The Massillon Museum will host author Gregg Ficery from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Friday, October 21.  He will sign copies of his new book, Gridiron Legacy: Pro Football’s Missing Origin Story.  

Accusations of attempted bribery and game-fixing in the 1906 championship football series between the professional Massillon Tigers and their rivals, the professional Canton Bulldogs, led to the end of high-level pro football in Ohio for nearly a decade. Ficery’s great-grandfather, Bob Shiring, captain of the Tiger team, was quick absolved, but the full truth of the scandal remained veiled. Ficery’s decade of research has revealed several missing pieces of the historical record and solved the mystery of the incident.  

Gridiron Legacy thoroughly covers the pre-NFL history of professional football and its missing link from 1906. The 352-page hardback includes hundreds of richly reproduced images amidst well organized and scripted documentation about early teams, athletes, and episodes.  Former Pittsburgh Steeler, four-time Super Bowl champion, and Pro Football Hall of Fame Franco Harris wrote the foreword.

Ficery is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia.  A graduate of Georgetown University, he is founder and president of Integral Valuation and Advisory Services. Through the author’s generosity, the Paul Brown Museum Library is in memory of Bob Shiring.

As executive producer, Ficery is developing a television miniseries based on Gridiron Legacy.

Gridiron Legacy will continue to be available in OHregionalities, the Museum shop, along with other football-related books and local histories.

Guests at the book signing may visit the Paul Brown Museum and 11 additional galleries in the Massillon Museum. A visit is always free and everyone is welcome.

The Massillon Museum receives operational support from the Ohio Arts Council and ArtsinStark. This event is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

MassMu is located at 121 Lincoln Way East in downtown Massillon. Free parking is available on adjacent streets and in nearby city lots. For more information, call 330-833-4061 or visit massillonmuseum.org.