Canton Bulldogs Part 4

What would a year off after winning consecutive titles mean for the Canton Bulldogs? We have the answers as well as some new items that came out of the Bulldogs campaign of the 1919 and 1920 seasons.

Photo is of a tribute to Jim Thorpe on a Canton, Ohio downtown building which is part of a pro football site seeing tour called the "Eleven."

When we left off last time in our tale of the Canton Bulldogs football franchise it was 1918, and the team did not play due to the Flu Pandemic as well as world war raging in Europe. Their leader, manaager Jack Cusack was leaving town for a business opportunity but handed the reins of the squad to a new owner in Ralph Hay, a local Canton auto dealership owner that sold a vehicle called the Hupmobile.

The roster still had some talent under contract including one Jim Thorpe who acted as the head coach, scheduler and star player. The 1919 campaign would be the tenth overall for the Bulldog organization and with the year off and new ownership it was more of a reorganization year. The good thing was that almost every professional football team was in the same boat, scrambling to gather players and putting a team back on the field.

The Bulldogs had a secret weapon in recruiting though…the power of pigskin celebrity in their main recruiter of talent, Jim Thorpe. Thorpe gained renown as an All American at Carlisle under Pop Warner and then gained fame when he won multiple Gold Medals at the 1912 Olympics. When Jim would call and ask someone to play football, it was hard not to dive right into the opportunity, after all this was Jim Freakin’ Thorpe!

Old Carlisle Indians teammates and friends Joe Guyon and Pete Calac who were early selections along with a Nebraska star in Guy Chamberlin. Dartmouth standouts Clarence Spears, Tommy Whelan, and Alex Telfer joined the likes of Michigan studs George Pierce and Fred Rahor. Others like Ohio State’s Tiny Turner and Charles Bolen along with former Notre Dame players Al Feeney and Howard Edwards joined the very formidable roster as well.

Original 1919 photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of former Carlisle football stars as they met on the gridiron for a professional game as the Canton Bulldogs were set to complete their undefeated season and the professional championship. Thorpe and Calac are wearing their Canton Jerseys while Guyon was smart and appears to be wearing some type of an insulated jersey or warm-up

The group was highly successful too with all of the star power running through their opponents like they were paper mache. Their lone contested game was a 3 all tie with the Hammond All-Stars up in Chicago in a game played at Cubs Park. The Dogs spanked Massillon twice in a pair of shutouts, the second meeting more closely contested that the first with a 3-0 score after a 23 point blanking in round one. They also soundly defeated other Ohio rivals such as the Akron Indians and Columbus Panhandles as well in multiple meetings.

Finishing at a terrific 9-0-1 record though still left more to be desired for Ralph Hay and Thorpe. Sure they could say they were the champs of Ohio, and possibly the country but something was missing. Hay had tried to rally other big time pro gridiron squads into forming a conference of some sort to organize the game. In 1919 these efforts though strongly considered by most fell through as teams were still trying to get back on their feet after war and epedemic.

1920 though would prove differently as Hay invited some key members to an August 20 meeting in Canton to discuss some ideas of organization with the famous follow-up meeting of September 17, 1920 in his Hupmobile Showroom. The new organization chose Jim Thorpe as its first President. The Bulldogs were indeed a charter member of the American Professional Football Association and were probably considered the favorites to win the APFA’s title of top team, but they suffered some losses in personnel that would be crucial.

The most significant man to leave was probably Guy Chamberlin who left to go and become a player with George Halas and his 1920 Decatur Staleys team that compiled a 10–1–2 record and finished second in the APFA. At the end of the season, Chamberlin was selected as a first-team end on the first All-Pro Team rewarding his superior play. Chamberlain’s blocking and tackling along with his onfield wisdom would be sorely missed, for at least a couple seasons.

As for the Bulldogs they fell to the niddle of the pack with a disappointing 7-4-2 record. Canton jumped out to a 3-0 record with easy wins over the Pitcairn Quakers, Toledo Maroons and Cleveland Tigers clubs before having a 20 all stalemate with the Dayton Triangles. That game was followed by being shutout by the eventual 1920 APFA champs the Akron Pros on Halloween. After stringing a couple more W’s together the Bulldogs again fell to Akron a second time and followed up by being taken down by the Buffalo All-Americans club as well in consecutive weeks. December’s closing games did not fair much better as a tie with the Washington Glee Club and a devastating defeat at the hands of the Union Athletic Association preceded their 39-0 season ending whalloping of the Richmond Athletics.

That record had them placed eighth in the APFA standings at season’s end and it did not sit well with Thorpe, Guyon, and Hay. The next season would see more changes to try and improve the team. We will look at these next time in Part 5 of this series on the Canton Bulldogs. Join our daily newsletter to receive an email and know when that story drops.

The banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the 1920 Canton Bulldogs football team.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites Wikipedia, Pro-Football-Reference.com, and OhioHistoryCentral.org.