The Monday After: Bender's Tavern a star in film depicting start of pro football in Canton

The founders of organized pro football – the men who met in Canton more than a century ago and formed the body of teams that became the National Football League – are remembered in the new film, "Triangle Park."

"I’m looking forward to shining a light on one of the best unknown stories in professional sports," says Allen Farst of PalMar Studios in Dayton, the film's director and screenwriter.

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The film, part drama and part documentary about the first professional football game at Triangle Park in Dayton, recalls players on the Dayton team. But it also remembers such football pioneers as Cantonian Ralph Hay, at whose Hupmobile dealership early team owners first met in August 1920. It remembers such other team owners as George Halas, whose Chicago team (originally the Decatur Staleys) became the Chicago Bears in the NFL. And, the movie pays homage to the great Jim Thorpe, legendary star player of the Canton Bulldogs and first president of the American Professional Football Conference, which became the NFL.

Those men and others gathered often at Bender's Tavern in Canton, working out details of the new league. The part played by the dining establishment in the formation of the NFL is dramatized by scenes filmed last year at the restaurant.

"Boys, to the future of the NFL," is the toast captured in one historically dramatic scene.

The film on Oct. 25 will begin a tour of Ohio theater premieres before its Canton date on Nov. 15 at the historic Palace Theatre. A sold-out VIP reception at Bender’s will precede the film’s screening.

Bender's Tavern owner Jon Jacob welcomed the film crew into the establishment and said it was a privilege to have scenes filmed in the Tap Room.

"We love to promote the Hall of Fame City; we've been doing that for years," Jacob said. "Knowing the story he (Farst) wanted to tell, it was an honor."

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The voices viewers of the film will hear are not only dramatizations of actors portraying those founders. "Triangle Park" also features the observations on the early history of the game made by such familiar football players and analysts as Cris Collinsworth, Eric Dickerson, Joe Buck, Kirk Herbstreit, Sean McVay, Troy Aikman, Joe Theismann, Suzy Kolber, Ben Roethlisberger and Tony Dungy.

"The National Football League's history," Collinsworth, a retired Cincinnati Bengals player and now a color commentator, says in the film's trailer, "follows the same path as American society."

"These millions of fans who love the NFL, they should want to know where it started," adds play-by-play announcer Buck, recalling the contest on Oct. 3, 1920, between the Columbus Panhandles and the Dayton Triangles at the latter team's Triangle Park.

"It had to start somewhere," Buck notes in the film, "and it started right there."

History recalled by HOF

A page on the website for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton – a valued collaborator in research done for the film – details the Bender's tie to NFL history, beginning by calling the "eroded stone step leading to the establishment's bar" of the city's oldest restaurant "a symbol of a historic moment."

"On a hot September Friday night in 1920, representatives of 10 football teams from four states – Akron, Canton, Cleveland and Dayton (Ohio); Hammond and Muncie (Indiana); Rochester (New York); and Rock Island, Decatur and Racine (Illinois) – congregated in the Hupmobile showroom of Ralph Hay, the manager of the Canton Bulldogs. The result of the meeting was the formation of the National Football League, first known as the American Professional Football Association," the website history recalls.

"Lore, and likely fact, is that George Halas, Jim Thorpe and the others at the founding meeting enjoyed dinner together that evening by stepping through the then-less-worn entrance to the dining spot across the street. The men celebrated the formation of the first professional football league that brought order to the sport."

The history repeated an excerpt of the brief article that The Canton Repository carried the next day reporting that Thorpe of the Canton Bulldogs – "the greatest pigskin chaser of all time" – was chosen to head the American Professional Football Association, "the only professional football organization in existence."

Jacob recalls stories

Canton was a growing industrial city in 1920, whose hardworking residents still found time for such sports as baseball and, because of the success of the Bulldogs, football – enough to cause the city to become the focal point of the professional sport.

Ed Bender owned Bender's a little more than century ago. Jacob has heard the story of those days. He had heard the late Dr. Ralph King, grandson of Ralph Hay, speak of how the early leaders of professional football gathered at his grandfather's Hupmobile dealership, sitting on the running boards of showroom vehicles.

"He would tell the story of how Hay and Thorpe and the others would come over to Benders and hang out at the bar."

The fourth generation Bender's owner also listened to tales told by family members who had operated the tavern before him.

"The story I've always heard was Jim Thorpe would come in and he'd order a bottle of whiskey for himself and a bottle for his friends."

Jacob also listened as his grandfather, Wilbur Jacob, related details of more recent football gatherings.

"Bender's was the location for meetings of the gentlemen who had to figure out how to convince the NFL to put the Hall of Fame in Canton. They reasoned that we had the Bulldogs and we had Jim Thorpe and we had Hay. All of those meetings (in the 1960s) happened here at the restaurant."

So, Jacob welcomed film crews to Bender's a year ago for a full day of shooting dramatic scenes and documentary interviews in the Tap Room.

"The scene itself was more celebratory, after they had agreed upon all the details about the league."

Farst tells hometown tale

Rebekah Elam, a producer of the film, noted filming of "Triangle Park" at Benders was done in September 2022, but the idea was born earlier in the mind of Farst.

"We were looking to do something more local," she explained. "He's a huge football fan, and the first game was played right here in Dayton, where he was born and raised."

Farst noted that they were just coming off filming a documentary about Chuck Leavell – "The Tree Man" – of the Rolling Stones and wondered "what would be something that could match the story of one of the greatest keyboardists."

"The NFL sounded logical," said Farst. "The story of the first game had been sitting around for almost 100 years and it hadn't been told."

Farst talked to descendents of players in that game, played in front of 5,000 fans in the autumn of 1920, and each added "a bit of the ingredients" for his film.

"All that was needed was a chef to bring it all together," said Farst. "I decided to be that chef."

Farst, who played quarterback from fourth grade through high school, has a love of football, and was an appropriate person to direct such a film.

"I love the game and I would love to have gone to that first game to have seen them play because they would have played for the love of the game."

Film premieres in several Ohio cities

"Triangle Park" will debut Wednesday during a sold-out showing at The Plaza Theatre in Miamisburg. Additional showings in Miamisburg, Dayton, Cleveland, Columbus, and Yellow Springs will be offered in the "Ohio tour" early in November.

Yet-to-be-announced special showings will be in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Denver, Dallas and New York and other cities with NFL teams.

"Fans of all 32 teams will get a chance to see the film," Farst assured.

Stark County residents will be able to experience the 90-minute film on Canton's largest screen at the Palace Theatre at 7 p.m. Nov. 15. Tickets to view the film are $20, on sale at cantonpalacetheatre.org, at the box office, or at the door. Doors will open at 6 p.m., with the film starting at 7 p.m. A question-and-answer session with filmmaker Allen Farst will follow the film.

Theatergoers will see a dramatic recreation of the events during and surrounding the Dayton game at Triangle Park. But, they also will see current celebrities of the sport, among them Hall of Famers and well-known sportscasters. Farst combined documentary and drama so he could better educate and engage viewers.

"You want to both entertain and enlighten viewers," Farst explained, "and show them what it might be like to be in the first game."

Being allowed to film at Bender's and also to research the Dayton game through images and artifacts at the Pro Football Hall of Fame assisted Farst in being able to achieve both those goals, he said. Football fans who want to celebrate the sport would be well advised to do similar "research" on road trips after viewing the film.

The historic locker room from Triangle Park still exists in Dayton, although it was moved to a place of honor at Carillon Park in 2012.

"People could go there and feel what it would be like to play. Anyone who loves the game should go there," said Farst. "And then they could take a drive up to Canton to see all the wonderful things they have at the Hall of Fame."

Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On Twitter: @gbrownREP

This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: The Monday After: Bender's Tavern a star in film depicting start of pro football in Canton