The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Perry’s Champion met sad, untimely demise
Football player was first Lake County prep athlete to die in athletic competition
Vaughn Champion was a standout football player for Perry in the late 1920’s. He is also a sad footnote in area history — he was the first Lake County prep athlete to die in athletic competition.
In the heart of Perry Cemetery on the corner of Center and Middle Ridge roads sits the final resting place of Vaughn Champion.
The dates marked on Champion’s headstone are jarring: • Born March 4, 1910 • Died Oct. 5, 1928 How Champion didn’t reach his 19th birthday is not just jarring. It’s tragic.
Champion was born into one of his community’s most prominent families. He was one of 11 children. He very well could have gone into the family business, like his father before him and brothers after.
He was a popular student at Perry and a multi-sport athlete, including being the school’s biggest standout in football.
But Vaughn Champion is also a sad footnote: He was the first Lake County high school athlete to die in athletic competition.
Nearly 90 years later, no pictures are known to exist of Champion — only a longsince-forgotten headstone and a story of demise that remains hard to fathom.
Champion’s father, Arthur, was the revered owner of Champion Nurseries, inheriting operation of the business from his father, Hartwell, who established it in 1891.
The Champions needed all the room their home on Narrows Road in Perry had. Arthur and his wife, Maude, had 10 children in addition to Vaughn. There were three brothers — Roger, Russell and Maurice — and seven sisters — Vera, Gladys, Geraldine, Erma, Norma, Ruth and Charlotte.
Champion dabbled in other sports outside of the fall season. He was a shot putter in track and field, including winning the event in a dual with Mentor on May 5, 1927, and played sparingly on the basketball team, seeing action in six games as a junior as Perry went 3-7. But Champion was more known for his exploits on the gridiron.
He burst on the scene as a junior, when Perry went 6-1, its lone loss coming to the Shaw lightweights. In that era, lightweights were an equivalent to junior varsity or reserve teams for some schools.
Champion scored two touchdowns and kicked an extra point in a seasonopening 19-0 win over Euclid Shore. He was at fullback in a 13-0 shutout of Mentor and “played a consistent game,” according to the Painesville Telegraph, in a 12-6 win over Kirtland.
In Week 4, Champion scored his team’s lone touchdown as it turned back Chester, 6-0.
Two weeks later, Perry was seeking to shake off an 18-0 setback to the Shaw lightweights in its penultimate game of the fall against rival Madison. Champion led the charge with a touchdown and extra point as Perry won, 13-12.
“The lone kick for the extra point after touchdown by Champion of the Perry high school team scored the winning point for the Perry outfit,” the Telegraph wrote.
Although he did not play in a season-closing 15-0 victory over Chardon, Champion impressed enough to be the lone Perry player to make the Telegraph’s 1927 all-Lake County team, garnering honorable mention.
In 1928, Perry began its football campaign in Champion’s senior year with a 43-0 loss to the Shaw lightweights, in which Champion started at fullback.
The hope was to rebound in Week 2 at Mentor.
“Probably the most important and keenly contested game of the day will be seen at Mentor,” the Telegraph reported, “when the Mentor High 11 takes on the grid team of Perry High School in the Dedication Day game in honor of the dedication of the west end school’s new athletic field, to be known as Mentor field.”
As usual — and as virtually all players did back then — Champion played both ways as Perry took on Mentor on Oct. 5, 1928.
He scored a touchdown and kicked the extra point in the first half, and the game was tied, 7-7, entering the fourth quarter when tragedy struck. On the first play of the fourth, Champion made a tackle. As player after player stood up and got out of the pile, Champion didn’t move. A timeout was called. “As the players of both teams untangled themselves and lined up for the next play, the stellar Perry halfback lay unconscious on the ground,” the Telegraph wrote.
Perry coach R.C. Faught attended to Champion and, sensing the severity of the situation, ordered he be taken from the field to the first-aid room at Mentor to be seen by doctors. The game continued to a 7-7 tie.
Champion briefly regained consciousness but then slipped into a state of coma, according to the Telegraph. Arthur Champion and uncle R.V. Clark watched as two doctors attended to Champion in that emergency room. At 5:45 p.m., Champion was declared dead by the doctors.
He was 18 years old.
The doctors believed Champion died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage.
“Vaughn had played a hard, fast game, and in order to make the tackle in which he was injured, he had to leave his feet,” the Telegraph stated. “It is thought possible that he struck his head on the ground during the play.”
And if Champion’s death wasn’t horrific enough:
“Although an excellent backfield man and a sure, steady tackler, Vaughn was in the habit of playing the game without headgear,” the Telegraph reported. “He wore none in the contest yesterday.
“When Coach Faught ... learned that the youth had died, he was overcome with grief.”
In the 1920s, helmets were leather with minimal padding.
Whether a helmet may have prevented Champion’s death will never be known.
In addition to the game account announcing Champion’s death, notes of sympathy were included.
“We wish to express the profound grief of Mentor High School over the unfortunate death of Vaughn Champion at the Perry-Mentor game yesterday,” one note read. “There exists an unusual friendly relationship between the two schools, and because of this fact the parents and Perry High School have our sincere sympathy.”
On the Monday after Champion’s death Oct. 8, school was canceled at Perry “to honor the memory of the popular youth” and so the community could attend his funeral service at his home.
It was also announced the remainder of Perry’s football schedule was canceled that fall.
Lake County schools superintendent F.H. Kendall told the Telegraph it was the first death of its kind in the county in interscholastic athletics.
With The Rev. E.P. Wyckoff, pastor of the Perry Methodist Church, and its former pastor and longtime family friend A.B. Johnson presiding, Champion’s service was held.
An overflow crowd filled the Narrows Road home and its front yard, including his entire senior class, the football team, school administrators and much of the student body in addition to family and friends.
It appears — perhaps in deference in Champion — no all-Lake County football team was named in 1928.
Champion’s brothers later went on to inherit the nursery business from Arthur, who died in 1950. He was preceded in death by Maude, who passed away in 1947 and was said to be devoted to her family, which at that time included 13 grandchildren from her 10 surviving children.
Today’s edition of the Perry football team returns to the Division IV elite eight Nov. 10 against Steubenville in a rematch of a state semifinal from a year ago.
Across the street from where the Pirates practice and play their home games today rests one of the first standout football players in school history.
His headstone may be the only remnant of a tragedy and life cut far too short.
But the words captured in the Painesville Telegraph by the paper’s sports editor after his death endure:
“He had played a sterling game, just as he had always been a sterling character in the life he led. His winning smile, pleasing manner and good nature will be greatly missed. To his parents and relatives, his friends and acquaintances, we offer our sincere sympathy.”