Archdeacon: ‘Triangle’ premiere promises sweetness

Dickerson surmised it was more than that because many stats slipped through the cracks in those days of a century past.

“Lou Partlow had it figured out,” Collinsworth said with a laugh. “He was going to scare players on the other team because he was known for tackling trees.”

These are just a few of the commentaries you’ll hear in “Triangle Park,” — the 90-minute documentary written and directed by local filmmaker Allen Farst — that premieres tonight at Miamisburg’s sold-out Plaza Theatre, a lovingly restored piece of history itself that opened just 9 ½ months before the Triangles blanked the Columbus Panhandles, 14-0, in that first NFL game.

The movie tells the story of that initial contest — played on a warm, sunny day in front of 5,000 people who paid $1.75 to get into Dayton’s Triangle Park — and introduces you to some of the players and coaches.

It also briefly delves into the storylines of the day, from women getting their first chance to vote to the start of Prohibition.

There are game reenactments and other period scenes from the streets of Dayton and Canton.

Descendants of some of the Triangles players are interviewed, as are the recent football figures.

Along with those mentioned above, Farst includes Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Tony Dungy, soon-to-be enshrined receiver Larry Fitzgerald, current standout Cooper Kupp, Kirk Herbstreit, Sean McVay, the Los Angeles Rams Super Bowl winning coach born here in Kettering, and Monday Night Football broadcaster Joe Buck.

Michelle Tafoya, the five-time Sport Emmy Award winner, is the narrator.

Tonight’s premiere, which begins at 7 p.m., will include a live performance by Chuck Leavell, the Rolling Stones keyboardist who was the subject of a previous, award-winning documentary by Farst, entitled “Chuck Leavell: The Tree Man.”

Following the screening there will be a question-and-answer session with Farst, who admitted the other day from his PalMar Studios in Centerville: “This has been the hardest project I’ve ever done.”

Not only did descendants of the long-gone football men have to be tracked down, interviewed and melded into an artistic endeavor, but he also had to spend much of his time scrambling to raise adequate funding to make the film happen.

Farst eventually landed a key sponsor in Robert W. Baird & Co., the employee-owned financial services firm, and, among others, Century 21 The Gene Group; Heidelberg Distributing; Waev Inc.; GEM vehicles; the Pro Football Hall of Fame; and got recent deals with Warped Wing Brewing Company and Dorothy Lane Market, which gave its Killer Brownies a Dayton Triangles wrap.

Farst, who was a quarterback himself at Vandalia Butler High School, said the football legends understood his concept:

“They saw I was making this for the love of the game, and they seemed to kind of rally around Dayton, Ohio and the first NFL football game.

“Actually, we could be one whole category on the Jeopardy Board:

“Where was the first NFL game played? What teams were in it? Who kicked the first extra point? (And before that) who scored the first touchdown?

“Everybody should know the name Lou Partlow and it was great hearing guys like Eric Dickerson talk about him. It’s like Neil Armstrong. There’s only one first and it should be celebrated.”

Triangles were Dayton celebrities

The Triangles started in 1916 as an offshoot of the St. Mary’s Cadets and in 1920 they became one of the 14 original members of the NFL, which, for two years, was called the American Professional Football Association before the name was changed.

Dayton’s team was made of former college players, local products and guys working in the three factories owned by Charles Kettering and Edward Deeds, both of whom bankrolled the team.

And the players became local celebrities here.

Mark Fenner — who’s long been a keeper of the Triangles’ flame in this town and is a great grandson of the team’s veteran end, Lee Fenner — once told me a story he had gotten from Lee’s grandson.

With the Triangles all 14 years of their existence, Lee retired from the game when the team left town in 1930 and was living on Westview Avenue.

Mark said the grandson told him how, when he was a kid, he would gather his friends on a Saturday or Sunday when “the old man was in the house watching TV with his feet up.”

He’d charge the adoring kids 3 cents to peek inside and have a look at him. If they paid him a dime, he’d walk them in and let them shake Lee’s hand.

“Those old-time Triangles were still revered here in the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s,” Fenner said.

Farst said there were times early on when he met with Fenner or Sacksteder’s nephews, Doug Spatz and Kevin O’Donell, that he was especially moved:

“You listen to them and see their eyes get a little misty and you knew they really wanted to get something done. I was kind of motivated by that.”

He heard other stories from the few other Triangles aficionados who were around, especially the late Steve Presar.

With his interest piqued, he did his own research and was enticed by the stories of guys like Bud Talbott, the Triangles’ coach.

He had been an All-American halfback at Yale and the captain of the team. He played on the early Triangles’ teams, too, but he really made his name in the Army, serving in World War I, World War II and Korea and raising to the rank of brigadier general.

Farst said in the beginning he had no connection to Talbott, but eventually found a pocketknife engraved with his name that he carried back then. He bought that to have one authentic keepsake in the film and soon had others loaned to him.

A man from New York drove to Dayton and brought with him the original whistle used by referee C.J. McCoy to signal the opening kickoff of the Triangles-Panhandles game.

The players were given necklaces at season’s end which include a gold football and “Dayton Triangles 1920 “engraved on them. Farst found two of them with descendants.

He eventually got a connection and interviewed Talbott’s elderly grandsons, both famed squash coaches, one at Stanford, one at Yale. One of the most treasured reminders of the Triangles is one of the original dressing rooms from Triangle Park that was saved from vandals — the other was set afire — thanks to the efforts of Judge Dan Gehres of the Dayton Municipal Court and Brady Kress, President and CEO of Dayton History. The old locker room was moved via flatbed truck to Carillon Park, where it’s been structurally fortified and will one day hold a sports exhibit.

“To go down to Carillon Park and walk in the locker room where those guys actually were, if you don’t get goosebumps from that, you need to get your heart checked,” Farst said. “That’s a piece of history no one has.”

Celebrated again

The Triangles’ effort took Farst three years, and he did such extensive work that when he first put everything on a story board, he found he had a six-hour film.

“I was like, ‘Okaaay, I’ve got some work to do,” he said with a laugh.

Although he laments some cuts he had to make to end up with a 90-minute presentation, his effort is about something being found again, not anything lost.

After three decent years, the Triangles began losing players to higher paying teams and that meant a lot of losing on the field, as well.

For their final seven years, they were a barnstorming team who traveled city to city by rail while living in a Pullman car.

In 1930, the team with not much of a home anymore, was sold to notorious Irish mobster Big Bill Dwyre. He moved it to New York where it became the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Thanks To Farst, the Dayton Triangles again will be celebrated in their hometown.

After tonight’s premiere, “Triangle Park” will be shown at The Plaza on five more days in early November, as well as Nov. 7-9 at The Neon in downtown Dayton and Nov. 14 at The Little Art Theater in Yellow Springs.

Other showings are scheduled around the state and Farst is working on a deal with a major theater chain and said he hopes the film will be playing in the cities of all NFL teams by Thanksgiving, as part of a 400-theater deal nationally.

What concerns him now, though, is tonight’s premier and the reception it will receive.

“Well, at least when they walk out, they’ll all get a Killer Brownie,” he said with a smile. “Regardless of what they think, they can end their night with something sweet.”

By all indications, he need not worry.

The night will be a sweet remembrance, start to finish.