The Man Who Built the National Football League: Joe F. Carr

by Chris Willis

  The team was missing something, maybe it was the loss of Frank and Al Nesser, maybe it was the backfield losses of Lee Snoots and Emmett Ruh. Four days after the loss to Detroit, the Panhandles boarded a train to Lafayette, Indiana, to play the talented Pine Village squad on Thanksgiving Day. When the team arrived in Lafayette, the railroaders got a big surprise. The Pine Village football team wasn't there. The Ohio State journal told why, under the headline "Panhandles Get Only a Ride": "In keeping with terms of a contract, Columbus Panhandles players arrived here this morning to meet the Pine Village team. However, the Pine Villagers did not show up, but went to Wabash, Ind. It is probable that legal steps will be taken to force the Pine Village management to settle in accordance with terms of the original agreement. 1113

  The Panhandles and Joe Carr weren't very happy with the situation, but what could they do? After stewing around for awhile, the team boarded the next train and headed back to Columbus. It was a missed game, and Carr thought to himself that the season couldn't get any worse. He was wrong. The Sunday after Thanksgiving Carr gave his team the day off and worked to schedule the game of the year for the Panhandles. Instead of setting up a game with a Columbus team to decide the city championship, Carr decided to talk to Jack Cusack. Carr wanted to arrange a game between the two teams to be played in Columbus to give the capital city fans a chance to see the hometown Panhandles and the great Canton Bulldogs-led by Jim Thorpe. On December 2 the two teams agreed to a game to be played the following week (December 9) at Neil Park in Columbus. The following day in the Canton Daily News, Joe Carr was quoted on the big game. "Columbus will see a good game. Canton shouldn't have been defeated by Massillon. There was a nut loose somewhere. Columbus will be a good town for the sport, but the fans have never seen a championship combine, and that is why I've persuaded Cusack to sign for a game. I expect to secure one or two college men to strengthen the Panhandles, but it cannot be construed as loading in any sense of the word. I want to have enough talent to make the game interesting.""

  Carr was excited about the matchup (he even thought about bringing in some ringers) as he was able to bring the great Canton team to Columbus to play in front of the Panhandles fans. After a somewhat disappointing campaign, he thought bringing in a big-time drawing card would be the event to turn the season around and make a little money. The impending game was going to be the biggest pro football game ever held in Columbus. But like most of the 1917 season, the game would be a big disappointment as the Bulldogs never made it to Columbus. The Canton Daily News reported the bad news.

  Columbus Trip Called Off, Bulldogs Cancel Last Game in Capital City

  King Winter scored his first touchdown Saturday. His armies stopped the last drive of Canton's professional team. Captain Thorpe and his celebrated troupe will not go to Columbus this evening to meet the Columbus Panhandles.

  The deal was brought to an end Saturday morning when Mgr. Jack Cusack wired Mgr. Carr of the Columbus team that on account of the snowfall every Canton Bulldog had been notified not to report for the contest which would have been labeled "finis" by the squad, the majority of whose member have been here for two seasons only being defeated once, said feat being due to the accuracy of Stanley Cofall's booting in the last game of the Massillon series.

  Cusack denied the report that Thorpe hadn't planned to make the trip to Columbus with Canton, and that he had accepted an offer to play with the Heralds of Detroit against the Hammond, Ind., team at Hammond Sunday, the Hammond star being Paddy Driscoll, former Northwestern U. captain.

  "Thorpe hasn't departed from Canton, and he doesn't intend to go for several days at least," said Cusack. "The Detroit story was buncombe. Jim will go to his home at Yale, Oklahoma, to spend the winter with Mrs. Thorpe and their two children."15

  The season from hell ended with the Panhandles losing out on a big payday with the Canton Bulldogs. The team finished the year with a losing record (3-6-0) for the first time since 1913. Despite some of the roster losses, the 1917 season proved to Carr that his team was getting old and might be in decline. In the Panhandles' six losses, they were outscored 151-0. The increasing age of some of its players, the war in Europe, and the improvement of professional football teams everywhere made the future very bleak.

  Joe Carr was starting to lose his team as the core of the squad was getting old, and he wasn't in position to go out and pay a star player, like Jim Thorpe, $250 a game. The Pennsylvania Railroad wasn't in the business of developing potential pro football players. In 1918 the team would be affected by things out of its control and would barely play a game, but as for the 1917 season, it was one to be forgotten.

  Talk of a real football league kept circulating but remained only talk as none of the team managers really wanted to bind themselves to an organized league. They still wanted the freedom to pay for any player they wanted. As a result, most teams in 1917 lost money, and salaries were still very high. For example Massillon lost over $5,000 for the season.

  But thoughts of a league took a break in 1918 as World War I dominated the country and most of the pro football teams took the year off. Some of the best teams such as Canton, Massillon, Akron, Youngstown, and Cleveland didn't bother to field a team. After the disastrous season Carr thought about what to do with his team. In the meantime he went back to the future, as he accepted a job as assistant sports editor at his old stomping grounds-the Ohio State Journal. It was another way to keep close to the sports world as well as making a few extra dollars.

  As fall approached it looked like Carr would have a team playing; Ted Nesser started preseason practice at the railroad yards on September 24. The journal reported on the progress.

  Panhandles football players will start practice today. Coach Nesser will get the men out for the first workout of the season and it is likely that most of last year's team and some crack material, that is out at the shop, will be found in the lineup this year.

  Owing to the fact that all practice by the big eleven is done at the noon hour and the games played on Sunday, no interference whatever will be made with the working plans of the team members, who are all employed in the railroad shops, which need so much help now.

  Early reports indicate that most of the big teams, with which the Panhandles have competed with each year, will be back on the field and, in some instances, stronger than ever before, owing to the presence in Akron, Canton, and Massillon of many football stars with concerns engaged in work essential to the war.

  While many old-timers will be out for the Panhandles, the team is open to all and the coach will welcome any players desiring to make it. Any recruits should present themselves to Coach Nesser on the athletic field in the rear of the shops any noon from now on.16

  The journal article wasn't completely accurate as Carr's Panhandles and other pro teams didn't field a team to begin the season. Most of the railroad employees were putting in time for the war effort, and playing a football game at this time wasn't plausible. However, later in the year, the work load at the Panhandle shops lightened up and the thought of playing a football game became a reality. Joe Carr's boys wanted to play, and he made arrangements for a game in the middle of November with the Dayton Triangles. The Triangles (who were basically the same team as the GymCadets) were managed by Carl L. H. Storck, a stocky, fun-loving sports junkie, who would become one of Carr's closest confidants and friends.

  Carl Louis Horrell Storck was born on November 14, 1893, in Dayton, Ohio, as the only child of German Americans Charles and Margaret Storck. The Storcks operated a very popular family-owned restaurant that was known in Dayton for its ice cream and milkshakes. Just like Carr in Columbus, Carl Storck in Dayton became a pretty good student who fell in love with sports. "He liked sports. At Stivers High School he was a star basketball player, captain of the high school football team, and ran track. He just fell in love with all sports but football was [his] favorite," says Dolores Seitz, daughter of Carl Storck.l'

  After high school Storck graduated from the George
Williams YMCA College in Chicago, devoted his life to athletics and gained a very unusual nickname. "He had a horrible nickname. They called him Scummy but no one knew where he got it from. My mother never knew. The only thing they can figure out was that he was so immaculate and always so well groomed that they did it by teasing him. It's the worst name I've ever heard," says Seitz.11

  Despite the bad nickname Storck was a very outgoing and likeable man who got along with everyone. Rarely did he walk down the streets of Dayton without someone yelling hello, and his athletic interests were very well-known around the city. Being a rotund man (six feet and over 220 pounds), he was definitely hard to miss. After graduating from college in the spring of 1917, he returned to Dayton and was hired by Mike Redelle to be an assistant manager of the Triangle Park recreation program, which included the company's football team-the Dayton Triangles.

  The Dayton Triangles were the brainchild of two business giants, Edward Deeds and Charles Kettering. The team was sponsored by the duo's three factories-Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, Dayton Metal Products Company, and Domestic Engineering Company-that formed an industrial triangle of plants in downtown Dayton. Triangle Park was the site for the company's athletic events and where Storck would get his pro football start. In 1917 Storck was the comanager of the team and also played fullback. The following year he replaced Redelle as the full-time manager.

  That same year on April 10, 1918, Carl married Edythe Martz in Dayton and the couple would have one child, a daughter, Dolores. "My mother was very refined. I think she wanted to add a little of finesse and polish to her sporting husband. But football was his first love. My mother always said football came before she did because that was his first love and she accepted that. It was true," says Dolores Seitz, daughter of Carl Storck.19

  In his first year as a full-time manager, Storck was very aggressive in scheduling games for the Triangles. The war didn't slow him down. When the Panhandles traveled to Dayton to play, Carr met Storck for the first time; they would strike up a professional relationship and a unique friendship that would last for the next twenty-one years. "They both were very interested in sports and this brought them together. Their thinking was so similar that this was a perfect relationship for both of them, " says Seitz.20

  With four Nessers (Phil, John, Fred, and Frank) Hi Brigham, Joe Mulbarger, and Oscar Kuehner all in the lineup, the Panhandles traveled to Dayton to play the Triangles (on November 17). On a muddy field at Triangle Park, the railroaders acquitted themselves honorably as they lost to the Triangles 12-0. The Triangles had played five games to that point and looked a lot better on the field than the rusty Panhandles, who were playing their first game. The Panhandles held the Triangles scoreless for three quarters before Dayton halfback Lou Partlow scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns to give the Triangles the win.

  The Panhandles played hard, but the Dayton game would be the only one the railroaders played in 1918. With the lack of teams, Joe Carr decided not to find another game. The war was over, and the managers of the major pro football teams would get back to business in 1919. But for Joe Carr, the future of the Columbus Panhandles was coming to a crossroad.

  By 1919 the country was prepared to get back to normal, including the sports world. In early July, Carr was given his first assignment for the Ohio State Journal, covering the big heavyweight boxing championship fight between Jess Willard, the champion, and Jack Dempsey, the challenger. On a hot Independence Day in Toledo, Ohio, Carr would attend the title bout and describe the action for his readers back in central Ohio. While sitting in 100 degree temperatures in section G with the other sportswriters, Carr typed the following article:

  Barrier of Age Is Plainly Seen; Willard Not Fast Enough to Ward Off Attack of Young Challenger, Now Champ

  By Joe Carr

  This time honored saying, "youth will be served," was surely dragged out here today, when the youthful Jack Dempsey won so decisively over his older opponent Jess Willard, for it was only for a second at the very beginning of the first round, when Willard landed the first blow of the battle, a light left jab to the face, that the now ex-champion had a ghost of a show. The confident Dempsey sailed right into his older and much larger opponent and with his good left hand had Willard on the floor and on the way to championship retirement before the first round had progressed a full minute.

  The blow that really did the work for the challenger was delivered just before Willard went down the first time. It was a short left hook to the jaw, delivered in Willard's corner. The champions staggered to the opposite side of the ring, where he received a right to the body, when he went to the floor for the first time. However, this blow was more of a push than a hard jolt, as the left received previously had taken the steam out of the champion.

  Willard took a terrific lacing in this first round and was brave enough to come back for more, but the aggressive Dempsey could not be denied. The much-touted left hand of the new champion surely helped him into his new title, as time after time he landed with terrific force on Willard's jaw and head. He had the entire side of Willard's face a sight to behold. The right eye was closed and his jaw was swollen as if a bone was broken.

  After the battle was all over and Willard was in his dressing room, he made a statement in which he said that he realized that he was trying to put up a game, losing battle, and that, rather than take a knockout punch, he ordered his seconds to toss the towel in the ring.21

  Carr enjoyed being one of the media "scribes" again, and covering a marquee sporting event was very rewarding, considering what the country had gone through the past year. When Carr returned to Columbus to be with his family, talk of a new professional football league started up again. On July 14 owners of three teams in northeast Ohio met at the Courtland Hotel in Canton to discuss guidelines to be used for the upcoming season. The small get-together was called by a new name on the pro football scene, someone who just happened to be taking over the best team in professional football.

  Ralph E. Hay, a successful Canton automobile dealer, bought the Canton Bulldogs from former manager Jack Cusack, who had entered the oil business during the war and had moved to Oklahoma to seek his fortune. "My grandfather got involved in the automobile business at a very early age, about the age of twenty-three, and he went on to run his own dealership called Ralph E. Hay Motors, " says James King, grandson of Ralph Hay. "He was one of the most prominent auto dealers in Ohio and he was considered to be a live wire. Very active. He was a great dresser, he always had nice suits and nice dress shoes to match. But he was known to be a very energetic, ambitious and a very astute businessman22

  "Ralph was interested in all sports but especially football. He was a close friend to Jim Thorpe while he played with the Bulldogs so that's why he bought the team," says King.23 Although he was now out of the pro football business, Jack Cusack's contributions to the early days of the pro game can't be ignored. His signing of the great Jim Thorpe in 1915 had started the modern growth and popularity of the game, while showing the public, press, and other team managers the potential of the sport.

  Years later when the sport was more established, Joe Carr sent Cusack a book on football and signed it, "To my pal Jack Cusack. He helped to make pro football what it is, Joe F. Carr." In his memoirs Cusack would comment on Carr's kind words by saying, "I would like to say that this tribute, from one who knew, is ample reward for my contributions to this great game." Cusack's team was now in the hands of Ralph Hay, who had a reputation of being a "great hustler," he would use his salesmanship personality in getting his team as much publicity as possible. The bigger the headline the better.24

  The Canton meeting in July included teams from Canton (represented by Hay), Akron (Vernon "Mac" Maginnis), and Massillon (Jack Donahue and Jack Whalen). The trio of teams would agree to refrain from stealing other teams' players, but Donahue of Massillon refused on setting a salary limit. "If a manager wants to pay $10,000 for a player, that's his business," Donahue said at the meeting. This
type of thinking wasn't going to help professional football and is probably why Massillon lost money in 1917. It also didn't help them in 1919 as the Tigers would play their last year of pro football.25

  But this meeting didn't solve anything, as the three teams couldn't even agree on two major issues, let alone trying to convince other pro teams to join the cause. Reporting on the meeting, the Akron Beacon-Journal wrote that another meeting will take place and "a league will be formally organized at the next meeting and officers elected." The only flaw in this plan was that no other meeting occurred as the pro teams went their separate ways, just happy to be playing football again 26

  As the season approached, pro football teams signed many new players who had finished their college careers within the past couple of seasons, giving the sport some much needed star power. Hay's Bulldogs signed two future Hall of Famers, Joe Guyon (Georgia Tech) and Guy Chamberlin (Nebraska). Akron signed former Brown All-American Fritz Pollard, one of the first early black stars in professional football. In his first game with Akron against the Massillon Tigers, 10,000 fans came out to Liberty Park in Akron and saw Pollard score a touchdown despite the Tigers winning 13-6.

  In Wisconsin Earl "Curly" Lambeau, a Notre Dame dropout, helped start a pro team in Green Bay that was sponsored by a local meatpacking company. That team would eventually be called the Green Bay Packers. Another team gaining big headlines was the Hammond (Indiana) AllStars, who signed former college stars Paddy Driscall (Northwestern), Milt Ghee (Dartmouth), Paul Des Jardien (University of Chicago), and George Halas (Illinois)-a man who would make his own mark in helping organize professional football and would become a close friend of Joe Carr.

  The Hammond All-Stars played their home games at Cubs Park (which would be renamed Wrigley Field) and intended to pay their all-star roster close to $20,000. Throughout the season the Hammond All-Stars played to huge crowds; in their six home games they averaged over 7,000 per game, which they needed in order to pay all those big salaries. Other pro teams that also made headlines were the Minneapolis Marines (managed by Joe Dunn), the Rock Island (Illinois) Independents (managed by Walter H. Flanigan), and of course the teams that comprised the mythical Ohio League.