History Fred Heyman – Wall of Champions
Fred Heyman – Wall of Champions
By James C. DeLong
One of the earliest heroes in the history of Massillon High School football was Fred Heyman, a four-year regular for the Tigers from 1908-1911.
Fred attended old Whittier grade school, then located at 8th and State Avenue, Northeast, before enrolling at Massillon High in the fall of 1908 as a freshman. The high school was then situated on the present site of Longfellow Junior High School.
1911 Massillon Tiger squad. Fred Heyman is pictured in the top row, third from the right.
Heyman immediately made the Tiger starting eleven, but because of his size, 145 pounds, he was placed at left guard. He recently remarked, “that in those days, the smallest men on the squad were automatically placed at guard.”
Fred’s career at guard for the Tigers lasted just during the 1908 campaign and he was then shifted to right halfback in 1909 and remained there for the next three years. He added weight during his last three during his last three years and as a senior played at 190 pounds.
As a halfback, Fred was described as a slashing runner and he carried the brunt of the Tigers running attack for three years. During his senior year, he led the Tiger team in scoring with 10 touchdowns, 23 points after touchdown and one field goal for 85 points. In 1911, a touchdown was only good for 5 points. Nine of Heyman’s extra points came by drop kick.
During his entire career here, Fred was a two-way player. On defense, he also played at halfback. As a punter he had no peer and did all of the Massillon kicking for four years.
Fred has the distinction of playing on the first Massillon team to defeat old Canton Central High
school, the forerunner of Canton McKinley. In 1908, the Tigers edged the Bulldogs, 12-6, in the second game played with Canton that year, marking the first win over the Cantonians in the series which originated in 1894. In 1909, the Tigers defeated Canton in both games and then the series was temporarily suspended during the remainder of Heyman’s career because of the intense feelings existing among the fans.
The Tiger home games during this period were played on the site of the present Longfellow junior High School practice field. About 300 fans would jam their way around the field to watch the Tigers engage such traditional foes of the period as Akron Central, Alliance, Cleveland Shaw, Mansfield and New Philadelphia.
The 1909 Tiger team on which Heyman played as a sophomore, claimed the state scholastic title on the basis of nine wins and one tie. The tie was a scoreless duel with Akron Central, then the only public high school in the Rubber City. The big victory came in the final game of the season, when the Tigers defeated powerful New Philadelphia, 21-5. The Tiger citizens were so pleased with the local high school eleven that they purchased turtle-necked monogramed sweaters for all members of the team.
After graduation from Massillon High, Fred enrolled at Washington & Jefferson College, then one of the powers of the intercollegiate football. He played four years at W & J – 1912-15 and was the regular left end during his final three years. All told, he won nine letters at W & J in football, basketball and baseball. The high point of his career came after the 1915 campaign, when the late Walter Camp named him to his Third Team All-American eleven as an end.
In 1916, Fred became head football coach and athletic director at Bethany College (2-7 record) and on Sundays came to Massillon to play with the Massillon pro football Tigers. He teamed up at the ends with the late Knute Rockne on this Tiger team.
Due to mustard gas complications received in World War I, Fred has been retired since 1928. He resides with his wife, Mae, at 430 – 11th Street, Northeast, Massillon.
Story Supplement
In 1910 Heyman scored two touchdowns and kicked five extra points. He was a regular at halfback in 1911 and scored 10 touchdowns. He also punted, kicked off and kicked 21 extra points (10 vs. Urichsville) and 2 field goals, utilizing the drop-kick technique, including one in a 3-0 victory over Alliance. His coach during his final three years was Ralph “Hap” Fugate.
“I often wonder how far we would have gone if we had it as good as the high school boys today,” said Heyman. “We didn’t have a paid coach, but Ralph Fugate used to come up to practice after work and give us a lot of pointers. Our uniforms were hand-me-downs and if we wanted the field lined for the game, we went down in the morning and lined it ourselves.”
Heyman earned eleven letters at Massillon, in football basketball and baseball. He subsequently received an offer to play professional baseball from Newark of the International League. But he turned it down in favor of receiving a college education. There, at Washington & Jefferson, he won three letters in football, four in baseball and two in basketball (there was no basketball at W&J in his first two years). Interestingly, the forward pass was a regular part of the W&J offense (see Stanfield Wells story).
As coach of Bethany, Heyman’s team played on Saturday afternoon. Following the game, Heyman would head straight for a train, riding all night to play for the Tigers pro team. Rockne would do the same thing, for a fee of $150. Neither would practice in the days leading up to a game.
With the onset of World War I, Heyman enlisted in the military in 1917 and served time in the European theater. Unfortunately, he was overcome by mustard gas while in the Argonne forest, having taken off his mask, which had clouded his vision. That spelled the end of his athletic playing career.
After football, he sold real estate. He was also a past commander of the Massillon American Legion and led the Legion’s Drum and Bugle Corps to a state title in 1933. He died in 1973.
In 1964 Heyman was inducted into the Massillon Wall of Champions.
“That was my senior year,” Wells recalled much later in life in a letter to Charles Gumpp, President of the Massillon Football Booster Club. “I was a ‘new boy’, having just moved to Massillon that summer from the wide open spaces of South Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska. The first day at school several of my classmates came around to suggest that of course I was coming out for football. And although I protested that I had never had a ball in my hands, they countered with the argument that I was a good-sized lump of a boy and would make a fine prospect. So, I promised.
A few years later he enrolled at the University of Michigan, where joined the football team as a tackle, with his 1909 team posting posting a record of 6-1. The following season the Wolverines finished 3-0-3, defeating Minnesota 6-0 to win the Western Conference championship. Wells was stellar. playing the first three games at right tackle and then moving to right end for the remainder of the season. For his effort he was named 1st Team All-American by Walter Camp.
David was an acclaimed and accomplished actor, starring on TV, in dinner theater, and on and off Broadway. But he first starred as an acclaimed Massillon Tiger. Born in Elwood, Indiana, he moved to Massillon at age five and grew up there. As a Tiger, he played both ways, at offensive and defensive end, and was awarded 2nd Team All-Ohio honors following his senior year, in 1955, on a team that finished second on the state. He attributed his success to his work ethic, which he learned while traversing through the city’s various schools. He always gave 120 percent every time the ball was snapped. He said he wasn’t very fast or big. But he was a good student of the game because he had to be. He just did what the coaches said and learned the fundamentals and tried as hard as possible on every play. He said, “I owe a lot to football!” He also played baseball for the Tigers. High school friends called him “A nice guy, a humble guy.”
After graduating, David continued his athletic career at The University of Cincinnati on a football scholarship. There, he continued to play both ways. In spite of having a small stature for a lineman (5’-11”, 172 lbs.) he was good enough to be named All-Conference. He was also a fine student and was recognized as a Pop Warner Academic All-American. At the end of this time at Cincinnati, Canary graduated with a degree in Voice, and was then selected in the second round of the American Football League draft by Denver. Only, tired of football, he instead joined the Army, where he was also a member of the theater group. He even won an All-Army entertainment contest.
Numerous legacy families have come through the Massillon system during its long history and the Studer family was no exception. Junie and his wife Delores were long-time supporters of the football program, with the two of them founding the 
He would get his chance to become a varsity starter in 1970 as a junior on a team comprised of mostly seniors. And what a start it was. Playing under head coach Bob Commings as a 5’-11”, 200 lb. center, the Tigers fashioned a perfect 10-0 record and were never seriously challenged in any game. In fact, they outscored their opponents by an average margin of 41-3, while rushing for 277 yards per game.
His pride and joy was the weight room that he established at Massillon and the strength program he instituted, which is still in place today. “Our weight room is 55’ by 70’,” said Studer. “It’s the same size as the weight room we had at the old high school. When we built the new high school we patterned it after the old one. It pretty much consists of free weights. We really compare the weight room to a lot of Division 1 colleges. There’s going to be your Tennessees, your Nebraskas and your Michigan where they have a better facility than this. I would compare this to any MAC school. Our core lifts are the squat, the clean, the bench press, and the dead lift. The machines that we have in the weight room are pretty much hammer-strength machines and it’s all top-of-the-line equipment. It’s the same equipment that they use at Michigan, Notre Dame and a lot of the NFL teams.” Studer also formed a powerlifting team in 1994 and the Tigers won the state championship in 1996.
“He was a true Tiger,” said Jack Rose, who as head coach of the Tigers from 1992-97 worked with Studer. “If you ask someone what is a Massillon Tiger, their answer would be Studer. He loved training kids, helping make them stronger for football. He had a great rapport with the players.” – Dave Hutton, Masssillon Independent.
“Playing for him, and being around him, you were just afraid to fail for him,” said Craig McConnell, a former captain for Washington’s football team. “You were afraid to work in his weight room and not to exceed. You had that much respect for him. Everything was Massillon to him – this tow, this program, this school. He was what everyone in this city wanted to be.” – Elbert Starks III, Akron Beacon Journal.
Pflug was born in Massillon on October 4, 1905, and had the opportunity to play high school ball throughout his entire Tiger career under legendary Coach Dave Stewart.
His first stop as a coach was at Knox High School in Pennsylvania from 1928-31, where he compiled a record of 20-10-1. After that came Bradford High School from 1932-50, which he left with a remarkable record of 126-29-5. Seven times his team was undefeated. He had a 31-game unbeaten streak (1933-36) and a 25-game unbeaten streak (1937-40) overlapping the great years of Massillon’s Paul Brown. But unfortunately, the two teams never met. He departed Pennsylvania as the winningest all-coach in the Big 30, which included teams in northern Pennsylvania and southern New York. In 1968, Bradford named their football stadium J. Robert Pflug Field.
The McKinley game was special to James. “You know, the week of the game there’s not a helluva lot on anybody’s mind but the [Massillon-McKinley] game,” he said. “So much is brought up about the tradition and history and former games and former players – and there’s a little hatred mixed in there – competitive hatred. You don’t want to lose to these guys if you lose to anybody. I would compare McKinley Week to, as a coach out at Washington, getting ready to play USC or the Rose Bowl or the Orange Bowl – not just any Bowl – one of the big ones, here there’s so much on the line and so much visibility involved.” – Massillon Memories, Scott H. Shook, 1998.
The Massillon Tigers continue to reap rewards for the success of their 2023 football campaign, which culminated in winning the Division II State Championship. Recently, Head Coach Nate Moore (99-22) was named by Maxpreps.com as their 
Chase Bond – “First and foremost, I would like to thank God and my family. Without them none of this would be possible. I would like to give a few words to my teammates and coaches. You guys helped me to build memories that will last a lifetime. And the coaches, to develop where I am today. There are two things I learned about being a Tiger. Everything earned; nothing really given. That’s a great life lesson. Not just football or golf. That’s everywhere in life. I will be enrolling in North Carolina State University to continue my athletic and academic career. The reason why I chose NC State is that it felt like home. It was the closest thing to Massillon. I love what they’re doing with me on the defensive side of the ball. It’s very similar to what Coach Leno does. It was a no-brainer to me. It felt like nothing else.”
Cody Fair – “First, I would like to thank my parents and God. Without them I wouldn’t be as successful as I am today. I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Next, I would like to thank my teammates for being my brothers to me. Throughout all the thick and thin. Throughout all the years. Next, I would like to thank my coaches for turning me into the player and person I am today. And I would like to thank the City of Massillon for all the constant support throughout my career. What I learned from being a Tiger is you can’t just be successful on the field. You need to also be successful in the classroom and have a presence in the community. I will be enrolling in the United States Naval Academy. I chose the Naval Academy because it felt like home and have the opportunity to serve my country. Go Navy, Beat Army!”
Dorian Pringle – “First, I would like to thank God and my family for pushing me to be the best that I can be every day, on and off the field. And my dad, especially, for being there every step of the way and showing me that life is hard. I would like to thank my coaches and my teammates for pushing me at practice every day. I wouldn’t be this far without them. What stuck out for me for Bowling Green is that it just felt like home to me. I went on three visits there and it feels like they support me all the way and all the decisions came from the heart and I just can’t go wrong.”
