Peak and Decline
The Patricians entered the 1917 season determined to win back the championship title and assembled a powerhouse team that appeared equal to the task. The team featured five All-Americans. Standouts included Stan Cofall (University of Notre Dame), Tom Gormley (Georgetown University), Franklin "Bart" MacComber (Illinois), Gil Ward (Notre Dame), Jim Barron (Georgetown), and Freeman Fitzgerald (Notre Dame). Ernest "Tommy" Hughitt, while at the same time playing for a team in Buffalo, moonlighted as a quarterback for Youngstown.
The opening contest of the 1917 season was against Jim Thorpe and his Canton Bulldogs. The game, which took place at Canton's Wright Field, drew a crowd of 7,000 fans. As Frolund notes, player-manager Thorpe, "who very seldom played a full game, played every minute of this one." He adds that the Bulldogs won a narrow victory in a contest where "the lineups read like a who's-who of post-graduate football, circa 1917." As sports historian Keith McClellan writes: "Although the Canton Bulldogs gained 168 yards with their rushing attack and passed for an additional eighty-two yards, they could not cross Youngstown's goal for a touchdown. The Youngstown defense was outstanding whenever Canton threatened to score. Howard 'Cub' Buck's drop kick from the fifteen yard line in the first period produced the only points of the game. Three times, Bart Macomber tried to tie the score with a field goal but failed each attempt. Canton won 3-0." McClellan adds that the game was characterized by "head-to-head competition" between the teams' two centers, Robert Peck (Youngstown) and Ralph "Fats" Waldsmith. According to McClellan, legendary Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne listed Peck "as the best center for the first quarter of this century."
In the wake of this narrow defeat, the Patricians secured a victory over the Ohio Tigers, with a score of 14-6. In another contest with the world-champion Bulldogs later that season, however, the Patricians suffered a devastating loss of 13-0. Canton achieved this victory without the help of Thorpe, who was sidelined by a leg injury. Worse yet, the Youngstown team lost several of its brightest stars, including Cofall, to the Massillon Tigers. Sports historian McClellan observes that "a season that began with such high hopes ended with an unseasonable snowstorm and a modest 4 and 3 record." Meanwhile, the wave of recruitment that came with America's entry into World War I, along with a flu pandemic that led to restrictions on travel and large gatherings, temporarily slashed the ranks of the nation's professional and semi-professional teams.
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