The Paul Brown Museum at MassMu will be debuting a brand-new exhibit starting Saturday, July 26th. Entitled “Titles and Claims: Cultivating a Championship Program”, the exhibit will look at all 12 Massillon state champion football coaches. I had the privilege of viewing the exhibit while it was under construction and discussing the process in-depth with Paul Brown Museum curator Logan Carr.
Logan Carr has been the Paul Brown Museum and Football Heritage curator for the Massillon Museum for several months now, and although he has yet to observe the Massillon spirit in action on a Friday night, he can feel the hype in Massillon. It may be the middle of the summer, but Tiger fans are chomping at the bit to pack Paul Brown Tiger Stadium. This feeling and the deep respect for the traditions and history of Massillon Tigers football played a part in the the choice of theme for the newest exhibit.
“I went with this exhibit because I’m new to the Massillon area,” Logan told me. “I had heard of Massillon and a little bit about the history, but nothing close to the true extent of the history and traditions. When I was talking about exhibit ideas for the future it really hit me that we hadn’t done anything like this in the past, which was really important, but something I wanted to stray away from was retreading over ground. I decided that if I’m going to really learn this history, if I’m going to be able to respect it and treat it with the care that it deserves, I need to know the core of what makes Massillon Massillon. At the end of the day, that is fostered by the state championships and the heritage that is built by these 12 coaches here.”
The process of organization for these exhibits is a lengthy one. Around six months of planning and work went into the current display.
“We usually have a three week turnaround time,” Logan told me. “The first week is usually the dismantling of the previous exhibit. Then painters come in at the end of that week, and then we have another week and some gap time, in which the paint needs to cure. After that we go through and do the installation. But it all starts awhile before– I think I started to work on it on this back in February, once ‘Legendary Turf’ went up. I sat down and wrote down each of the coaches, their years, and their championship seasons. And then, coach by coach, I researched and wrote and looked at the collection to see what we had that I could relate to the exhibit. The idea is that you get all of your research and most of your object selection done by the time you’re installation comes. And it’s a bit of a process. You have to go through with our database, you have to mark off what’s in an exhibit so that way we keep track of locations of artifacts.”
Finding what to put in the exhibits can be a challenge. It is not for the lack of football materials or memorabilia (a lack thereof does not exist in this city of football fanatics) but rather an excess of artifacts. What is displayed in the Paul Brown Museum barely scratches the surface of the vast collection that the Massillon Museum and Tiger Football Booster Club house.
“I went and spent two days in the collection space, going through all of the drawers, all of the cabinets, all of the boxes, going through and seeing what we had,” Logan told me. He also explained that it is a process to orient oneself to the extensive collection, especially as someone that has more recently taken on the challenge. “I had to go and physically look at the collection and spend time with the objects to get an idea of what is available to me, and then once I realized what I had available, I reached out and spoke with people such as Gary Vogt to discuss what he thought might go for the exhibit. A lot of the process was getting an idea of what I want to start and then submerging myself into the collection, taking it all and going through it all, and then narrowing it down. I think when I originally started my list, I had something close to 70 or 80 items, and then I’d cut it down to what it is now– about high 50s, low 60s.”
This exhibit features a wide array of artifacts, from photos to uniforms. It also includes a new set of items in the “community section”. “The idea behind this display is the ways that the Booster Club has been able to inspire the community and drum up that fervor in love with the Tigers,” Logan said. “What I’m doing with this case is showing how that the love of the Tigers has been displayed through art and community aspects. This rotation of items includes a stained glass Obie, we’ve got the painted china mug, and even a 1997 Tigers’ cereal box.” The main displays feature items from team photos and uniforms to Coach Kammer’s coat. There are interactive parts of the exhibit as well– a QR code will allow visitors to scroll through Tommy James’ 1938 playbook and a small screen will let visitors view Dr. Robert Immel’s interviews with the Massillon state championship coaches of the past. “All the items have a story behind them,” Logan told me. “I’m able to talk about so many different things with Massillon history. A ring on display, for example– since not all of the state championship teams of the past got their rings they gave them in 2014 at the Champions’ Homecoming. I can use this as an opportunity to talk about the community and now they played into that occasion. This sort of story makes each item come to life. The label won’t just state the year of the championship– it’ll tell the story behind it.”
The twelve coaches and their twenty-five state championships that will be the focus of the exhibit are:
Hap Fugate (1909)
John Snavely (1916)
Dave Stewart (1922)
Paul Brown (1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940)
Bud Houghton (1941)
Elwood Kammer (1943)
Chuck Mather (1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953)
Tom Harp (1954)
Leo Strang (1959, 1960, 1961)
Earle Bruce (1964, 1965)
Bob Commings (1970)
Nate Moore (2023)
Come visit starting Saturday, July 26th! Museum hours are 9:30am- 5pm.
