New Light for Old Kent, Ravenna Rivalry

While I am definitely someone who enjoys sports, I am also a huge history enthusiast. 

I've always been interested in local history, but especially the history of the . Recently I've been able to see several historical documents related to the history of Roosevelt High School, among them the 1922 dedication program for the first building that was named Theodore Roosevelt High school (a building that was later Davey Junior High School and since 2000 as ).  I was also able to see the 1959 dedication program for the original portion of the current building on North Mantua Street. 

This month, I was able to see the 1923 Roosevelt yearbook, "The Kernel" which is from the very first year that the Roosevelt building (which is now Davey Elementary) was open. While reading it, I made a small discovery about the famed Kent-Ravenna football rivalry that will be renewed Friday, Oct. 28, at Ravenna Stadium. 

The current series record that is cited every year has Roosevelt leading by the slimmest of margins, 44-43-2, in a series that began in 1922. However, 1922 is the first year the school was known as Theodore Roosevelt High School. The high school has existed since 1868, but before August 1922, it was simply known as "Kent High School" and often as "Kent Central High School" due to its location in the K-12 Central School (a building that was also known as Union School and stood behind what is now the current building at North Mantua Street and Park Avenue) and to differentiate it from "Kent Normal High School," the teacher training school on the Kent State campus that eventually became Kent State High School (it closed in 1972). 

Some time ago, when reading the 1931 book by Karl Grismer, The History of Kent, I noticed Grismer wrote that Kent High School had a football team beginning in 1910. Ravenna's football team is nearly a decade older, forming right around the turn of the century. It seemed odd to me that the two rival communities didn't play each other until 1922. A recent article in the Record-Courier featured a story on a man from Mogadore who had done research on all the high school football teams in Portage County, compiling their all-time won-loss records and when they started.  He also had Roosevelt's first year of football as 1922. Something didn't seem right because I knew that Kent High had won a league title in boys basketball in 1920, so they were definitely fielding athletic teams prior to the school being named Roosevelt. I just didn't have any other evidence that Kent High School fielded a full, 11-man football team before 1922. Well, that all changed once I got the 1923 yearbook and read the section on football.

The 1922 Roosevelt football team went 9-0 in the regular season and lost a 7-0 game to Warren in what is labeled as a "post-season" game. It was not a playoff game, though, as Ohio didn't have playoffs until the late 20th century. There are small summaries of each game in the yearbook, which included a 71-0 win over Akron East and five shutouts total. The season also included a 39-0 win over Kent Normal High, which is labeled as "the annual clash between the two schools," showing that this wasn't their first meeting. Roosevelt (which doesn't appear to be known as the Rough Riders yet) won the Trolley League championship, which represents the first league title in football in the school's history, a total which currently stands at 21. The game against Ravenna was the Trolley League opener for Kent and the fourth game of the season. The final score was 41-13 in favor of Kent at Ravenna's field. This is always listed as the first meeting between Roosevelt and Ravenna. Technically that's true — it was the first time the teams met with the one from Kent being under the Roosevelt name — but the description in the 1923 yearbook makes it clear this was not the first meeting between the two schools: "[the game] more than atoned for the 0 to 0 tie played last year."  And by "school" I mean the school organization, not the physical school building. 

So when does the series actually start and what is the actual series record? That will take some additional research in both Kent and Ravenna. I know the two most likely have been playing since at least 1919, which is when they both helped create the Trolley League, a league that initially included Kent, Ravenna, Kenmore, "Kent Normal" and Cuyahoga Falls with the addition of Bedford in 1921. It is not out of the question that Kent and Ravenna have been playing each other since Kent started their team in 1910. Again, the important thing to remember is that Kent High School and Theodore Roosevelt High School are one in the same just like Franklin Mills and Kent are one in the same. They both represent different periods of time, not two different organizations.