Massillon Against the World

THE 2026 AMERICAN LEGACY BOOK AWARDS FINALIST FIRST PLACE PUBLIC MEMOIR FOR THE BOOK FEST AWARDS 2025 The Massillon Tigers, one of the most envied high school football teams in the nation from one of the most high school football rabid towns in the country, had gone fifty-three years without winning a state championship when they took the field against the Hoban Knights on the brisk night of November 30, 2023, a date no one in Massillon is likely to forget. A thrilling, hard-fought defensive battle ended with the Tigers on top 7-2, and Massillonians erupted in celebration, weeping, hugging complete strangers, and flooding the downtown area for a communal commemoration. As the players and coaches said afterward, this was truly a victory not just for the team, but for all of Massillon, a small town frozen in time for decades even as blue-collar employers fled in droves. The one thing Massillon could, and did, cling to was high school football, an obsession ever since Paul Brown, nicknamed the 'Miracle Man of Massillon," catapulted the team into national prominence by compiling an 80-8-2 record over nine seasons before moving on, first to Ohio State and later to the Cleveland Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League. In Massillon Against the World, Scott Ryan, an author and lifelong Tiger fan, and Becca Moore, the wife of Massillon's head coach Nate Moore, provide their own, unique personal accounts of the highlights of this unforgettable season-sometimes funny, sometimes emotionally powerful, but always insightful and absorbing-focusing on all of the hardships Massillon had to overcome on its road to victory. Mike Brown, Paul's son, contributes the foreword.