DAYTON — As the excitement over the Cincinnati Bengals upcoming Super Bowl appearance builds, Dayton is celebrating and preserving its own professional football history.
The first game the NFL recognizes as part of it’s history was played in Dayton in 1920 between the Dayton Triangles and the Columbus Panhandles.
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Alex Heckman, Dayton History’s Vice President of Museum Operations, told News Center 7′s Mike Campbell that the very locker room used by the Triangles has been preserved at Carillon Historical Park.
The locker room was moved to Carillon Historical Park around 10 years ago. While it is not yet open to the public, it has been stabilized and secured. It has also gotten a new roof.
“Dayton, Ohio was where the first game was played in what became the NFL,” Heckman said, adding that the fact was memorialized in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
The modern day players offer entertainment and thrills to huge audiences in-person and on television. The size of the audience and the size of the players has changed a lot in the last 100 years.
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“A lot of them are 300-350 pounds, in that era, we are talking about these were working men, working in factories,” Heckman said.
Heckman told News Center 7 that the original players that would have dressed in this locker room, in leather helmets, weighed between 150 and 200 pounds.
The NFL recognized Dayton contribution to professional football by donating almost $500,000 to build a youth football field