High school football rules in Massillon, Ohio. In this blue-collar community, dubbed "Touchdown Town" in a 1951 newsreel, the Washington High Tigers are a cradle-to-grave passion. Team boosters visit maternity wards and bestow footballs to newborn "little Tigers." A mortician offers customers Tiger theme caskets. This winning documentary, ranked by ESPN.com as among the six best sports documentaries of all time, chronicles the Tigers' pivotal 1999 season--its 106th!--in which the team's success or failure on the field could impact an upcoming tax levy to save the town's beleaguered schools. Filmmaker and Massillon native Kenneth Carlson is no mere cheerleader. He tackles the touchy issue of priorities (some parents hold promising eighth graders back so they will be bigger and stronger) and the town's Stepfordian devotion to the team that put it on the map ("Conform or be destroyed," states one disaffected youth). More inspiring are the profiles of the team's three captains, in whom one can see the positive role football plays in their lives. --Donald Liebenson
2.
In the shadow of a crumbling Norman Rockwell dreamscape, towns like Massillon, Ohio face an ongoing identity crisis and fiscal decline in the new dot com millennium. But while steel mills close and families drift away from such industrial pockets, Massillon's identity has remained intact. For whatever trouble that has besieged the town, Massillon has always had "the greatest show in high school football." In the birthplace of football and 10 miles from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Massillon Tigers have drawn more than fifteen thousand spirited fans to every game for more than a hundred years. For ten weeks out of the year, this provincial hamlet is ground zero for one of the greatest sports traditions anywhere. For ten weeks out of every year, the people of Massillon know who they are.
The 106th season of the 1999 Tigers finds Massillon, Ohio a "house divided". Following the team's poor season the previous year, the people of Massillon are faced with a school tax levy necessary to protect the jobs of teachers, coaches and the Massillon educational system itself. After three consecutive levy defeats, the town is split down the middle on the issue.
Massillon, Ohio - Where they live, breathe and eat football.
Welcome to Massilon, Ohio, where high school football is nothing short of religion. For the 33,000 people who live there, football is life- a veritable "cradle to the grave" experience that begins in the maternity ward where coaches make visits to scout future linebackers, and ends in a customized football casket emblazoned with the Tigers mascot.
A surprise hit in theaters across the country in 2001, Go Tigers! chronicles the 1999 high school football season f the Massillon Tigers. On the heels of a losing year, the Tigers risk losing football in Massillon altogether, as an upcoming vote on a new tax levy is the only thing that will prevent massive budget cuts and the elimination of the football program. With the vote clearly riding on the team's success, it is up to the three co-captains - quarterback Dave Irwin, linebacker Danny Studer and defensive end Ellery Moore - to ensure that an entire town's hopes and dreams come true. Just three days before the crucial vote is to take place, the Tigers face the biggest game of their lives against archrival McKinley.
In the spirit of such hit films as Remember The Titans and Hoop Dreams, accomplished filmmaker and Massillon native Kenneth A. Carlson brings us the real story behind America's hysterical obsession with sports, and for the first time lets us experience that same rush of adrenaline along with a real live team. With a standing room only crowd of screaming fans and a town's future at stake, Go Tigers! is an energetic and absorbing thrill ride not to be missed.
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