Columbus (NFL)
Encyclopedia
The Columbus Panhandles were a professional football
team from Columbus, Ohio
who played in the "Ohio League
" and later the American Professional Football Association, later renamed the National Football League
. The origin of the name "Panhandles" was the Pennsylvania Railroad
route from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
to Columbus called the "Panhandle Division," once owned by the Panhandle Railroad (formally the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad)
in the late 19th century. The team often went by the nickname the "Handles" and are historically considered charter members of the National Football League because of their membership in the American Professional Football Association in September 1920, playing in the league's very first game against the Dayton Triangles
in Dayton, Ohio
.
and manager of the railroad's baseball
team the Famous Panhandle White Sox, first took over the football team. However the Panhandles didn’t take off and the team played just two games. Carr tried again three years later in 1907 and the team finally took off. Carr saw the potential for professional football not only to be a great spectator sport but also to become a successful business venture. Carr envisioned pro football being just as popular as Major League Baseball
.
One of the first things Carr did when he became the owner of the Panhandles was to exploit one the railroad's policies. Since most of the team’s players were employed by the railroad, they could ride the train free of charge. Because of this perk, Carr was able to schedule mostly road games, eliminating the expenses of stadium rental, game promotion, and security for the field. The players also often slept in haylofts on overnight trips to keep expenses even lower. Each week the Panhandles would just jump on the train Saturday night, play on Sunday, and ride back all night just in time for work on Monday morning. However while the team did play the majority of their games on the road as a traveling team
, several of their home games were played at Indianola Park
.
The Panhandles adopted an amateur sandlot mentality for their playing style. Since the team was composed mainly of railroad workers, the scenario gave the players limited time to practice and prepare for games. The Panhandles did the majority of their preparation during their lunch breaks. Workers had a one-hour break during a normal workday, and the players on the team usually took the first 15 minutes to eat lunch and used the remaining 45 minutes to practice football skills. An athletic field behind the railroad shops in Columbus became the team's practice field.
, who were already drawing crowds throughout the country. Carr used the seven Nesser brothers as the backbone of the Panhandles, and the football-playing family remained in that role for nearly twenty years. None of the Nessers attended college, despite many offers. The seven Nesser brothers, who worked as boilermaker
s for the Pennsylvania Railroad
, were exceptionally large and strong for people living in the early 20th century. Frank Nesser
alone was 6-foot 3-inches tall and weighed 235 pounds. They all were exceptionally great athletes for their time. Carr would take out ads by describing his Panhandles as the toughest professional team in football, led by the famous Nesser brothers. In 1921 the Panhandles line-up included player-coach
Ted Nesser
and his son Charlie
. It was the only time in NFL history a father and son played together on the same team. The Nesser brothers nephew, Ted Hopkins
and brother-in-law, John Schneider
, also played on the team.
The Panhandles’ rosters didn’t include many former college players or All-Americans, so the athletic field in the railroad yards became the place where the team would find out who could play the game. The team’s reputation of “dirty” play was learned and developed right on the railroad yards, not in college stadiums. The press sometime criticized the railroaders for their rough play, however the fans who paid the gate money to attend the games loved it.
Between 1914 and 1916, which were seen as best years of the franchise, the Nesser-led team went a combined 22–10–1. The majority of the early pro teams would go out of their way to schedule the Panhandles, as they knew it would be easy to advertise a game featuring the famous Nessers. In 1915, The Panhandles were rumoured to have played against the legendary Knute Rockne
six times in 1915. According to the team, each time they played Rockne, he was on a different team.
because the new league needed a big name for publicity.
, and the Rock Island Independents
beat the Muncie Flyers
, 45-0, in Rock Island
. One of these two games marked the first league game; because, at the time, Indiana and Illinois were in the Central Time Zone, they would have been more likely to start their game an hour later in real time than the teams in Ohio, lending greater credence to the Panhandles' claim to being participants in the first NFL game.
team made up almost entirely of hometown players, and the three Nesser brothers still with the team were past their prime.
Following the 1922 season, the Panhandles became the Columbus Tigers. This new team was purchased by local businessmen, as a traveling team, and played in the NFL from 1923 to 1926 seasons before disbanding. In 1923, the Tigers attained their best ranking in the NFL, finishing eighth. The next season, the squad finished tenth, and then ended their final two seasons twentieth and nineteenth respectively.
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
team from Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
who played in the "Ohio League
Ohio League
The Ohio League was an informal and loose association of American football clubs active between 1903 and 1919 that competed for the Ohio Independent Championship . As the name implied, its teams were based in Ohio...
" and later the American Professional Football Association, later renamed the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
. The origin of the name "Panhandles" was the Pennsylvania Railroad
Pennsylvania Railroad
The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
route from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
to Columbus called the "Panhandle Division," once owned by the Panhandle Railroad (formally the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad)
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad
The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, commonly called the Pan Handle Route , was a railroad forming part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system. Its common name came from its main line west from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania across the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia...
in the late 19th century. The team often went by the nickname the "Handles" and are historically considered charter members of the National Football League because of their membership in the American Professional Football Association in September 1920, playing in the league's very first game against the Dayton Triangles
Dayton Triangles
The Dayton Triangles were an original franchise of the American Professional Football Association in 1920. The Triangles were based in Dayton, Ohio, and took their nickname from their home field, Triangle Park, which was located at the confluence of the Great Miami and Stillwater Rivers in north...
in Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
.
Origins
In 1901 workers at the Panhandle shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Columbus, Ohio formed a professional football team called the Columbus Panhandles. The railroad workers, mainly European immigrants, learned the game of football not at a college, but on the sandlots of the Panhandle railroad yards during their lunch breaks. At first, the Panhandles struggled to learn the game of football, both on and off the field. During their first four seasons, the team had five different team managers. The Panhandles fought to keep a team on the field. In 1905 and 1906, the team didn’t even field a team. After sitting out two seasons it looked as if the Panhandles would never play another game.Joe Carr
In 1904, Joseph F. Carr, who was a sports writer for the Ohio State JournalThe Columbus Citizen-Journal
The Columbus Citizen-Journal was a daily morning newspaper in Columbus, Ohio published by the Scripps Howard company. It was formed in 1959 by the merger of The Columbus Citizen and The Ohio State Journal. It shared printing facilities, as well as business, advertising, and circulation staff in a...
and manager of the railroad's baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
team the Famous Panhandle White Sox, first took over the football team. However the Panhandles didn’t take off and the team played just two games. Carr tried again three years later in 1907 and the team finally took off. Carr saw the potential for professional football not only to be a great spectator sport but also to become a successful business venture. Carr envisioned pro football being just as popular as Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
.
One of the first things Carr did when he became the owner of the Panhandles was to exploit one the railroad's policies. Since most of the team’s players were employed by the railroad, they could ride the train free of charge. Because of this perk, Carr was able to schedule mostly road games, eliminating the expenses of stadium rental, game promotion, and security for the field. The players also often slept in haylofts on overnight trips to keep expenses even lower. Each week the Panhandles would just jump on the train Saturday night, play on Sunday, and ride back all night just in time for work on Monday morning. However while the team did play the majority of their games on the road as a traveling team
Traveling team
In professional team sports, a traveling team is a member of a professional league that never or rarely competes in its home arena or stadium. This differs from a barnstorming team in that the latter does not compete within a league or association framework...
, several of their home games were played at Indianola Park
Indianola Park
Indianola Park was an amusement park that operated in the University District in Columbus, Ohio from 1905-37.-Location:The entrance to Indianola Park was at N. 4th St. and E. 19th Ave. The park itself covered approximately and extended from E. 18th Ave. north to E. Norwich Ave. and east from N....
.
The Panhandles adopted an amateur sandlot mentality for their playing style. Since the team was composed mainly of railroad workers, the scenario gave the players limited time to practice and prepare for games. The Panhandles did the majority of their preparation during their lunch breaks. Workers had a one-hour break during a normal workday, and the players on the team usually took the first 15 minutes to eat lunch and used the remaining 45 minutes to practice football skills. An athletic field behind the railroad shops in Columbus became the team's practice field.
The Nessers
However Carr knew that if his team was to succeed, he needed an attraction, so Carr built his team around pro football’s most famous family, the Nesser BrothersNesser Brothers
The Nesser Brothers were a group of football playing brothers who helped make up the most famous football family in the United States from 1907 until the mid-1920s...
, who were already drawing crowds throughout the country. Carr used the seven Nesser brothers as the backbone of the Panhandles, and the football-playing family remained in that role for nearly twenty years. None of the Nessers attended college, despite many offers. The seven Nesser brothers, who worked as boilermaker
Boilermaker
A boilermaker is a trained craftsman who produces steel fabrications from plates and sections. The name originated from craftsmen who would fabricate boilers, but they may work on projects as diverse as bridges to blast furnaces to the construction of mining equipment.-Boilermaking:Many...
s for the Pennsylvania Railroad
Pennsylvania Railroad
The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
, were exceptionally large and strong for people living in the early 20th century. Frank Nesser
Frank Nesser
Frank Nesser was a professional football player in the "Ohio League" and the early National Football League. During his career he played mainly for the Columbus Panhandles, however he did also play for a little for the Akron Indians, whenever he was recruited by Indians manager, Peggy Parratt.Frank...
alone was 6-foot 3-inches tall and weighed 235 pounds. They all were exceptionally great athletes for their time. Carr would take out ads by describing his Panhandles as the toughest professional team in football, led by the famous Nesser brothers. In 1921 the Panhandles line-up included player-coach
Player-coach
A player-coach, in sports, is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. The term can be used to refer to both players who serve as head coaches, or as assistant coaches....
Ted Nesser
Ted Nesser
Theodore Nesser Jr. was a professional football player-coach in the "Ohio League" and the early National Football League. During his career he played mainly for the Columbus Panhandles, however he did also play for a little for the Massillon Tigers, Akron Indians, Canton Bulldogs and the Shelby...
and his son Charlie
Charlie Nesser
Charles T. Nesser was a professional football player in the National Football League for the Columbus Panhandles. Charlie played only season, 1921, in the NFL. He was son of Ted Nesser, a member of the infamous Nesser Brothers. During the 1921 season, six of the Nessers played for the Panhandles,...
. It was the only time in NFL history a father and son played together on the same team. The Nesser brothers nephew, Ted Hopkins
Ted Hopkins (American football)
Edward J. Hopkins was a professional American football player in the early National Football League for the Columbus Panhandles. He was a teammate, of the Panhandles' infamous Nesser Brothers. However he was also a nephew to the brothers, since his mother Anna was their sister...
and brother-in-law, John Schneider
John Schneider (American football)
John J. Schneider was a professional American football player in the "Ohio League" and the early National Football League for the Columbus Panhandles. He played from around 1909 until 1921 with the Panhandles...
, also played on the team.
The Panhandles’ rosters didn’t include many former college players or All-Americans, so the athletic field in the railroad yards became the place where the team would find out who could play the game. The team’s reputation of “dirty” play was learned and developed right on the railroad yards, not in college stadiums. The press sometime criticized the railroaders for their rough play, however the fans who paid the gate money to attend the games loved it.
Columbus city champs era
Over a span of twenty years, the Panhandles were also the best pro team in the city of Columbus. The team would compile a 33–5 record against opponents from Columbus, including an amazing 32–1 record over their last thirty-three games. The Panhandles were the best professional football team to ever come out of the capital city.Between 1914 and 1916, which were seen as best years of the franchise, the Nesser-led team went a combined 22–10–1. The majority of the early pro teams would go out of their way to schedule the Panhandles, as they knew it would be easy to advertise a game featuring the famous Nessers. In 1915, The Panhandles were rumoured to have played against the legendary Knute Rockne
Knute Rockne
Knute Kenneth Rockne was an American football player and coach. He is regarded as one of the greatest coaches in college football history...
six times in 1915. According to the team, each time they played Rockne, he was on a different team.
The NFL
In 1920 the Columbus Panhandles joined the newly formed American Professional Football Association (now called the NFL). While Carr was involved in the formation of the new league from the beginning, he turned down being president of the league so they could hire Jim ThorpeJim Thorpe
Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe * Gerasimo and Whiteley. pg. 28 * americaslibrary.gov, accessed April 23, 2007. was an American athlete of mixed ancestry...
because the new league needed a big name for publicity.
First AFPA/NFL game
The Panhandles may have played in the first AFPA/NFL game. However due to not having the games start at a standardized time, and the failure of the NFL of recording the start times, historians can not determine for sure which two team played in the first league match-up. What is known for a fact is that the first contests between teams listed as APFA members occurred on October 3, 1920. On that date, the Panhandles were defeated by the Dayton Triangles, 14-0, at Triangle ParkTriangle Park (Dayton)
Triangle Park is a former American football stadium located in Dayton, Ohio. The stadium was home to the Dayton Triangles of the National Football League from 1920 to 1929. It had a capacity of 5,000 spectators. It was located at the confluence of the Great Miami River and Stillwater River. On...
, and the Rock Island Independents
Rock Island Independents
The Rock Island Independents were a professional American football team based in Rock Island, Illinois. One of the first professional football teams, they were founded in 1907 as an independent club. They later played in what is now the National Football League from 1920 to 1925. They joined the...
beat the Muncie Flyers
Muncie Flyers
The Muncie Flyers from Muncie, Indiana played in the National Football League from 1920-1921.-Origins:...
, 45-0, in Rock Island
Rock Island, Illinois
Rock Island is the county seat of Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. The population was 40,884 at the 2010 census. Located on the Mississippi River, it is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring Moline, East Moline, and the Iowa cities of Davenport and Bettendorf. The Quad Cities...
. One of these two games marked the first league game; because, at the time, Indiana and Illinois were in the Central Time Zone, they would have been more likely to start their game an hour later in real time than the teams in Ohio, lending greater credence to the Panhandles' claim to being participants in the first NFL game.
Columbus Tigers
Following the 1921 season, Carr became the league's new president and renamed the AFPA, the NFL. He then discontinued the Panhandles after the 1922 season. Because of cost and salary demands, the team simply couldn't compete in the league. Columbus remained basically a semi-proSemi-professional
A semi-professional athlete is one who is paid to play and thus is not an amateur, but for whom sport is not a full-time occupation, generally because the level of pay is too low to make a reasonable living based solely upon that source, thus making the athlete not a full professional...
team made up almost entirely of hometown players, and the three Nesser brothers still with the team were past their prime.
Following the 1922 season, the Panhandles became the Columbus Tigers. This new team was purchased by local businessmen, as a traveling team, and played in the NFL from 1923 to 1926 seasons before disbanding. In 1923, the Tigers attained their best ranking in the NFL, finishing eighth. The next season, the squad finished tenth, and then ended their final two seasons twentieth and nineteenth respectively.
Season-by-season
| Year | W | L | T | Finish | Coach | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Panhandles | 1904 | 2 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 1905 | no team | |||||
| 1906 | no team | |||||
| 1907 | 2 | 3 | 1 | |||
| 1908 | 3 | 3 | 1 | |||
| 1909 | 7 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 1910 | 3 | 2 | 2 | |||
| 1911 | 5 | 4 | 1 | |||
| 1912 | 3 | 5 | 1 | |||
| 1913 | 3 | 4 | 1 | |||
| 1914 | 7 | 2 | 0 | |||
| 1915 | 8 | 3 | 1 | |||
| 1916 | 7 | 5 | 0 | |||
| 1917 | 2 | 6 | 0 | |||
| 1918 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |||
| 1919 | 3 | 6 | 1 | |||
| 1920* | 2 | 6 | 2 | 13th | Ted Nesser Ted Nesser Theodore Nesser Jr. was a professional football player-coach in the "Ohio League" and the early National Football League. During his career he played mainly for the Columbus Panhandles, however he did also play for a little for the Massillon Tigers, Akron Indians, Canton Bulldogs and the Shelby... |
|
| 1921* | 1 | 8 | 0 | 17th | Ted Nesser | |
| 1922* | 0 | 8 | 0 | 18th | Herb Dell | |
| Tigers | 1923* | 5 | 4 | 1 | 8th | Gaylord Stinchcomb Gaylord Stinchcomb Gaylord Roscoe "Pete" Stinchcomb was an American football player. He played quarterback and halfback at Ohio State University where he was selected as an All-American in 1920. He later played professional football for the Chicago Bears , Columbus Tigers , Cleveland Indians , and Louisville... , Gus Tebell Gus Tebell -External links:... |
| 1924* | 4 | 4 | 0 | 10th | Red Weaver Red Weaver -Coaching career:Weaver was the head football coach for the West Virginia Tech Golden Bears located in Montgomery, West Virginia. He held that position for the 1921 season... |
|
| 1925* | 0 | 9 | 0 | 20th | Red Weaver | |
| 1926* | 1 | 6 | 0 | 19th | Jack Heldt | |
- *-Member NFL, but non-league games included in record.