Youngstown Patricians - Legacy

Legacy

The Patricians' effort to regroup under coach-manager Thomas unraveled in the wake of a 27-0 defeat at the hands of the Massillon Tigers on October 5, 1919. Yet, Patrician alumnus Russell "Busty" Ashbaugh (football coach of Youngstown's South High School and father of Notre Dame standout Russell "Pete" Ashbaugh) headed up a semi-professional team in Youngstown that fared well in regional contests. As Frolund notes, a team that was to be managed by another Patricians alumnus, Elgie Tobin, received a National Football League franchise, which had a schedule laid out for the 1922 NFL season. The project collapsed without explanation, and the team never played. While the area saw a brief revival of semi-professional football in the 1970s (just before the city's industrial decline) with the organization of the Youngstown Hardhats and more recently the fully professional Mahoning Valley Thunder of the AF2, the Patricians club—at least during its peak years—was the closest that Youngstown would come to producing a nationally competitive professional football team.

Hughitt went on to the Buffalo professional football club, where he played from 1918 to 1924. During his time in Buffalo he won two state titles, and nearly won two NFL titles (1920 and 1921) as the team's coach and quarterback. Much of the rest of the team ended up with the brand-new Cleveland Panthers in 1919; thanks in large part to their connections to Hughitt, the Panthers played primarily New York-based teams.

The Youngstown area retains a strong NFL presence today. The NFL considers Youngstown–located halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh–to be "shared" between the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers, making it fertile battleground territory for the rivalry the two teams have had since the Browns joined the NFL in 1950 from the All-America Football Conference. Youngstown is also within the 75-mile blackout radius of both cities, though neither team typically has a home game blacked out due to rabid fanbases for both teams. The most recent blackout from either team was the Browns having their last two home games blacked out at the end of the 1995 season, a direct result of the Cleveland Browns relocation controversy. The Steelers haven't had any home games blacked out since the current blackout rules were applied in 1973.

The owners of the San Francisco 49ers, John York and Denise DeBartolo York reside in the Youngstown suburb of Canfield, Ohio, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame is located in nearby Canton, Ohio, about an hour southwest of Youngstown. In 2011, the 49ers practiced on the campus of Youngstown State University in between road games against the Cincinnati Bengals and Philadelphia Eagles instead of making two East Coast trips in back-to-back weeks; both games resulted in victories for the 49ers.