The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Harvey once beat Fairport, 150-0
When triple-digit scoring happens on a football video game, such as the Madden franchise, it’s a fun time for gamers getting everything to go right and watching the mayhem ensue.
When it happens in the realm of actual football, it’s staggering and historic.
On Oct. 15, 1921, there were no controllers or resets — a tripledigit margin happened for real.
The year before Harvey’s eventual longtime home opened on West Washington Street in Painesville, its football team welcomed its neighbors to the north from Fairport for a game one infamous Saturday afternoon.
Final score: Harvey 150, Fairport 0.
According to research and Ohio High School Athletic Association state football records, there are two known instances among area teams and 11 in Ohio during which a team amassed 125 points or more in one game. The other area instance was when Euclid Shore defeated Middlefield, 127-0, on Oct. 3, 1930.
Nearly a century later, the background to this area’s most decisive gridiron rout can now be shared.
Fairport’s trek to the long-gone field on Liberty Street in Painesville in 1921 was its first-ever football game, as described in the 1923 edition of the Harbor Light, Fairport’s yearbook:
“In the fall of 1921, when Coach (George) Wolff first called for candidates for the football team, there was not a single one that had had any practice or knowledge of the game.
“The response to the first call was great, considering the number and quality of available material. During the first few weeks, the boys did not have any uniforms, but that did not deter them from practicing with the greatest zest.”
As Fairport learned how to play football, Harvey was trying to learn what it had.
On Sept. 6, its team met for the 1921 season’s first practice, set for 6 p.m. so boys who worked in the afternoon would be able to attend afterward.
“Although the team will be lighter than that of last year, Coach Hendershot predicts that the 11 will overcome the weight handicap by their speed,” the Painesville Telegraph wrote.
“The real problem, it is believed, will be to develop the backfield, which will be made up mostly of green men. Many of the men who had backfield experience in 1920 have been declared ineligible on account of being down in their studies, and they will be lost to the team for the entire year.”
Key contributors were expected to be Don Gleason at fullback, Clarence Hudson
at end, Frank Bradley at quarterback and halfback Eddie Watrous.
Harvey started 1-2-1, with blowout losses to Ashtabula Harbor and Geneva, a 9-0 shutout of Conneaut and a 6-6 tie with Cleveland Heights. Week 5 was originally slated to be an open date for the team until Fairport filled the void.
The Telegraph attempted a positive spin the day prior, Oct. 14:
“Painesville will have the pleasure of seeing Fairport High and Painesville High battle for grid honors here at Liberty Street Saturday afternoon,” the game preview read. “Both teams are in good condition and it is said although this is Fairport High’s first venture on the gridiron, it will be a scrappy battle from the start to finish.
“The Fairport team will probably outweigh the Painesville eleven, but Painesville will try to make up the handicap in weight by the speed that the ends have.”
Fairport’s first-ever starting lineup was announced, including fullback Carl Freeman, halfbacks Victor Congos and Tommy Sontai and ends Darry Caper and Albert Katrin.
The team had practiced without uniforms, and only one player was reported by the Telegraph to have the proper shoes for the sport.
The shoes issue wasn’t corrected in time for the game — and the uniform issue almost wasn’t either.
The uniforms for Fairport’s first football game in school history arrived game day morning, hours before kickoff.
“The Painesville gang is ready to pounce down upon the newly organized team of Fairport and to show them what real football is,” the Telegraph wrote in its game preview.
Pounce — and trounce — they did.
Harvey scored 75 points in each half and got touchdowns from nine players. Five kicked extra points.
Watrous, who had scored his team’s only two offensive touchdowns in the first month of the season, scored 10 against Fairport alone. Hudson found the end zone three times and kicked a team-high five extra points.
The Telegraph wasn’t published Sundays, so the sports staff had plenty of time to write a summary.
“The game was practically a track meet, and the Painesville lads got out of breath running down the field for touchdowns almost every time they took the ball,” read the game account in the Oct. 17, 1921, edition of the Telegraph.
Harvey went 2-3 the rest of the way, defeating Chardon and Jefferson, and finished 4-5-1, scoring 150 points against Fairport and 73 vs. everyone else. Fairport didn’t win a game in its inaugural season.
“The season progressed with nothing but defeats for the local lads,” the Harbor Light stated. “And such defeats! One would have thought that the boys would quit after such a disastrous season, but instead, the never give up spirit that has always been accredited to Fairport came to the fore and the boys were more determined than ever to succeed during the next season.”
In Week 1 of 1922, Fairport got its maiden win, defeating Madison, 13-6.
By the end of the 1920s, Fairport was holding its own and giving something back to those who showed no mercy at the outset.
Defeats of Harvey came, in regular-season meetings and in the teams’ Thanksgiving morning showdowns, and in turn so did give and take in the series as it began to reach its loftiest heights in the first half of the 20th century.
“Although this is Fairport’s first year at football,” the Telegraph wrote in 1921, “it is expected that her team will be a hard one to beat.”
That eventually came true, but from especially humble beginnings one infamous Saturday afternoon that commenced a long and occasionally storied rivalry between two neighbors.