Before “Friday Night Lights”

Before Friday Night Lights—the TV show, movie and book…and even before lights were used in a high school football game, there was a high school rivalry in Ohio between Massillon Washington and Canton McKinley.

Fresh off of personally completing the final episode of the TV program Friday Night Lights this past weekend, on Sunday and Monday I was in Massillon and Canton and learned of the rivalry that dates back to 1894. (To put that in perspective, Permian High School in Odessa, Texas—and featured in the book Friday Night Lights—wasn’t even established until 1959.)

The story of football in both Massillon and Canton is a long one. It’s not by accident that the Pro Football Hall of Fame is in Canton, Ohio. The NFL, first formed back in 1920 (as the American Professional Football Association) in Canton, Ohio.

And in Massillon, the Massillon Tigers were featured in the excellent 2001 documentary Go Tigers! written and directed by Kenneth A. Carlson. The Massillon Washington team is the second most winning football team in the history of high school football. (The Valdosta Wildcats in Georgia are the number one all-time most winning team in high school…along with their 23 state titles.)

Ironically, one of Massillon’s most well-known sons isn’t known for football. Bobby Knight was born in Massillon and has the record for most NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball wins (902) as a head coach.

P.S. A good mix of Friday Night Lights and Go Tigers! is the 1983 film All the Right Moves (written by Michael Kane) starring Tom Cruise as a high school football player hoping to escape life in a dying Pennsylvania steel town. A little trivia—the troubled football player by Cruise plays wears #33, the same number as troubled football player Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) in FNL.

Scott W. Smith