Archdeacon: Former Triangle Hobby gets his day

“Grandpa Hobb lived right over there in that house with the white (dormer),” she said as she got up from her desk after classes had ended and pointed out the window to the home on nearby Early Drive whose backyard faced the school. “That’s where he lived with my Grandma Violet.

“When I was born, we lived just down from them on Jefferson Street. I was told he was always at our house. He’d come over, sit in my dad’s recliner and go to sleep. And after a while, my grandma would call and tell my mom, ‘Wake him up and send him home.’”

One day in May of 1966, the wake-up call led George “Hobby” Kinderdine, who’s actually Gina’s great grandfather, to rush to the hospital, not home.

“He was there when my mom went into labor with me,” Gina said. “My dad was playing softball, and this was before cell phones, so my grandpa had to get my mom to the hospital.”

That explains her continued feeling of kinship to him even though he died 13 months after she was born.

“Although I don’t remember anything from back then, he’s come to life for me over the years with the vivid stories everybody told about him, coupled with the old photos I’ve seen,” she said.

She eventually learned that hospital run wasn’t the first time Hobby Kinderdine rose to the moment when the pressure was on.

Four and a half decades earlier, he helped give birth to the NFL.

He was a two-way player and the kicker for the Dayton Triangles when they blanked the Columbus Panhandles, 14-0, at Triangle Park on Oct. 3, 1920, in the first-ever game in the NFL.

The Triangles were one of the original 14 teams in the league that, two years later, changed its name from the American Professional Football Association to the NFL.

Over 5,000 spectators showed up for that historic first game. Tickets cost $1.75.

In the third quarter, after running back Lou Partlow, “The Battering Ram of West Carrollton,” ran 10 yards for the first TD, Kinderdine — who was the team’s undersized center and a defensive lineman at 5-foot-11 and 165 pounds — kicked the first of his two extra points in the game.

His second one followed a 60-yard punt return in the fourth quarter by Frank Bacon.

Kinderdine — who had joined the team in its pre-NFL days when it was an offshoot of the St. Mary’s (later the University of Dayton) Cadets and played in the Ohio League — spent 14 seasons with the Triangles.

He started 100 of the 101 NFL games he played in and in 1923 was named the Triangles team captain and won second team All-Pro honors at center.

Gina said she learned almost none of that when she was growing up: “To me, he was just Grandpa.”

In fact, when Kinderdine died, his obit never mentioned his storied football career.

“When I was growing up, the person in our family most famous to me was my great aunt, Anna K. Wantz,” she said. “The K was for Kinderdine.”

Anna was Hobby’s sister.

“She started as a census taker, but then one day the school called her and asked her to fill in because a teacher was sick,” Gina said. “That turned into a more than 50-year career as a teacher and she ended up with a junior high school named after her.”

Over the past couple of decades, as Dayton and the surrounding Miami Valley has begun to embrace its Triangles’ past, the stories of players like Kinderdine, Norb “Hell of Cleats” Sacksteder, Lee Fenner and Partlow — who used to toughen himself for the punishment of tacklers by ramming into trees as he went on training runs along the Great Miami River — have been uncovered.

The growing appreciation prompted the communal effort led by Judge Dan Gehres and Carillon Park boss Brady Kress to have the original dressing room of the Triangles moved across town from Triangle Park to Carillon Historical Park where it will be refurbished and one day turned into the focal point of a sports exhibit.

In 2013, thanks especially to the efforts of Miamisburg High School athletics director Jason Osborne, the Vikings and longtime, next door rival West Carrollton, began playing for the Partlow-Kinderdine Cup that goes to the game’s winner each season.

Then last year came the movie “Triangle Park,” done by local filmmaker Allen Farst.

Based on that first NFL game, it premiered last October 25th at the Plaza Theater in Miamisburg and featured interviews with several name NFL players from the recent past — guys like Eric Dickerson, Troy Aikman and Cris Collinsworth — as well as relatives of Triangles players like Gina and her cousin who lives in Michigan.

This Saturday, Oct. 5, from 1 to 4 p.m., the Miamisburg Historical Society is celebrating Hobby Kinderdine with a special exhibit at its History Center in Veterans Memorial Park at 35 S. Fifth Street, Miamisburg.

It will include two of Hobby’s Triangles jerseys on loan from Gina and lots of other memorabilia, all of it displayed with some time-appropriate props, including a beautiful, cream-colored 1918 Willys Knight 88-4.

Farst has prepared a director’s cut of the movie that will be shown, and former Cincinnati Bengals kicker Jim Breach will be on hand

While not to say that the idea for Saturday’s celebration was heaven sent, the inspiration for it did arise during a Sunday service at St. Jacob’s Lutheran Church in Miamisburg.

“Pastor (Mike) Hout is a big sports nut,” said Kim Izor, the curator of the Miamisburg History Center and a member of St. Jacob’s. “And last year he celebrated Hobby’s birthday. He had a sign out in front of the church and Gina brought in the Triangles’ jerseys and they were on display as Pastor Hout talked about Hobby.”

“St. Jacob’s is pretty rooted in my family’s history,” Gina said. “Grandpa Hobby was a member there. My grandparents were married there. My parents were too and so was I.

“Pastor Hout’s really into history and sports and the community. We played softball together for years and he holds all kinds of world records, I believe.

“He has a world’s record for juggling bowling balls while riding a unicycle. He’s that type of guy.”

Hout’s enthusiasm sparked an idea with Izor who had just taken over as the curator.

“We have a lot of things in our collection and there’s so much that has come from Miamisburg, but we’ve never really told any of the stories that go with all that,” he said. “We’re trying to change that and I thought Hobby’s story would be a great one share, especially now when it’s close to the anniversary of his history-making kick.”

‘He was just a great football player’

Kinderdine went to Miamisburg, but didn’t play football there. His introduction to it came in area sandlot games and that prompted him to pursue the sport when he worked at one of the three factories owned by Charles Kettering and Edward Deeds, who bankrolled the Triangles team.

“Early on he hurt his leg playing and was hobbling around and that’s how he got the Hobby nickname,” Gina said.

For a brief stint, his brothers Walt and Shine also played with the Triangles.

For the first three years in the NFL, the team made a decent showing, going 13-9-4, and players were making $50 a week.

During his career, Kinderdine played against at least 22 Pro Football Hall of Famers, including legends like Jim Thorpe, Red Grange and George Halas.

He lined up against teams like the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears in places like the Polo Grounds, Comiskey Park and Wrigley Field.

After a while, other higher-paying teams began to poach the best Triangles players. With a depleted roster, the team began to lose games, money and fans.

For the last seven years of their existence, the Triangles were a barnstorming team that travelled around the country by Pullman railroad car and played teams for a $2,500 appearance fee.

“I remember hearing stories how Grandpa Hobb always carried his bible with him and how he’d always send a telegram home to Grandma Violet to let her know he gotten to where he was going and he was OK,” Gina said.

By 1930, the Triangles — who had won just five of their last 51 games — were sold to notorious Irish mobster “Big Bill” Dwyre for $2,500. He moved them to New York, where they became the NFL’s Brooklyn Dodgers and played at Ebbets Field.

Over the years, after a series of moves and transformations, they became the Indianapolis Colts.

Back in Miamisburg, Kinderdine became a superintendent at Delco Products, was a lifelong member of the Masonic Veterans Association and for a while coached a local football team.

He and Violet has one child, James.

His two grandsons — Jim, who was Gina’s father, and Jack — were both football standouts at Miamisburg. Jim went on to play at Kentucky and Jack set quarterback records at Dartmouth and received All America mention.

When Kinderdine’s obituary appeared with no mention of his football exploits, his former teammate, Dr. Dave Reese — who had starred at Massillon High, Dennison and with the Triangles before becoming a big-time college official and the first commissioner of the Mid-American Conference — contacted local journalists to set the record straight.

“Hobby was our center and I never knew one better,” he told Si Burick. “In those days football was a two-way game. We usually played a seven-man line (on defense), but he could smell out the difference between a running play and a pass in a hurry.”

Reese noted how Kinderdine had a knack for intercepting passes but was also quick enough to tackle a lot of ballcarriers in the backfield:

“He was just a great football player.”

‘Honored and excited’

The Kinderdine exhibit includes his cardboard trading card showing the rugged countenance of a lineman from the leather helmet days.

There’s an open-sided football that used to be passed around through the game day crowds like a collection plate to get money for the players.

And the Partlow-Kinderdine Cup is on display and it especially triggers some special memories for Gina.

“When they started it, my grandmother was still alive,” she said of Virginia Kinderdine, who was the wife of Hobby’s late son. “She was in her 90s and for a few years she was the one who presented the cup.

“It was something to see. The players would be out there celebrating and here comes this little old lady carrying the trophy.

“She’d gone to Miamisburg High and was the first female drum major at the school. She was a real football fan. She’d watch games on TV and she and her friends — they were all in their late 80s and 90s — they’d go to the games when Miamisburg played at Harmon Field.

“They called them The Golden Girls and they let them in for free.

“When she passed away, I started presenting the trophy and it’s super cool for me because a lot of the boys once were my students. And now I’m out there in the huddle jumping around with them celebrating.”

She said the Kinderdine family is “honored and excited” that her great grandfather is being celebrated next Saturday.

“So many people, right here in this tiny little town, don’t realize something so big once happened here,” she said.

They’ll learn about it from the photos and the newspaper articles on display.

There’s the Sept. 11, 1923, edition of the Dayton Evening Herald that topped its sports page with the headline: “Hobby Kinderdine to Captain Triangle Eleven.”

It’s above another headline setting up heayweight champ Jack Demsey’s rockem-sockem bout with Luis Angel Firpo — 11 knockdowns between them in the first two rounds — three days later at the Polo Grounds.

One news story not on display appeared in the Dayton Daily News on Nov. 15, 1921.

It told how Kinderdine had been kicked in the head in a game the season prior and was knocked unconscious. Later he tried returning to the game, but was confused and sent to the clubhouse.

Soon after that he couldn’t be found, and a frantic search was begun. He was discovered rowing a boat on the Great Miami River.

No one — including himself — knew where he was headed.

Now we all know where he ended up.

He’s in the NFL record book. His name appears on a much sought-after trophy at his old high school. He was highlighted in a movie and Saturday he’ll be the center of attention at a community celebration.

Like Izor said: “We have a lot of great stories to tell.”

And Hobby Kinderdine has one of the best.