Tiger Signs Are Ready for the 2018 Season
Each spring a group of dedicated Massillon Tiger Football Booster Club members spends several evenings at the old Massillon High School making signs to support the Tiger program. Throughout the season, these signs are displayed in the windows of the various Massillon merchants.
Henry Ford would be proud of the assembly line precision on display during the production of several thousand signs. On a given evening, two lines are in operation. Each is crewed by 4-5 workers who are constantly in motion to complete the silk-screening of over 600 signs. One worker feeds the silk-screening frame, a second does the actual silk-screening, a third removes the completed signs and others stack the signs in racks for drying.
Some signs are devoted to specific games (i.e., “Beat Akron St. Vincent”), while others are general (i.e., “Go Tigers Go”). While most have single color lettering, some have two colors and are run through the assembly line twice, once for each color.
Chairman Paul Ream and his crew do a remarkable job completing around 5,000 signs by end of the spring. “I’ve been doing this as a committee chair about six years,” Paul said. “We have probably about twelve guys each day. We go through one night a week and do two signs a week.” The best part of doing this according to Paul: “Just getting together with guys from the Booster Club. For all the Tiger fans. For the kids. Something we can take pride in.”
Each week during the season over 400 businesses receive signs honoring the Massillon football program. Be sure to support them.
Each member will receive a hand-painted Obie Tiger lapel pin, a tradition started in 1952.
Robert was a 2-year starting quarterback for the Tigers. In 2008 he passed for 471 yards and four touchdowns. He followed that up with a stellar 2009 year in which he passed for 2,631 yards and 22 touchdowns, leading his team to the state playoff semifinals against Cleveland Glenville. Robert is 6th all-time in career yards passing and 3rd for total yards passing in a single season. Following Massillon, he accepted a scholarship to play football at Miami of Ohio and later transferred to Hiram College, where he set a new single-season passing record, including 410 yards against Kenyon.
The predominant characteristic of Bruce’s teams was defense. In 20 games his teams surrendered just 126 points or just six points per game. They also recorded nine shutouts and only one team scored more than twice. Offensively, no opponent held the Tigers to less than two touchdowns. His methodical full house T, grind-em out offense was the rule of the day and the “smash mouth” football style seemed to be the right formula for this future Buckeye boss.
“I thought we had a great turnout,” said Massillon Defensive Line Coach J.P. Simon who, along with Cornerbacks Coach Terrence Roddy, organized the event. “I thought the crowd was awesome. Just first glance, looking at the numbers, I think we blew it away. It shows how hard the guys have been really working in the weight room. We had a little success last year and went on a run and things could have gone two ways this offseason. It’s either guys get happy and complacent and feel like they’ve arrived a little bit, whereas I think this group has taken it as we got that close and didn’t finish and really had a chip on their shoulder. They’ve really gotten after it and attacked the weight room this winter. It’s been really impressive to see them work.
