmen George Williams and John Rommel rallied support to defend their city's reputation on the gridiron versus Massilon. They spearheaded a group that decided to build a pro championship team and, more importantly, knock Massillon from its high horse. The men convinced their colleagues that building a winning football program, and staying on top of Massillon, were both great for business and the local Canton economy. Williams was assigned as the manager of the Canton AC and charged with fielding a team to compete with the likes of Massillon and defeat them. To do this, Canton offered money to the best players on all the other Ohio League teams. First, they gathered funding and hired their first-ever paid coach, Bill Laub, who was poached from the rival Akron East Ends. In 1905 Laub led the Canton AC to a fast start with a 7-0 record. He then led his squad east into Pennsylvania to face one of the top teams in the nation, the Latrobe Athletic Club, and their quarterback John Brallier. If you remember, for the longest time, Brallier was considered the first paid football player until evidence of an early payout to Pudge Heffelfinger disproved this claim. Latrobe played tough at home and gave the Canton eleven their first setback in 1905 by 6-0. It was not the only negative from the contest, as Laub was injured in the tough-fought game and would miss the rest of the season. Former Penn Quakers star and former Pennsylvania pro pigskin stalwart Blondy Wallace took over as the leader of the club team. This transition was an auspicious beginning for professional football in the region. A couple of weeks later, the Massillon Tigers would defeat Canton 14-4 to capture another Ohio State Championship title yet again.

Photo is Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of C. E. (Blondy) Wallace circa 1906 cropped from an unknown author

The next year, this Canton team had somewhat of an identity shift as they adopted the Bulldog as their mascot moniker. No one is totally clear on where the Bulldog came from in association with the Canton team but whatever the reason the tenacity of a Bulldog was befitting of the team. This tenacity of the team along with the win at all costs attitude of Williams and Wallace would propel professional football into one of its darkest times in history. We will take a look at this saga of 1906 in Part 2 of the Canton Bulldogs.

The banner photo is Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the 1906 newspaper cartoon of the Canton Bulldogs-Massillon Tigers Betting Scandal was the first major scandal in professional football. It refers to an allegation made by Massillon newspaper charging the Canton Bulldogs coach, Blondy Wallace, with throwing the 1906 Ohio League championship game against their rivial the Massillon Tigers. This is a newspaper cartoon promoting that game. Unknown author

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites:

PFRA Coffin Corner, Ohio Tiger Trap

Endorphine Entertainment post on Massillon

American Football Database website