Bob Shiring

Our friend football historian/author Gregg Ficery shares with us his new book Gridiron Legacy that tells a comprehensive story of early pro football while writing about his Great Grandfather, Bob Shiring who once captained the Massillon Tigers squad against their rivals the Canton Bulldogs with Blondy Wallace.

Author Gregg Ficery has an interesting take on this great team as his Grandfather was one of the franchise's lead players. He shared a bit of the history of the Massillon Tigers pro team when he visited the Pigpen back in 2021 as he was wrapping up writing his latest book. Recently the book has been released Gridiron Legacy: Pro Football's Missing Origin Story and I must say it is a real treasure of pro football history!

Gregg starts to story with possibly the most comprehensive account of the beginnings of professional football around. The early college game and how it morphed into athletic organizations paying players to gain an advantage over their rivals with the stories of Pudge Heffelfinger and John Brallier in Western Pennsylvania. Bob Shiring, a man with an 8th grade education found football fascinating and started playing with one of these early athletic clubs and soon found his own athletic prowess to be on par and comeptitive with some of the top former collegiate players. Shiring played on a couple of Pittsburgh area "World Championship" squads decades before the NFL existed.

On the other side of the Keystone State Blondy Wallace a former Penn Quakers star, found himself as a central figure in some very good Philadelphia area pro teams as well. Wallace also was recruited to play in Western PA at one point on the Franklin, Pennsylvania All-Stars team Franklin, Pennsylvania All-Stars team of 1903. That Franklin team with Wallace on it claimed the Professional World Football title.

Just a year or two after the peak of Western PA Pro Football heights, the game shifted West over the Ohio border when Massillon and Canton among others went on a spending spree to hire some of these great gridiron athletes like Shiring and Wallace away from their former clubs to play in Ohio. These moves instantly made the Tigers and the Bulldogs among pro football's top teams.

It all came to a head in 1906 when these two rivals cities, some 8 miles apart had a game that became associated with scandal. Wallace, Shiring, Walter East, and others became embroiled in accusations of bribery when Ohio Newspapers local to the area started printing the drama that changed daily, swaying public opinion back and forth. Massillon executive E.J. Stewart a former amateur quarterback, Massillon Gleaner Newspaper sports editor as well as the city clerk and Blondy Wallace volleyed their stories back and forth in the Gleaner and the Cleveland papers that resulted in both Canton and Massillon suspending pro football for a period of time.

Ficery has extensive research that sheds new light on this football cold-case after his extensive research of archives of multiple states, old newspaper articles, old athletic club records, the Paul Brown Museum in Massillon, and even the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The book is of high quality, hardback style and feature many images and sidebar stories that tell football history. It is one you will want to own for sure.

The banner photo shows the outer cover of Gregg Ficery's Gridiron Legacy.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from Gregg Ficery, and his winderful book.