Akron football team was sizzling hot in 1930s

When Richard Dieringer has trouble falling asleep, he doesn't need to count sheep.

He visualizes a vast green field under bright lights. He sees his buddies in padded uniforms, canvas pants and leather helmets. He hears the crowd's roar and referee's whistle.

Just before he drifts off to sleep, Dieringer calls another play for the Red Peppers.

The 90-year-old Akron man likes to reminisce about the football games of his youth. The bantam team was a shining star in the dark days of the Depression.

''I started out as a halfback. By the time I finished three years later, I was a quarterback. There was a lot of talk about whether I was a good one or not, but I don't care what they think now,'' he said with a chuckle.

A lifelong resident of Firestone Park, Dieringer was an original player for the Red Peppers in 1931. His friend Joe Lampasone had tipped him off that Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. athletic director Paul ''Pepper'' Sheeks and former University of Akron star halfback Kenneth ''Red'' Cochrane were planning to form a team for the Ohio Bantamweight Football Association.

The 14-year-old Garfield student wrote a letter to Sheeks, and the coach invited him to tryouts at Firestone Stadium.

''Judas Priest, you ought've seen the pile of kids that was there,'' Dieringer said. ''It was a couple hundred kids.''

The bantam league was designed for boys who were too small for high school teams. When the Akron squad formed, players had to be 16 or younger and weigh less than 116 pounds.

Boys ran football drills in the clothes they wore to practice. After weeks of training, the field narrowed from 250 players to 45.

The 5-foot-6 Dieringer watched as the coaches selected players around him. He began to worry that he might get cut, but he refused to give up. ''Finally one night I went to practice, and they gave me a uniform,'' he said. ''I thought, 'Oh, man, I've finally made the grade.'''

The Beacon Journal sponsored the team, donated uniforms and paid expenses. Money raised at games benefited a charity fund that donated eyeglasses, shoes, wheelchairs, leg braces and hot meals to the needy.

Beacon Journal sportswriter Eddie Butler supplied the team's cheerful name. He suggested combining the nicknames of ''Red'' Cochrane and ''Pepper'' Sheeks into the ''Red Peppers.''

The team's first season was played at League Park near Summit Beach. Admission ranged from 10 cents for bleachers to $1 for box seats. It was a novelty to watch football games at night under stadium lights.

After a month of training, the players felt confident, but they didn't realize their skill until the first game. They crushed the Salem Sheen Bulldogs 53-0. The following game, they clobbered the Cuyahoga Falls Eclat Rubbers 24-0.

''We had a good team,'' Dieringer said. ''We were always trying hard.''

The Red Peppers played such teams as the Cleveland News Skippies, Cleveland Press Bearcats, Columbus Red Birds, Dayton News Rinkey Dinks, Niles King News, Toledo Silver Streaks and Ravenna Golden Bears.

No Ohio team scored on them in the first season. No Ohio team beat them in the first three years.

The Red Peppers found stronger competition elsewhere. Sheeks scheduled games against the Mooseheart Red Streaks of Illinois, the Charlottesville Fives of Virginia and the Erie Times Blue Streaks in Pennsylvania.

Mooseheart proved to be the Red Peppers' biggest rival. ''That's probably the only team that ever beat us more than once,'' Dieringer said.

He recalls riding a bus to Charlottesville on mountain roads. A few times, the curves were so sharp that the team got out and walked. ''The coach drove around and we got back on and went on our way.''

It was a scary trip for Charlottesville, too. The Virginia team, which claimed to be national champions, lost 26-0 to the Red Peppers in 1932.

In its five-year history, the Akron team was loaded with talent. Some of its big names were Gerald Ball, Bruce Dando, Albie Davis, Mitch Filing, Bennie Flossie, Dick Hart, Al Huey, Al Gorup, Bony Juhasz, Eddie McGlinchey, Russell Plappert, George Nichols, Bobby Roberts, Ed Roe, Carl Stager, Lyle Stemple, Eddie Suscinski, George Webb and Carl Whitten.

''Oh, my God, there were so many good ones,'' Dieringer said.

Large crowds followed when the team moved to Buchtel Field near the University of Akron.

Former running back C.P. Chima, 87, of West Akron, remembers hearing the spectators cheer from the grandstands.

''We drew as many as 8,000 fans on a Thursday night at the old Buchtel Field,'' Chima said. ''The University of Akron on a Saturday would draw 1,200.''

Chima was a Red Peppers second-stringer whose football career was cut short by a knee injury. The Garfield student began practicing with the team in 1934, an undefeated season.

''It was just a tremendous program,'' he said. ''Paul Sheeks was one hell of a coach. A little tough, but he told it like it was: 'Get your butt in there and play this game properly.'''

Phil Schweigert, 87, of Springfield Township, recalls trying out for the team when he was growing up in Goosetown. He didn't make the team, but he remained a big fan.

Most of the neighborhood kids were trying to emulate the Red Peppers. Schweigert, a student at Hower Vocational School, practiced with a squad named the Goosetown Bobcats.

''You didn't have uniforms so you had to make up your own uniform with maybe three pair of sweaters and two pair of pants,'' he said.

He and his friends belonged to the Knothole Gang, a YMCA club. Members received tickets to Red Peppers games.

The crowd applauded the hometown heroes. The Red Peppers lifted people's spirits during the Depression, Schweigert said.

''Everybody turned out and watched the games,'' the Goodyear Aerospace retiree said. ''It was a big thing at that time.''

''Yeah, we lost a couple,'' Chima said. ''Not too many. We were pretty damn good.''

Dieringer lost track of the Red Peppers after he became Garfield's quarterback in 1934.

''I only saw one game after that,'' he said.

The team finished the 1935 season without knowing it was the last. The Beacon Journal noted in 1936 that the team would ''take a vacation'' because of a ''lack of adequate opposition.''

Most Ohio cities had dropped out of the bantam league. Nobody wanted to get creamed by Akron. Even Mooseheart and Charlottesville called it quits.

The Red Peppers were done.

Sheeks helped organize a new bantam league in the 1940s. Soon football fans were following the Kenmore Gremlins, St. Vincent Shamrocks, Eastside Corsairs, South Rangers, Central Flyers, West Hornets, North Commandos, Portage Lakes Panthers and Barberton Barons.

After World War II, former Akron player Louis ''Bony'' Juhasz opened the Red Pepper Steak House in Norton. The restaurant, which featured memorabilia from the 1930s team, was a popular hangout for 50 years.

''It was a nice place to go eat,'' Chima said. ''You always met somebody who used to play.''

Dieringer stayed in touch with teammates for a few years, but they lost contact as the players grew up, got married, had families and moved. He wed his high school sweetheart, Paulyne Pershing. The two have been married for 67 years.

Most of the Red Peppers have passed away in the last 75 years. Dieringer said only a few are left. ''People just fade away, it seems like,'' the Firestone retiree said.

He often thinks about his great team. Sometimes when he can't sleep, his mind replays key moments on the football field.

''You have no idea how much enjoyment I've got reliving those games over the years,'' he said.