Dr Harry March

Dr. Harry March is one of a handful of people that history has described as the "Father of Professional Football." Having a title like that definitely places him in the very important person category of football history. The good Doctor's Great Grandson, historian Alan March visits the Pigpen to provide the bio on this integral man in professional football's development. 

Harry March was born December 11, 1875, in New Franklin, Ohio, as the youngest of six children of Henry Clay March and Sarah McLaughlin March. The family was well-educated in the town near Canton, Ohio. The elder March served in the Civil War as the Post Master of New Franklin and then dabbled in politics, where his connections with future President William McKinley eventually got him a position in Washington D.C. as a clerk in the U.S. Treasury Department. According to Alan March, his father's appointment gave Dr. Harry some invaluable experience navigating the rail system for long distances. Harry and all but one of his siblings were provided with the best education available, each earning a college degree. Three medical doctors, a dentist, and a lawyer were professions that Henry Clay and Sarah must have been proud of for their children. Harry attended Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio, earning his degree in 1895. Harry played football on Mount Union's very first official school team.

Alan, in his expose for the Professional Football Researchers Association, tells us that Harry's life was filled with six careers, which often overlapped: journalist, physician, theatrical impresario, politician, soldier, and organizer of professional football. He took advantage of many aspects provided in his early life experiences and education to take each to a pinnacle that would help make the National Football League successful today.

Right out of college, Harry garnered a position as a newsman with a local Canton newspaper. Much of it involved the success of William McKinley's presidential campaign and the Spanish-American War. Shortly after that, McKinley made some disparaging remarks about reporters to Harry, and that sparked him to join his father in Washington as he enrolled at Columbian College's Medical School to learn medicine. Harry earned his Doctorate and returned to Canton to open a family practice. He eventually married and had one child, Kenneth Freese March. While back home, he became involved with other interests as well, serving on a local school board and even becoming the Head Coach at Canton High School for the 1903 and 1904 seasons. Canton High would eventually change its name to Canton McKinley, of which you can learn more from our Pigskin Dispatch interview with George Bozeka on the history of the McKinley and Massillon rivalry. This experience nurtured his love for football. In fact, in 1905 and 1906, Harry served as the team physician of the Canton Bulldogs pro football team. Alan points out that this experience of traveling to game sites across Ohio and Pennsylvania with the Bulldogs helped Harry meet players, team owners, and managers throughout the region. A notorious betting scandal involving the Massillon and Canton teams in 1906 and the simple cost of doing business further educated him on some dos and don'ts of the pro gridiron circuit. While with the Bulldogs, March witnessed hundreds of football games featuring the best professionals of the day, such as Fielding Yost, Bob Shiring, Blondy Wallace, Walter Okeson, Knute Rockne, and Pudge Heffelfinger.

Harry then reached out to other interests after the scandal, and this time in the area of the theater. He assembled his own theatrical company and branched a traveling musical troupe called March's Musical Merry Makers. Harry's companies brought older Broadway shows to small and mid-sized towns in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. These experiences taught Harry how to logistically move more significant groups of folks from town to town and house and feed them that he would look back upon later.

World War I broke out, and Harry enlisted his medical talent into the U.S. military, and he served his country at Camp Greenleaf, Georgia. After his honorable discharge, Harry returned to New York and enlisted in the N.Y. National Guard. Dr. March lived in NYC from 1914 through 1939. This allowed him to gain entrance to many big college games, such as the Army-Navy Game when played at nearby West Point, kindling his love for football once again.

Harry witnessed the popularity of football around the Big Apple, and this spurred him to try to organize a pro team in New York City. At about the same time, the American Professional Football Association formed back in his native Canton, and his earlier connections, especially with a man he met from Columbus, Ohio, Joe Carr, paved the way to further his aspirations of pro football in New York.

March approached some wealthy individuals around the city to see if they would fund such a venture, including Tex Rickard, but he declined. Joe Carr was soon elected President of the APFA in 1921 and 

helped change the association's name to the National Football League. Carr knew the importance of getting franchises into large cities to promote the growth of the League, so he traveled to New York and went with Harry to visit another potential investor, boxing promoter Bill Gibson. Gibson declined as he had lost some big money backing a pro football team a few years earlier called Charles Brickley's Giants. In that meeting was another man, Tim Mara, another promoter and bookmaker. Carr and March proposed that Mara might be interested, and he accepted the offer, placing a $500 claim that he had never even seen the game of football played. Mara was said to have said something such as, "Any kind of franchise in New York is worth $500." Mara sought help from the two on how to run the franchise, and that is when our man, Dr. Harry, stepped up and began a relationship with the Maras and the New York Giants.

Harry again called on his experience and connections to gather football players and staff to put a team on the field in 1925. With his new position, Harry started attending League meetings and making enacted proposals, and he was eventually voted in as a member of the NFL's Executive Committee. That first season of 1925 was brutal, even though they secured the Polo Grounds as a home field. March had to repeatedly return to Mara for more money, as Mara's investment soon turned from $500 to thousands of dollars. Things were looking better for the new franchise until the end of the season game with the traveling road show of the Chicago Bears and their newly signed star of Red Grange. The game had been scheduled before the season started, but adding Grange brought new interest to the contest. The star power of the gridiron phenom Grange put fannies in the seats of the Polo Grounds as paid attendance hit nearly 70,000 spectators, saving the Giant's season of financial struggles and placing them in the black. More importantly, it garnered the attention of many New York City football fans to back their home team into the future. Harry helped the franchise acquire personnel like Bob Folwell, Dr. Joe Alexander, Century Milstead, Hap Moran, Steve Owen, Joe Guyon, Hinkey Haines, Fats Henry, Jim Thorpe, and more. You can learn more about the relationship between Hap and Dr. March in our interview with Hap's son, Mike Moran, and on Mike's website, HapMoran.com.

Harry had great seasons with the Giants, even helping build the team to win the 1927 NFL Title. Unfortunately, an argument with George Preston Marshall, owner of the Boston Redskins, put him out of the National Football League in 1934. Dr. March stayed in touch with pro football even after that; eventually, he even wrote one of the first books on the history of the professional football game, Pro Football: Its Ups and Downs, in 1934, with subsequent revisions. March sold his interest in the Giants and helped form the second incarnation of the American Football League. Harry figured he could model pro football after Major League Baseball by having two rival leagues that could play in a World Series of Football. This did not come to fruition at this time, but what foresight of the future Dr. March had. March served as President of the new AFL for one year before resigning over differences with the management of several member teams.

Harry died in 1940, but his contributions to football are still alive and thriving. To conclude, we will again reference Alan March's ending statement of his PFRA paper:

Harry's work in making the New York Football Giants a success directly supported the

National Football League's nationwide ambitions and the Giants' success helped make

the League successful (cue Frank Sinatra: "If I can make it there, I can make it

anywhere..."). His ethical stands on the League's Executive Committee fostered integrity

and public trust. In his day, Harry was known as the father of the sport he loved. Yet he is

largely forgotten today, overshadowed by those who lived longer and amassed wealth in

the game he helped build.

The picture in the banner above is from the US Library of Congress' collection and is titled President McKinley and Admiral Dewey receiving the troops - presentation of the sword, Washington, D.C.; McKinley and Dewey on platform taken by photographer B.L. Singley circa 1899. President McKinley was an important man in Dr. Harry March's young life. The photo of the 1934 New York Football Giants came courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons Public Domain and was taken by an unknown photographer.