Uncovering Pennsylvania’s Hidden Football Legacy

Did you know that the Pro Football.

Hall of Fame was nearly built in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, instead of Canton?

Welcome back to the Pigskin Dispatch.

Today we're exploring the deep roots of the Keystone State football or with prolific sports historian Dave Finoli, a Duquesne journalism graduate who is retiring from a 42 year career to write full time.

David is a powerhouse author behind 48 books already, and we're diving into his latest two releases today.

Dave Finoli, welcome to the Pig Pen.

Hi.

Well, happy to be here, Dave.

So before we get started here and talking about your books, why don't you give us a little bit of background on what got you to this point in your life where you're writing about football and sports in general.

Well, it was a long time coming.

I was a graduate of the journalism department at Duquesne University with the full intention of becoming a sports reporter.

Wearing the colors on your head today?

Wearing.

Always love my school.

Absolutely.

And back then it was, it was kind of tough to get a job in, in journalism, at least one that, that paid well.

And I was getting married, had an offer to be an assistant buyer at a, at a store, Joseph Horns, in an old store in, in Pittsburgh.

And boy, I'll tell you, I did that with the thought of figuring I'd do this a couple years and then become a, a full time writer in a couple years.

And you know, I'm going to be retiring at the end of, of this week.

So after 42 years, I'm finally going to be able to live that dream and become.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

But it took, it took probably about 20 years and I had always wanted to write books.

I loved history, get into that.

Didn't have the confidence I could do it.

My wife looked at me one day because I had this idea about a book on baseball during World War II.

And I kept saying to my wife, boy, I'd love to get this.

And she was sick of hearing me say it.

You know, this is doing you no good.

And she was right.

And I submitted it to McFarland Publishers.

And knock on wood, luckily they, they like the idea.

And it was called for the good of the country and kind of took a look at baseball during the people that stayed behind, which tons of people, I mean, if you can imagine, you know, some of the great players here, Paul Skeens going to war, they all were, they all went to war to serve their country.

And the game was left to be played by those too young to be drafted, those too old, or those who were what they called four Fs were too injured to enter the service.

So it was an interesting time.

But Franklin Roosevelt decided that people needed the morale of the game.

So he kind of convinced baseball to keep going.

And it was such a, to me, a fascinating period.

So that got to be my first book, Sports Publishing Inc. Who at the time was the biggest publisher of sportsbooks in the country.

It was doing a series of encyclopedias on teams.

Read my book, saw I was from Pittsburgh, asked if I'd like to do one on the Pirates, which I jumped at.

And that kind of got me going.

Holy cow, you got one for almost every state now, don't you?

But it's, it's, it's been a real joy.

But you're doing that working another full time job that's not even in the, the same realm.

So I can't, I can't imagine what's going to happen once you retire here next week.

Well, I'm gonna take a week off and then I, I'm gonna put full bore into a couple projects and.

I'm.

Just happy as can be about it.

Well, that's a good segue into.

Because we started talking because you have a couple books that are coming out.

One just came out recently.

Have another one coming out in the very near future that are on Pennsylvania football history and maybe I guess you give the titles for those and where folks can get a copy of them and then maybe give us a little bit of background on each of those.

Sure.

The one we just put out, it's called Pennsylvania Made.

I did it with Tom Rooney, who is part of the Rooney family and he used to be president of the Penguins.

So he has a vast knowledge, was a journalism student at Duquesne too, which I came across meeting him after I'd done a book on our 55 national championship team at Duquesne and he enjoyed it.

And we've done 11 books since then, but it's done through the history press and available on Amazon.com and they wanted a book on kind of celebrating America 250 in different parts of the country.

So we decided to write a book on the history of sports in Pennsylvania and decided to do it through 50 essays, which a lot of our books are.

Are done that way.

We just feel it's.

And it covers all sports.

But probably the.

The biggest chunk of it is, is through our vast history of football.

You know, we were talking you.

And probably my favorite chapter in the book.

And I grew up in Greensburg, so you know, I'm always fascinated when I see something on my hometown.

And this Latrobe thought they had a guy, John Bralier, who was the first professional football player lived his life like that.

In fact, Latrobe almost had the Pro Football hall of Fame.

They were given the bid for it back then.

The city had to raise the money.

The NFL was not a.

A cash cow as it is today.

And they just, they had 20 years to raise this money.

Never raised it.

That's how Canton got it in this in the early 60s.

They raised the money to build it or else the hall of Fame would be in Latrobes right now.

But eventually Pudge Heflinger was found to be the first professional player for.

For Pittsburgh played a game right near where Acreshire Stadium is.

So Latrobe had that taken away from him.

Greensburg challenged that claiming they had the first all professional team that year.

Historians claim that's probably doubtful because the amount of people but put all professionals on the field in their big games.

Well, Greensburg and Latrobe were for the championship of Western Pennsylvania.

So the book is all about my conclusion, although you'll never be able to prove it, that Greensburg and La Trobe is the first professional all professional football game where every player on the field was paid.

So that's, that's the lead chapter in this book because I've always wanted.

I've always felt that.

Really.

And anytime I've questioned historians about it, they can't answer yes or no.

Understandably so, because you don't have the contracts to prove, at least for Greensburg.

But I figure it's a safe assumption at this point.

And it was fun.

It was fun to write the article, and that's how I started out the book.

And we went from there.

But to me, that is still one of the most fascinating stories.

We did one on the Pottsville Maroons, which you wrote a fabulous book on.

Thank you.

And I mean, again, I called my chapter championship denied.

And my synopsis there was while it's a shame they were stolen, and they were stolen, that championship, no ifs, hands or buts.

They deserve it.

So in a weird way, that team is immortal because they lost that championship.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, I think you might be right there.

Yeah.

But.

But that.

That's the book Pennsylvania made.

Very successful Division 3.

Nick Sirianni, the coach of the Eagles, his brother is the longtime coach at Washington and Jefferson.

Great guy.

Charles west was their quarterback.

African American became the first African American to start in.

In the Rose bowl, and they had a huge upset.

They tied Cal 0 to 0, which Cal was a huge, huge favorite that day.

It's considered one of the great upsets of all time.

And, you know, we tell the story of that, this little school, and eventually we're able to claim a national championship off it.

That story is very intimate to me, too, because I wrote a book on that.

When Grisi met the Wonder coach back a few years ago, because Andy Smith, the coach of the Cal Wonder teams, was from Dubois, Pennsylvania, and you had Greasy Neil with W and J.

So that was my.

My Pennsylvania connection here.

Both teams were Pennsylvania connected.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Andy Smith was a former Penn State player, and he played for the University of Pennsylvania.

Right after that, he.

He got stolen from Penn State by the pen.

See, it didn't happen today.

Doesn't just happen today.

Yeah, yeah.

Those are fun stories.

Absolutely.

And by damn, Carnegie Tech upset Notre Dame that day, cost him the national championship.

And, you know, but we do that talking about Greasy Neil.

We.

We talk about the Steagalls when Philadelphia and Pittsburgh combined during the war.

So it just was a lot of fun to relive.

We did a lot of modern stuff certainly, too.

But, you know, to me, that those stories that you're able to retell that a lot of people and in newer generations have not heard of but, you know, are from these areas, from these schools.

Carnegie Mellon graduates, you know, are fascinated to hear these stories of when their team was, you know, among the best.

I mean, between Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon, you have Duquesne, Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon 2.5 miles down Forbes Avenue.

Imagine that as a.

As a college football fan, being able to see three top 15 teams in a two and a half mile radius.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

I mean, so we just had a lot of fun with it.

Yeah.

Then if you count W and J and that which is not too much further away, you got.

You had some of the best teams around.

You know, those.

Some great football in that early 20th century.

True.

I mean, you even count Geneva, that had a decent football team.

The do an article on that, the birthplace of college basketball.

It was first.

First played on the campus of Geneva College.

So.

Yeah, so, I mean, just, just as I said, a lot of.

A lot of fun things.

We go into all sports, even horse racing, and talk about Mario Andretti at.

At the Pocono Speedway.

But again, to me, the most fun was the football aspect of the book.

Our modern eyes don't watch it.

But there's just so many great stories, and these guys just did it for the fun and the love of it because they really didn't make much money.

Even the professionals, they did because they loved playing ball and loved playing before a crowd and just had a lot of fun and lived life, you know?

Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

And I mean, in the 30s under Jack Sutherland, who to me is the greatest coach dash manager Pittsburgh has ever seen.

I'm going, I'm toying around with an idea on top 50.

I've done top 50 players and teams in a book for the history press and I'm thinking about doing one on coaches.

And I will give you the spoiler alert.

He'd be My number one, without question.

Lost 25 games in a 13 year period, won five national championships.

Then the year before he dies, he takes over the Steelers.

And I claim they would have won an NFL championship before 74 had he not died of a brain tumor the night the next year.

But fascinating.

Yeah, especially before Sutherland.

You had Pop Warner, you know, his, his remarkable run at Pitt and.

Yeah, some great coaching there, for sure.

Absolutely.

It was, I mean this was where college football lived.

This is where we're pro football began.

I mean you, you can't ask for better stories and just a better history than football in Western Pennsylvania.

Yeah, well, I guess that, that almost,.

You know, talking about Pitt, that almost segues us into your upcoming book.

Maybe you'd like to talk about that, tell us the title and where folks can get it.

It's called Together We Stand.

And you can buy both books on Amazon.

You can also buy it.

I have a website with all my books.

Obviously, Mario and Roberto, my two favorite athletes in Pittsburgh history.

And folks, if you're driving, you don't have a pen to write that down.

We'll put it in the show notes of both the podcast and the YouTube channel so you can link up to Dave's site.

I appreciate that.

It's pit after jocks Sutherland left because Pittsburgh tried to de emphasize football, which you talk about college football players getting paid.

Now back then the rumor was a pit player could afford a family of four under what the stipends that Pitt would pay their football players, which was legal back then.

It wasn't, but other colleges protested it.

Pitt was embarrassed by it, the academic part of it, and they basically forced Sutherland to leave.

And for years they had never.

They played a major schedule without having the players to compete.

And he had followed Sutherland to the NFL.

And he took this team, which was considered at best a 500 team, young team, it was growing, but not considered a top 20 team.

And he stunned the nation.

They ended up seven and three, which again, when you're expecting to be four and six, that's a heck of a season, I'll say.

And through last week where teams that were headed for bowl games kind of fell, including West Virginia, who was headed to the Sugar Bowl.

But Pitt not only beat them, they embarrassed them.

I believe it was 26 to 7.

West Virginia was a top five or six team at the time, undefeated.

And all of a sudden the Sugar bowl took its, its eyes off West Virginia and put them on Pittsburgh.

And they just had to beat Penn State, which they get.

20 Is either 20 to nothing, 26 to nothing.

But it was a pretty dominant game and they got the bid.

The one thing was the south wasn't segregated.

They knew Bobby Greer played on the team, who was an African American out of Massillon, Ohio, great high school player.

But at Pitt he just, every time he got on the field, he was the dominant runner when he would get a chance to start, especially under Michael Olson, in fact, under Red Lucas, who was the coach the year before, he had shoved him into a blowout game against North Carolina and he almost broke the pit single game record, Russian record.

He almost had 200 yards, but he wasn't back then.

We were talking about this off camera earlier.

Back then you had to be a two way player.

They didn't substitutions you could make, but they were restricted.

And Red Lucas didn't feel he was a good defensive back.

So he couldn't get on the field.

And he got on a little bit in 55, but started losing his job to a gentleman named Tom Jenkins.

By the end of the season he had hurt his knee, but he wasn't getting on the field even before that.

So they didn't think, okay, we'll invite him, we'll let him bring Bobby Greer, but he's not going to play.

He's got the injured knee.

So the governor of Georgia at the time they were playing Georgia Tech, Governor of Georgia, I forget his first name, last name Griffin, but decides to make a political stand.

He was a huge segregationist, in fact, ran as vice president under George Wallace in the 60s.

And George Wallace's independent run, who was, you know, A well known segregationist during the 60s and he was governor of Georgia at the time and decided to make this big stand.

I refused to let Georgia Tech go play with an African American on the floor.

Well, it created this huge uproar and Georgia Tech did not want to be told they couldn't go.

They made an agreement.

The president there was, seemed like an anti segregated segregationist and also came with a claim.

We signed this contract and we're not backing out the students.

Although theirs was more we want to go to the Sugar Bowl.

Descended upon the state capitol and it broke out in violence eventually forcing the governor's hand to back off his stance at the time.

So Pitt basically said.

And they stood by.

Greer basically said, you either take.

They put it up for a vote, hence the name of the book Together We Stand.

And the players basically said, we're not going if Bobby doesn't go to a T to a man.

There wasn't one person against it.

And the administration of Pitt was the same and they went the next step, you either allow him and guarantee African Americans can sit in the stands because they were restricted to a certain part.

Pitt wanted it to be broken down.

You sit wherever you want.

So they insisted that so.

But again, Guy was injured, not going to play much, hasn't played much the last three, four weeks of the year.

Well, Tom Jenkins hurts himself.

Bobby's healthy.

All of a sudden, Bobby not only gets in, he becomes a star in the game.

So the segregationists not only end up with egg on their face, but they have to deal in their minds with this embarrassment of their team being pushed around by an African American player.

And Bobby was a leading rusher that day.

And Georgia Tech wins 7 nothing.

Even though Pitt out games the heck out of Georgia Tech.

I mean they dominate the game, but they can't get in the end zone.

Georgia Tech scores on the first series.

They fumble the ball at the 20.

Their quarterback goes around, finds this guy in the end zone.

They call a pass interference call on Bobby Greer, which Bobby Greer denied till, till his death.

So they get the ball at the one yard line, score the only points of the game, seven nothing.

So I watched, I found the tape of, of the each play of the game.

It wasn't the whole game, but it showed you every single play of the game.

And you look at it and even though people at the time said yeah it was, it was pass interference.

Some of the newspapers, especially a couple of the Pittsburgh reporters, but you see exactly what Bobby Greer says.

He falls while a.

The ball is thrown Way over the head of the receiver.

The receiver is standing up, prone.

You see Bobby Greer go down well before the ball gets there, there.

So it was a BS call and you know, he was right and, and you know, but all of a sudden Bobby Greer is celebrated, you know, African Americans across the country, you know, because 55 is the tumultuous, one of the first tumultuous years of the civil rights issues in the country.

So this was, this was not.

I mean, Rosa Parks had just had her episode only a few weeks before the Sugar bowl.

So this was like a hot and heavy story.

This wasn't something that just went by.

I apologize for babbling.

I just.

No, no, it's.

Please, please do.

He becomes a star.

I mean, he wasn't necessarily invited to the post game dinner that they were having because it was in a segregated hotel.

But not only did Pitt insist on him being invited, the Georgia Tech players to a man said, you come sit with us.

And it was just an amazing bonding of this thing.

He becomes obviously a hit in the African American community.

And he goes from this little used runner and he lived until either last year or the year before.

I got to interview him a few times.

What a humble, humble.

It's, it's an honor to tell his story because of, of the humbleness and just genuine attitude this guy had.

And he was.

Became an icon.

And Pitt, in fact, he's in the hall of Fame, Pitts hall of Fame because of this.

He's in the Sugar bowl hall of Fame.

And again, the man maybe started three or four games in his career.

So.

But you know, you look at it and you say maybe statistically he didn't belong there, but for what he went through, because again, you were an African American in the forefront.

Your life was in danger.

He, he had several death, death threats and you're in the South.

In fact, if people think this opened the door to African Americans in the south, it did just the opposite.

After the game, both Georgia prohibited their teams from playing any African American teams with African Americans on them.

In they could play them outside of Georgia, but in Georgia they were not allowed to play them.

And Louisiana passed a law that forbade segregated teams or non segregated teams from playing in Louisiana.

For this went on till the 60s.

So that's how bad it was.

That's the danger he faced down there is the absolute opposite happened after this game.

But he's just a huge brave figure in the integration of not only sports in this country, but in this country.

And he's a hero whose story and all their stories.

I mean, it was a fascinating season to boot, even without that.

But, you know, the fact this little used running back, you know, makes his way into history, and in the time where many would fail because of the pressure, plays the best game he ever had at Pitt.

Just amazing that he just, you know, sports transcended, you know, all of the ill feelings and the social angst that was going on at that time for the opposing team, who's from the Deep south, to invite him to their banquet table.

That's.

That's quite a testament.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And, you know, we go through the whole.

Duquesne wins the national championship in basketball by winning the nit, which at the time was a more prestigious tournament than the ncaa.

And the Pittsburgh Hornets, who was our.

It was the ahl, which was technically a minor league, but there were only six NHL teams.

So the AHL was a big deal, especially in this country, because there were only four NHL teams in the United States.

So they won the championship that year, too.

So, you know, we kind of take you through that.

And then kind of.

Pitt also had a wrestling team that finished second in the country that year, too.

So, you know, we take you through the first City of Champions year and how it.

It kind of molded into.

Into this being the icing on the cake of just a wonderful year in Pittsburgh sports.

Ironically, the Pirates and Steelers both stunk that year, but that's okay.

Wow.

That's amazing.

So.

So, Dave, why don't you give a title of that book again so folks can.

All right, well, those are some amazing little snippets that you gave us from each of those books.

All fantastic stories in sports and football history.

It'll be available.

I should say when it's available.

It'll be available August 30th.

Okay, so we'll have it August 30th.

It'll be available hardback, soft cover, and in Kindle.

So, folks, when you're listening to this, it's.

It's available.

So we plan on having this out probably about the 31st, so be available.

That's the day before.

So make sure you can get your order in and get a copy of Dave's books here.

So.

And make sure you visit his website, because I was taking a look at it and, boy, he talks about 48 books.

There's a lot of black and gold in those books, too.

So if you love Western Pennsylvania history, you know, it's not just the Steelers and Penguins and Pirates.

It's you've got, like you said, Pitt and Duquesne and everybody else in there, too.

So.

And we're looking forward what you're going to do here with your free time in retirement.

Boy, I can't even imagine you could pop that with 48 books.

Got a couple we're going to start with, and we're hoping to have two available by Black Friday.

Wow.

All right.

Well, if you have some on football, make sure you give us a ring and you know how to get ahold of us and we'll have you come on and talk about those, too.

Absolutely.

Would love to.

David, it's been a pleasure to talk to you here about this and get to hear about your books and these great stories that you've written about.

And thank you very much for preserving the football history and sports history, especially of Pennsylvania and.

And letting other people enjoy these stories.

I appreciate being on here and certainly I'm honored to be on with such a historian himself.