The central theme of this podcast episode revolves around the centennial celebration of the Pottsville Maroons, a notable football team from 1925, which I recently attended. This occasion not only commemorated the rich history of the team but also highlighted the enduring community spirit surrounding it, as evidenced by the mayor's proclamation of August 16, 2025, as Pottsville Maroons Day. I recount the experiences of the celebration, which included a tour of significant historical sites in Pottsville, such as the Schoolkill County Historical Society and the Yingling Brewery. Furthermore, I detail my interactions with fellow historians, former NFL players, and members of the Maroons' families, all of whom contributed to the remembrance of this storied franchise. The episode culminates in a discussion of my recently published book, "Marooned," which details the rise, fall, and redemption of the Pottsville Maroons in the annals of NFL history.

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The podcast embarks on an exploration of a significant event in American football history: the centennial celebration of the Pottsville Maroons' 1925 championship team. This occasion was marked by a gathering in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where community members, former NFL players, and football historians convened to commemorate the legacy of a team that played a pivotal role in the early years of professional football. The hosts share their firsthand experiences from the celebratory weekend, detailing a series of tours and events that took place. They recount visits to historical sites, including the Schuylkill County Historical Society, where artifacts of the Maroons were displayed, and the Yingling Brewery, underscoring the town's rich cultural tapestry. The episode captures the essence of the event, showcasing the community spirit and the continued passion for the Maroons even after a hundred years, as well as highlighting the contributions of notable figures associated with the team, such as Joe Zacko, whose legacy as a fan and supporter remains strong within the town.

We got a great program for you today.

We're here to tell you more about it right after this.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at.

A hello my football friends.

This is Darren.

He's a pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit of football history.

And you may see the background is a little bit different if you're watching on our YouTube channel.

And co author Jeffrey Payne and myself joined other authors and the whole town along with some former NFL stars and to help celebrate that great anniversary.

And boy what a community spirited event it was.

And boy what a great event that we had in store there.

Now Jeff and I are both members of organization of two organizations, the Vintage Football Community and the pfra, the Professional Football Researchers Association.

Now Jeff is the founder of the VFC and you know we're both the members of that and the PFRA and they Jeff and along with Steve Wolf and his wife sue organized a tourist that VFC and PFRA members from all over the country were invited to come and take a part in.

And I think they had membership between those two organizations of probably about five or six different states and the District including District of Columbia were well represented to go on a little tour and a little adventure all day long.

Now I wasn't able to join them for the earlier and the later events.

I was traveling that day to get down there.

I had about a five hour drive drive from Erie down to Pottsville and had some some family things to take care of in the morning and but I got to join them at lunchtime.

But in the morning the tour went on quite an adventure.

First they went to the Schoolkill County Historical Society where they have some great artifacts of many different things from the county, but including some exhibits that are from the Pottsville Maroons.

Now I'm showing a video right now of.

You're seeing some image of the bronze shoe of Charlie Berry, who was the.

The great kicker.

And if you take a look at our book that we have here, you know, we talk quite a bit about that shoe in it and tell you a little bit the backstory on it, but that basically this is a special kicking shoe that Joe Zacko provided for Charlie Berry.

He wore it, you know, some important games, including the kick to kick the field goal against the Notre Dame All Stars to win that game, in essence, make them the world champions of American football.

So that was a tremendous thing to see.

Also, there's a ring there that Pottsville was given on one of their banquets, I believe.

And, you know, some.

Many other articles.

They have some clothing and a lot of programs from the Maroons, which, you know, how.

How about that?

You know, these things are some of them 100 years old or darn near 100 years old in other cases, some program covers.

So it's amazing that these paper objects are still around to be enjoyed.

So they got to tour that.

Then they toured the Yingling factory.

Yeah, Pottsville is the home of Yingling Brewery, the country's oldest acting brewery of beer.

And they got to do a few samples.

I missed that part.

I did not miss out on a Yingling, though.

I had a few of those while I was down there.

Don't worry about that.

But.

But I got to meet them at a restaurant at lunchtime and you know, it was in a sort of a strip plaza.

And we're sitting there and, you know, we had lunch and I got to meet some of the guys, you know, that were on there.

Some.

Some of my new.

Some of them is the first time I had ever met.

I think there was.

Ended up being like 15 of us all together for the high point of the day.

And it seemed to be the lunch.

And we went outside and we were going to disperse to the next site, which would be the site of Minersville Field, the home of.

And so I was excited to see where this would be.

Well, it was right where the restaurant and the strip mall were.

That was a site of the mall or of the field, of Minersville Field.

And they have a small placard or little sign out in front there.

Which you can see here in these images and you know just a tremendous thing to.

To mark that field and it was kind of neat.

It was by a creek.

So there was a.

The you know, newspaper accounts and early accounts from.

From writers or people that were there.

They talked about this creek and he talked about a hillside which was right behind it and how people would climb up into trees and watch and.

But you could just look in and you could envision this looking over the top of.

From our perspective out by the road by the sign that we were telling you about to see the, the.

The trees and imagining people looking over the fence to get the free view of the football game and you know, creek would flood and everything like that.

So some good markers that you know you can't move hills and creeks very easily, especially the hillsides and so very good landmarks to tell you that that field was there.

Right before they became the Maroons.

You know just a few years before they would be the Maroons but sort of the building blocks of these early Pottsvill players entering into professional football and semi pro football.

And they had a team picture right in front of the.

The doors of this building and you know just a tremendous building, architectural wonder it is.

Well, I had to depart at that point but the tour went on.

They went out and they looked at the Coaldale Field.

One of the.

Coaldale was one of the rivals in the anthracite league with Pottsville.

And then the group headed to Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania where the famous Jim Thorp turd out there.

So that was a tremendous thing.

Why?

Well, they were doing those last two stops.

Jeff and I had to beeline it back to the Mountain View golf course where the banquet was going to be taking place.

And we were honored guests there and were recognized and they.

You like told you there was other.

There's two other books out, you know before ours.

Breaker Boys by David Fleming.

Well, I got to meet Vincent.

We had quite a long conversation.

Hopefully we'll have him on as a guest very soon to talk about his book and some other things that he's doing as far as football.

Very nice gentleman.

And also at this banquet were family members of the Possible Maroons.

Now there was.

Jack Ernst's family was represented.

Coach Dick Roche's family was representing there.

Some of these Great grandsons and grandsons were there.

The Russ Hathaway, we got to meet his grandson and you know, he.

Some of these folks, they remember their grandfathers were doing that.

But the big booster of the.

And I'm probably missing some there.

There was a lot of family members there and.

But the fam.

There's two tables worth of Joe Zacko's family.

And if you've read the book, Joe Zacko was the sporting stores of and super fan booster of the Possible Maroons.

He was the outfitter of the official outfitter of the Possible Maroons.

He ended up giving them jerseys maroon in color.

You know, Doc Striegel didn't care what color they were, but they were maroon is what he ended up getting them.

That's how they became the Maroons.

And then his family members, especially his son, picked up the, the flag and the banner and kept going on having reunions and soliciting the NFL to, you know, give them the championship.

And it hasn't worked out yet, but still, still pushing and the community is really still behind that.

That's a great thing.

Couple movies are going to be coming out on a possible Maroons real soon here.

And, you know, there was a lot of media coverage on that, including the Republican magazine of the area, Possible Republican, which still covers a lot of, you know, the events there.

And I'm seeing things, you know, events.

You can find them even on like yahoo.com for this great event, this banquet, a lot of guests, a lot of talking and, you know, we had a few former professional athletes, including three NFL players that were there.

First off was Marcus Washington and Marcus Washington.

You know, I ended up.

We stayed at the same hotel as these gentlemen.

I got to eat breakfast with them and visit with them after having a meal the night before.

Marcus Washington, or I'm sorry, Marvin Washington.

Excuse me, Marvin.

Marvin.

I called you Marcus.

But Marvin Washington was.

He is a huge human being.

6 foot 6, 250, 85 pounds in his playing days.

I think the.

The guy could still suit up today.

Giant of a man, nicest guy in the world and, you know, big pause on him.

You, you shake hands with him.

Your hand gets lost in there.

Had a stint with the 49ers, late 90s and then the Denver Broncos.

And also with him were John Booty and John Booty, remember, may remember that name, not John David Booty, but John Fitzgerald Booty, a contemporary born contemporary of a player.

It had also played with the the jets, played with the Eagles, the Cardinals, the Giants and a stint with the Buccaneers as a defensive back.

And I meant to tell you that MARVIN Washington had 40 and a half sacks during his career.

John Booty, on the other hand had 14 interceptions and you know, 102 games.

So two good players to be there helping the Maroons celebrate their thing.

But Kelso was part of that vaunted defense along with Bruce Smith and, you know, Cornelius Bennett and others that really, you know, played their way too to some playing four Super Bowls.

So just some tremendous players.

He and mark Kelso had 30 interceptions during his career.

So he was no slouch either.

So that was the Pottsville celebration that we had and what a great time.

And really, you know, the communities are still behind that team 100 years later.

And I think that's just amazing.

If you haven't got a copy of our book Marooned, take a look for it at your favorite bookstores, including Amazon Maroon, the Rise of Fall and the Redemption of the Possible Maroons.

You know, that's the COVID right here.

Take a look for that.

You know, you got it where you can search under my name on Amazon and you'll find that right away too.

Also have another book that I was a part of, Chris Willis, graciously let me help him with a book on Red Grange in the Chicago Bears 100th anniversary scrapbook.

Take a look for that on Amazon, just came out last week.

And I think you'll find that one a delay too.

We'll be talking more about that one here in future episodes.

But I also want to tell you, you know, Mondays we've been trying to go through some of these origin stories of nicknames of college football teams.

Well, today I want to dive a little bit into the Florida Gators.

Now, this one might sound a little bit obvious, you know, Florida and the swamps and the Gators and to some extent it is.

And this is after an appearance of, in the newspaper of one of the writers calling them the Gators.

Now, the newspaper writer was inspired because folks were having penance and putting, you know, pictures of alligators on the, on them and, you know, poster boards and things like that.

And, you know, this community was sort of adhering to that spirit, into that image of an alligator.

You know, alligators are pretty tough and pretty feisty and you don't really want to mess with them.

That's what they wanted their, their football team to embody it.

What a great name and very unique to them.

The Florida Gators came to be and we know how good they have been over the last few decades.

I had some championship teams, you know, the Tebow teams and you know, some, some great players have come out of that, of that program as well.

So just want to celebrate them a little bit.

And as always, we talk about football history here in our special Pottsville Maroons edition celebrating the 100th anniversary.

Make sure you take a look at our book and if you have any questions, you can email me@pigskind dispatch gmail.com Love to talk to you more about Potville and more football history.

Till next time, everybody have a great gridiron day.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

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