Dayton Triangles

One of the original 14 APFA teams represented at the famous September 17, 1920 meeting at Ralph Hay's Hupmobile Showroom. Historian Bruce Smith a native of Dayton, Ohio and a podcaster of the team shares the history of this original NFL team.

Bruce Smith shares a famous football name with a very good pass rusher that played in Buffalo and Washington a few decades ago. The Bruce Smith we speak to on our program today is a former resident of Dayton, Ohio which is located about 50 miles North of Cincinnati. Dayton is famous for many things including the Wright Brothers and a very well known US Aif Force base that bears their name. What most people may not know is that this city also was the home to one of the original fourteen organized Professionall football teams of the APFA, which would later become the National Football League.

Bruce became impassioned to learn more about the team as he grew up near Triangle Park, the very place where the Dayton Triangles football team once played. The park and the team adopted the delta shaped namesake in honor of three large manufacturing companies in the area that each donated resources to create a park that their employees and the community could enjoy a bit of nature and recreation in. The three factories founded by Dayton business giants Edward Deeds and Charles Kettering, the team’s sponsors, according to a 2005 Dayton Daily News article “Where it All Started” written by former DDN reporter Jim DeBrosse. The three companies were: Kettering's National Cash Register or NCR, a company both men founded together the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company better known as DELCO and the Dayton Metal Products Company.

Bruce was so impacted by the story of his towns NFL team that he even made a podcast dedicated to the Traingles, the Dayton Triangles Podcast.

A team photo of the 1920 Dayton Triangles team taken by an unknown photographer, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The history of the Triangles starts back with local sandlot team that was started by graduating players St. Marys Cadets, a basketball team at St. Mary’s College, now called the University of Dayton according to an article by Amelia Robinson for Dayton.com. Cadet members banned together on the gridiron after they graduated in 1912. In 1915 the growing group of players expanded beyond former St. Mary's hardwood players so the squad changed their name to the Dayton Gym Cadets. The following season of 1916 they did a name swap once again to become the Dayton Triangles. They played in the mythical Ohio League against some of the best pro teams around, and did fairly well too.

Author Chris Willis in his great book The Man Who Built the National Football League: Joe F. Carr , says that only four of these franchises met in Hay's offices at the Hupmobile Showroom on August 20, 1920. Besides Hay and his Bulldogs players Jim Thorpe, Frank Neid and partner Art Ranney of the Akron Pros, Cleveland Indians manager Jimmy O'Donnell with PR director Stanley Cofall and Carl Storck manager of the Triangles. The group called themselves the APFC.

Representatives of the Triangles, Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Decatur Staleys, Hammond Pros, Massillon Tigers, Chicago Cardinals, Cleveland Indians, Muncie Flyers, Rock Island Independents and Rochester Jeffersons attended a second meeting in Canton Sept. 17, 1920, according to the Football Hall of Fame but Massillon dismissed themselves from the group due to financial reasons. The name of the league was changed to the American Professional Football Association or APFA. Carl Storck would later become a leader of the new league after Joe Carr suddenly passed away in 1939. Storck stayed at the helm of the NFL as its President for two years until his own health issues forced him to step away.

The very first game of what is now known as the NFL was played there in Dayton on October 3, 1920, in Triangle Park and Dayton won 14-0 over the Columbus Panhandles, so I think you can see where Bruce gained his passionate interest in the team from yesteryear. Lou Partlow, the Triangle who scored the first touchdown in NFL history was a star for the franchise. The team was pretty successful at first too in the APFA and NFL. Besides Partlow who played fullback, the team had other talented stars such as Back Norb Sacksteder, back Al Mahrt, Wingback Frank Bacon from Ohio Wesleyan, Right End Lee Fenner, Right Tackle Ed Sauers, Right Guard Guy Early, Pesky Lentz at halfback and Hobby Kinderdine at center. The early innovative coach of this franchise was Nelson Bud Talbot who was the son of one of the owners of the big three companies in Dayton, Dayton Metal Products. Talbot later stepped away from the team when he had to replace his father at the company. Bruce filles us in on more of the history in our interveiw with him in the podcast above, and still even greater detail in his podcast series devoted to the Triangles which he shares on his YouTube channel and at DaytonTrianglesPodcast.com.

Unfortunately the team faded into history after suffering a 0-6 season in 1929 after Storck moved on. The teams was purchased though on July 12, 1930 and relocated to the Big Apple by John Dwyer who rebranded the club as the Brooklyn Dodgers and later still the Brooklyn Tigers. Bruce tells us that Bob Carroll of the PFRA has loosely connected the dots to say the franchise still exists today as the Indianapolis Colts, but I have not gone through the research to confirm or deny its truth. Perhaps a story for another day!

The picture in the banner above was taken by an unknown photographer of the 1920 Dayton Triangles team, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.