“The Black Cyclone” comes to Malabar Farm State Park for the second time in October. The play, written by Ohio native Jim Stoner, chronicles the life of Charles Follis.
Follis, also known as “The Black Cyclone,” lived from 1879 to 1910 and he is known for being the first black-American man to play professional football. And the team he signed with was in Shelby, Ohio.
Stoner, who grew up in Ohio’s micro-town of Rushsylvania, was first compelled to tell Follis’ story through a theatrical play when he saw a picture in the Shelby Museum of History. The picture was dated back to1902 and showed The Shelby Blues surrounding a football.
“There was one singular African-American with a bunch of little white guys in 1902 surrounding a football. So I inquired about it and they told me, ‘That’s the first black professional football player in America,’” said Stoner.
Stoner started doing his own research after viewing the picture. He found that, sure enough, Charles Follis is listed in the Canton Pro Football Hall of Fame as the first black-American football player in the United States. After further research on Follis’ life, Stoner decided to write a script for a theatrical play.
Stoner’s “The Black Cyclone” chronicles Follis’ life as a rising football star in the 1900s. Follis’ family moved to Wooster in 1885 and became the high school team captain in 1898. His team went undefeated that year. Shortly after his success in high school, he joined the Wooster Athletic Association, where he met Frank Schiffer, owner of the Shelby Blues.
“When Follis played against the Shelby Blues, he lost, but Schiffer decided he never wanted to play against him again. So he embarked on an experiment in which he offered to pay Follis ten dollars per game if he came and played for the Shelby Blues,” explained Stoner.
Follis tragically died in 1910 of pneumonia. However, Stoner then explains how Follis met and made a friend while in Shelby that would later change the athletic world forever. His friend was Wesley Branch Rickey, who signed Jackie Robinson in 1947.
“So Charles changed the face of sports in America forever. The slogan we like to use in the play is ‘Run Charles, run for the ages.’ And Branch Rickey, before he got to know Charles would say ‘That Follis boy is just a wonder,’ said Stoner.
“The Black Cyclone” is Stoner’s first full work, and he hopes to one day adapt the script for a movie. Last year, ESPN featured Pioneers and Promos, a documentary about the NFL’s pioneers and promotions. According to Stoner, the thirteenth episode tells Follis’ story. Also, Time Warner Cable features clips from the ESPN episode in their documentary “The Origins of the NFL.”
“I hope to get it (the script) published so one day it can be a movie. The hardest work right now though is just finding somebody [in Hollywood] that has the same interest in telling the story,” said Stoner.
For now, however, the play runs on Oct. 3-5 and 10-12 at Malabar State Farm in the main barn. For more information on the play and to purchase tickets, visit the website.
