Six-Man: Small Town Football in Eastern Ohio, 1937-1963

In the first half of the 20th Century, in the rolling hills of Eastern Ohio, a land the Mingo and Seneca once called home, eight teams were gridiron warriors in the vanguard of six-man football. This is the story of that sport’s birth, growth and ultimate end there, in the hardscrabble towns where it was played – written by the son of Eastern Ohio’s most successful six-man coach.

Traveling the back roads of Eastern Ohio, through a checkerboard landscape of family farms and deciduous forests above deep-shaft coal mines, from town to town, from house to house, the author, with the help of surviving players and local amateur historians, compiled this record. With color photos of memorabilia, histories and photos of the championship teams, it brings back to life the six-man experience in those small towns.

The work is sprinkled with player anecdotes, both light-hearted and inspirational, as well as the author’s memories, as a youngster, of his father, the teams he coached and their proud opponents.