MASSILLON, Ohio — The greater Canton area is filled with rich football history. Massillon is a community just 10 miles west of Canton and the community’s love for football dates back more than a century.
“I don’t want to say it’s a lifestyle, but it truly is. It’s kind of one of the things that cements this community together,” said Bailey Yoder, curator of Football Heritage at the Massillon Museum.
Yoder researched the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and the coronavirus pandemic to compare their impact on the game of football in Massillon and around the state. Her findings are on display in the museum’s temporary exhibit, “Flu and Football.”
“The players were going on Zoom and facetime calls [for] their workouts to keep themselves accountable. So a lot of these players were using cinder blocks at home or milk jugs filled with water if they didn’t have an at-home gym,” Yoder said about the 2020 football season.
In the early 1900s, players weren’t able to practice at all for weeks at a time.
Yoder’s research found more similarities like newspaper photos of masked fans at games. Yoder said it’s important to make these historical comparisons, to learn from our past and look forward to the future.
“A lot of the time, history is forgotten. And that’s when history starts to repeat itself. People 100 years ago, we’re doing the same things that we are today to try to help curb the spread and to make sure that everybody remains safe and healthy,” Yoder said.
Flu and Football is open now until Jan. 10.
