Red Griffiths: Lackawanna County man, PSU guard made All-America
Eventual U.S. Congressman was a lineman for the undefeated Lions.
Long before Chuck Sieminski, Mike Munchak and Harry Hamilton, there was Percy Griffiths.
Better known as “Red,” Griffiths in 1920 earned the distinction as Penn State’s first All-American football player who hailed from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area.
Griffiths was born March 30, 1892, in Taylor, Lackawanna County. He attended the School of Lackawanna and Bloomsburg State Normal School before enrolling at Penn State. He was already a married man with three-plus years of Navy service by the time of his standout season in 1920.
Griffiths made his Penn State debut in 1916 for the freshman team. He was a substitute halfback and earned his nickname, “Red,” because of his hair color.
A position change between 1916 and 1917 proved wise for Griffiths, who turned himself into a lineman and earned a varsity spot as a backup center.
Griffiths played center and guard for Penn State in 1917, 1919 and 1920. The best of those seasons — for Griffiths individually and the team collectively — was 1920.
Led by head coach Hugo Bezdek, Penn State opened the 1920 season on Sept. 25 with a 27-7 win against Muhlenberg. The Nittany Lions then reeled off six more consecutive victories, including a 109-7 rout of Lebanon Valley.
The 7-0 start was marred by two ties at the end of the season at Lehigh and Pitt, as Penn State finished 7-0-2.
The 1920 season was a launching pad for 1921, when Penn State went 8-0-2.
“The 1921 team, genuinely thought to be Coach Bezdek’s greatest, probably gained Penn State its first national recognition as a football power,” longtime Penn State historian Ridge Riley wrote in 1971, celebrating the team’s 50-year anniversary.
Meanwhile, in 1921, Griffiths was head coach of the Marietta High School team. He rejoined Bezdek in 1927 and 1928 as an assistant coach at Penn State. He was head coach of Dickinson College in 1929 and 1930.
While coaching Dickinson, Griffiths arranged a game between Dickinson and Penn State. It was their first meeting since 1907. The game happened in 1931 after Griffiths had already resigned. Penn State hosted and won, 10-6.
Griffiths entered politics in 1937 as a mayor and later served as a U.S. Congressman in Ohio.
Among Griffiths’ visits back to Northeastern Pennsylvania was a trip in January 1947 to the Taylor High School auditorium. He was the principal speaker at a dinner that honored Taylor’s football team. Griffiths wasn’t the only A-list attendee, though, as Pete Carlesimo, the longtime University of Scranton football and basketball coach, was also on the dais.
A 2016 article by PennLive ranked Griffiths as the No. 73 player in Penn State football history.
Griffiths died in 1983. He was 90.
View the constantly updated list of all the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre region’s major college football All-Americans by clicking this link.