Jack Cusack
Encyclopedia
Jack Cusack was one of the prominent early figures in professional football
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...

 in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

. At the age of twenty-one, Cusack became the manager and owner of the Canton Bulldogs
Canton Bulldogs
The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and its successor, the National Football League, from 1920 to 1923 and again from 1925 to 1926. The Bulldogs would go on to win the 1917, 1918...

, one of the leading teams of the day. During his six years with the Canton Bulldogs, Cusack led the team to 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...

 championships, in 1916 and 1917, and was responsible for bringing Jim Thorpe
Jim Thorpe
Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe * Gerasimo and Whiteley. pg. 28 * americaslibrary.gov, accessed April 23, 2007. was an American athlete of mixed ancestry...

 into professional football. Cusack also is responsible for helping revive the Bulldogs following the Canton Bulldogs-Massillon Tigers Betting Scandal
Canton Bulldogs-Massillon Tigers Betting Scandal
The Canton Bulldogs–Massillon Tigers betting scandal was the first major scandal in professional football in the United States. It refers to a series of allegations made by a Massillon newspaper charging the Canton Bulldogs coach, Blondy Wallace, and Massillon Tigers end, Walter East, of conspiring...

, which eroded public support for the game from 1906 until 1911. He also ensured that the Bulldogs had a sturdy financial foundation for when they would later enter 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...

. In 1918, Cusack left football to enter the oil and gasoline business in Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

. He later worked as an independent oil operator in Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...

.

Early life and the Bulldogs betting scandal

Cusack developed a love for professional football during the early days of the Canton Bulldogs franchise, then headed up by Blondy Wallace
Blondy Wallace
Charles Edgar "Blondy" Wallace was an early professional football player. He was a 240-pound, former Walter Camp second-team All-American tackle from the University of Pennsylvania. He also played two years at Peddie Institute, in New Jersey, winning state championships in 1896 and 1897...

. In 1906 though the Bulldogs were accused of throwing a game to rival Massillon Tigers
Massillon Tigers
The Massillon Tigers were an early professional football team from Massillon, Ohio. Playing in the "Ohio League", the team was a rival to the pre-National Football League version of the Canton Bulldogs. The Tigers won Ohio League championships in 1903, 1904, 1905, and 1906, then merged to become...

. Making one of the earliest accusations was Victor Kaufmann, who had lost a heavy bet on the disputed contest. Right after the Bulldogs returned to Canton, the day of the 13-6 loss to Massillion, Kaufmann and Cusack went to the Courtland Hotel Bar, where most of the Bulldogs had congregated to post-mortem the game. There a fight broke out after Kaufman accused the Bulldogs of throwing the game. The fight engulfed the whole bar and police had to be called in. Kauffman and Cusack escaped the bar, before the police showed up. In his book, "A Pioneer in Pro Football", Cusack still believed, years later, that the Bulldogs and Wallace threw the game.

Pro football

A Canton team was organized in 1912, with all games held at League Park
League Park
League Park was a baseball park located in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was situated at the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and E. 66th Street in the Hough neighborhood. It was home to the National League Cleveland Spiders, the American League Cleveland Indians, and the Cleveland...

, owned by Ed Piero and Dr. Lothamer. The new organization was called the Canton Professionals for fears that the old Bulldog name would bring back memories of the 1906 scandal. In 1912 this time, at the age of 21, Cusack became the team's secretary-treasurer, at no cost to the team, as a favor to Roscoe Oberlin. However Cusack was disliked by the current Professionals manager H.H. Halter. Cusack later went behind Halter's back to sign a contract with Peggy Parrett's
Peggy Parratt
George Watson "Peggy" Parratt was a professional football player who played in the "Ohio League" prior to it becoming a part of the National Football League...

 Akron Indians, concerning conditions for a match between the two squads, something Halter was unable to do. When Jack's actions were discovered by Halter, he tried to dispose of Jack's services through a team meeting. However during the meeting the team sided Cusack, after discovering that he had secured a 5-year lease on League Park for the Pros. The result was Halter being removed from the team, and Jack being named the team's new manager.

As manager of the Pros, Cusack slowly added star college players to his roster along with the local sandlotters who constituted the bulk of the team. To make the team more profitable he had 1,500 seats added to League Park. Also Jack felt that the Pros had to live down the 1906 scandal and gain the public's confidence in the honesty of the game. It was his theory that if he could stop players from jumping from one team to another, it would be a first step in the right direction. Therefore, the managers made a verbal agreement that once a player signed with a team he was that team's property as long as he played, or until he was released by management. Finally Cusack revived the Canton-Massillon rivalry in 1915. With the rivalry, fans began referring to Canton as the "Bulldogs" again. Soon afterwards Cusack reinstated the team's former name.

Signing Thorpe

Just before Canton's first game with the newly revived Massillon Tigers, Cusack signing the Jim Thorpe, the Sac and Fox Indian from Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

 who was then rated as the world's greatest football player, and all-around athlete. He had Thorpe under contract to play for Canton for $250 a game. Thorpe ended up being a huge draw for Canton bringing record numbers of fans to the games. Canton lost the first game to the Tigers 16-0, however they won the second game 6-0.

Under Cusack the Bulldogs won the 1916 and 1917 Ohio League Championships. Even with World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 taking place, Canton still had a tough team. However with more players going into the armed forces, football came to a halt until after the Armistice, in November 1918.

Oil Business

After leaving high school in 1907, Jack went to work as an office employee for the East Ohio Gas Company, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...

. When professional football took a hiatus for World War I. Jack returned to the oil business in Oklahoma. In the spring of 1919 he received a letter from Ralph Hay
Ralph Hay
Ralph E. Hay was the owner of the Canton Bulldogs from 1918 until 1923. However he is mostly recognized for organizing the first meeting of teams that would later former the American Professional Football Association, later called the National Football League....

  stating that he would like to carry on with the team if he was not returning. Ralph, who was a very good friend of both Thorpe and Jack, was acquainted with most of our 1916 and 1917 players, and therefore was in position to organize a team from that foundation. Jack decided to let Hay go ahead rather than withdraw from his oil operations. he transferred the lease on League Park to Hay.

Back to football

In 1921, Cusack left Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

, after contracting malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

, for Canton. There met up with Thorpe, who was now playing for the Cleveland Tigers. He hired Cusack to look after his personnel affairs as he felt the he wasn't receiving his full amount of gate money owed to him. he later found out that when Cleveland played in a baseball venue, the stadium personnel would take a larger cut for themselves and leave the rest for the players. He also found out that over 800-900 complimentary tickets were given out per contest, far above the allowable amount. Cusack soon found himself collecting all of the monies due to the every Tigers player. Even when the treasurer of the Tigers tried to run off with over $3,750 owed to the team, Cusack and Thorpe tracked him down and returned the money to the players. he soon became the manager for the Tigers for two games before quitting in 1922. Cusack later became an independent oil operator living in Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...

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