Flyers resuming teamworkouts as campus COVID situation improves
‘Time to get going,’ Grant says, looking ahead to the season.
DAYTON— The coronavirus pandemic shutdownthe sportsworld March 12, cost the Dayton Flyers the entirepostseasonandkept the players and coaches separated for more than fourmonths. The crisis affffffffffffected the programagain in August when one of the largest COVID-19 campus outbreaks in Ohio happened at the University of Dayton.
“There was increase in cases on campus, which kind of shut everythingdownnot only froman academic standpoint but froman athletic standpoint, too,” coach Anthony Grant said Friday. “It obviously affected everything on campus. With school back in session this week, this is actually the fifirst week that we’ve done anything in terms of team activities. Itwas time to get that going
and get prepared. Now that we knowwhen the season’s offifficially going to start and when we can offifficially start practice, it’s just a process of trying to get prepared for that.”
All 12 of the scholarship players arrived on campus the week of July 12 and spent the rest of the
month and early August working on individual skills, strength and conditioning. That period lasted until students started moving back to campus in August.
Thiswas the fifirst time the three freshmen — Koby Brea, R. J. Blak
roster with Ohio State players using assumed names, theTriangles prevailed, 14-0.
Lou Partlow — the “West Carrollton Battering Ram,” a guy who trained in the summers running through wooded area along the Great Miami River, juking around trees but sometimes lowering his shoulder and running intothemtoprepare for defenders he’dface in the fall — scored the first touchdown on a 10-yard run he’d set up with anearlier40-yardjaunt.
It was the first touchdown in theNFL. Andthe first point after was booted by George “Hobby” Kinderdine.
“I know the Bengals just played the Browns, but this was the first Battle of Ohio,” said Dave Williamson, the localattorneywhoisthechairmanoftheDaytonAreaSports History’s(DASH) TriangleCentennial Committee.
DASH, in conjunction with the city of Dayton, the NFL and the Carillon Park-based Dayton History had planned a gala celebration for Saturday, but thatwas scuttled by the COVID-19 pandemic and the state regulations that limit public events and crowds.
And yet DASH didn’t simply punt. Neither did other folks around here.
TheTriangles arebeing celebrated in a variety of ways this week:
■ Tuesday morning, at a press conference in front of the Triangles’ original dressing room that now stands at Carillon Park, Dayton-based filmmaker and documentarian Allen Farst — once a football player himself at Vandalia Butler High School — is announcing he’s beginning work on a movie based on the Triangles’ first game.
He’s already been doing research and is launching a fundraising effort that will drawonlocalcorporatesponsors and a grassroots effortof everyday people using the Kickstarter program. Information on that can be found at thewebsite he’s set up: triangleparkmovie.com.
■ Friday, Williamson said DASH, the city ofDaytonand Dayton History are asking everyone to help celebrate the centennial by wearing their favoriteNFLteam’s gear towork. Andif they needTriangles shirts and caps, they are available at the Carillon gift shop.
■ Saturday afternoon, there will be a small ceremonial acknowledgment of the historic day at Triangle Park, though it’s not open to the public because of the COVID stipulations. It will be streamed, though.
Asofnowtheplanisforthe mayorsofDaytonandColumbus to be there, as well as a football player fromeach city who made it to the NFL. It’s hoped Keith Byars will represent Dayton and Archie Griffin will do the same for Columbus.
BradyKress, CEOofDayton History and one of the principals turning the old Triangles’ dressing quarters into the centerpiece of a Sports History exhibit at the Park, may emcee the ceremony.
A year from now, Oct. 3, 2021, Williamson said he hopes his DASH group — previously led by Skip Ordeman, who just passed away, and which is still assisted by Municipal Court Judge Dan Gehres, who helped save the dressing roomandmove it to Carillon— can fully celebrate thefootballhistorymadehere
in Dayton.
In the meantime, several other efforts related to the Triangles continue to go on.
Afewmonthsagothenew, NFL-fundedartificialturffootball field was completed at the site of the old Park Side HomesjustoffKeoweeStreet.
The league spent some $500,000there to honor the city’shistoriccontributionsto the game and to nurture the football growth of future generations. The field will host a varietyof competitions, especially youth football games.
There are also the ongoing efforts by KevinO’Donnel of MiamisburgandDougSpatzof Springboro to get their great uncle, Norb Sacksteder— the Triangles’ starting halfback who was dubbed “Hell on Cleats” — enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He was one of the great stars of the early days of the game, on a par with more celebrated Jim Thorpe and Fritz Pollard. Sacksteder’s spinning, juking improvised style of play — reminiscent of Barry Sanders — helped change pro football from a rugby scrumto an open-field competition.
O’Donell and Spatz have been lobbying the nine voters of the Senior Committee to consider him for theHOF.
And if those electors — or anyoneelse— areunsurewho the Triangleswere andwhat theymeanttothiscommunity, they can listen to the multiple- episode podcast done by Bruce Smith, a Cincinnati-based musician and composerwho grewup near Triangle Park and graduated from Northridge High.
There are also the continued efforts by Mark Fenner, whoworksatMillerCoorsand isoneofthemostardentkeepers of the Triangles’ flame. His passion is certainly linked to his bloodlines, but he also was initially inspired by the efforts of another Triangles’ historian, Steve Presar.
Fenner continues to collect stories and artifacts and
recently was able to buy a scrapbook on eBay that had belonged to the late Dr. Dave Reese, the dentist who had beena football legendatMassillon High, Denison University and then the Triangles before becoming a big-time college football official and the firstcommissioner of the Mid-American Conference.
The biggest buzz right now, though, is over Farst’s announcement of hismovie plans.
He’s just coming off a celebrated project where he traveled around theU.S. and Europeinterviewingeveryone from the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton to Sheryl Crow and Billy Bob Thornton for a documentary on legendary keyboard player Chuck Leavell, who’s been with the Stones since 1982 and, before that, famedmusicians likeDr. JohnandtheAllmanBrothers.
“Chuck Leavell: The Tree Man” wonthePeople’sChoice AwardattheSedonaFilmFestivalinlateFebruary. Farsthad planned to followthe Stones’ tour through the spring and summer showing the film, butCOVID put the kibosh on that as well.
Looking for a newproject, he finally focused on the Triangles, asubjecthehadflirted with for years.
Through his Centerville-based Niche Productions he’s been involved in other sports efforts before, but this venture is different, he said:
“This is bigger than football.”
Time is right
Farst thinks this is perfect timing for a movie like this:
“The past couple of years havebeena trainwreck here: Aguyshootsuppeopledowntown. Thetornado. Andeven though themovie ‘American Factory’ won awards, inmy view it painted some people here like a bunch of dips----.
“Rightnowwe needsomething positive to showall the good things that come out of
this town.
“We should have had that when the Dayton Flyerswon the national championship, but then came COVID at the worst time.”
He believes amovie on the Triangles could capture people’s imaginations:
“If you look at the story lines of the 1920s, there are so many things that will give this a richness. Prohibition hadstarted. Womenweregetting their first chance to vote. Dayton was finally recovering from the 1913 Flood and the industrial boom was taking place.
“Andthen hereweare, one of the original 13 teams in the NFL and putting on the very first game.”
He noted howDaytonwas hometoinventorsandvisionaries and leaders in so many fields and “wewere an innovator in sports, as well.”
A lot of people didn’t realize that. Fenner didn’tunderstand the full scope of the Triangles’ football effort at first. Part of the problem was there had been a rift in his family and his grandfather, Lee Jr., quit speaking to his great grandad, Lee Sr., the Triangles star.
“I thought early on theTriangles hadn’t been any good and couldn’t draw crowd,” he said.
Some of that is true, but theywere a formidable team fromtheiractualformationin 1916. Theywereanoffshootof the St. Mary’s Cadets and in 1918, as the Spanish Flu was laying siege to the nation, they went 8-0 and won the Ohio League.
Once they joined the NFL predecessor— the American Professional Football Association, which changed its name in 1922 — they had a roster that was a mix of formercollege players and local talent, including several guys fromthe factories that bankrolled the team.
“Isoonlearned therewas a lotmoretothemthanIknew,” said Fenner. “They played
against at least 22 individuals who are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, guys like JimThorpeandGeorgeHalas and Red Grange. Over the years they played the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers and had games atWrigleyFieldandComiskey Park and the Polo Grounds.”
After three decent years, the Triangles began to lose players to richer teams. In the last seven years of their existence they won five of 51 games and attendance did lag. That turned them into a barnstorming teamthat traveledbyaPullmanrailroadcar.
Eventually the team was sold to notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyre in 1930 and hemoved them to Brooklyn, New York, where they were renamed the Dodgers.
Overtheyearstheteamwas pretty much forgotten here until Presar took an interest and wrote about them and thenSkipOrdemanandDASH embraced them.
In 2001, JudgeGehres and hisbailiffChuckTaylorputon a charity flag football game between teams fromDayton and Columbus wearing Triangles’ and Panhandles’ jerseys. Gehres also helped get the Ohio Historical Marker put up near the site of the football field atTriangle Park.
Finally after vandals, fire and neglect claimed one of the original dressing rooms, Gehres got the city of Dayton to move the remaining locker roomto Carillon Park and Kress raised the money to facilitate themove and put a new roof on the building.
‘I wanted to know who these people were’
The 60-year- old Smith hadn’t known about the Triangleswhenhewas a kidand his dad took him to Howell FieldatTriangleParktowatch baseball games.
Later, when he made the discovery, he saidhe became fascinated:“Iwantedtoknow whothesepeoplewere. What motivated them? What the
times were like?”
He immersed himself in research with plans to write a book. WhentheNFLbegan its centennial celebration in 2019— the 100thNFLseason, not 100 years from the first game in Dayton — he knew he had to get his project out quicker than he planned.
The book turned into a series of podcasts that cover the topic more thoroughly than anything prior.
It can be found at: daytontrianglespodcast.com.
Farst has been in contact with Smith and alsometwith O’Donnel, Spatz and Fenner, who searches YouTube and eBayeveryfewweeksforanything relatedtotheTriangles.
That’s how he discovered the Reese scrapbook, which he bought for $76.
“Stuff like that doesn’t become available very often, so the anticipation started to grow as I waited for it to arrive,” he said. “You don’t knowwhat you’re getting. It’s like a treasure hunt. It could be the Holy Grail or it could be a bust.
“And after I had it awhile my wife asked if it had been worth it. I said, ‘Oh yes!’”
While he had come across storiesaboutthe record12letters Reese had earned playingfoursportsatDenison, the majorcollegegameshe’dofficiatedandhispioneeringdays with theMAC, hesaid itwas a smallstoryaboutReese’searly days as a star of the Massillon Tigers that made the whole venture worthwhile
It told about a neighborhood boy who had idolized Reese, just as those East Daytonkidsweremesmerizedby Lee Fenner.
The young Massillon kid followed everything Reese did, especially his days playing for the Dayton Triangles.
One day that boy wanted to be a football standout just like his hero was.
And he became that and somuch more
The boy’s name? Paul Brown.