National High School Football Hall of Fame is coming to Canton, inaugural class named soon

CANTON — The National High School Football Hall of Fame will call Stark County home.

The venture, with a mission to "preserve the history and honor of high school football players, coaches, and contributors," will announce a 15-member inaugural class out of 50 candidates on Monday. The induction ceremony will be held July 30 at the Timken Auditorium at the Timken Career Campus in Canton.

McKinley High School's Frank "Turk" Alberta Football Operations Center will provide the hall with space to showcase its honorees until a permanent location is chosen.

Founder and CEO LaMont Robinson said he landed on Canton as the hall's location after contacting places in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas and Oklahoma. He also had talked with Massillon in the past.

"I couldn't find a better place to put it than Canton, Ohio," Robinson said. "I said to myself, the history of football is there."

Robinson connected with McKinley football coach Antonio Hall in January and Hall soon jumped on board with the project.

"LaMont reached out to me and told me his vision," Hall said. "Ironically, for a while I had been thinking along the same lines. This is the mecca for not only football, but high school football with all the rich tradition here in Stark County and Northeast Ohio. There should be something to highlight and emphasize high school football, especially with amateur athletics becoming so mainstream."

Paul Brown, Marion Motley, Chris Spielman among several Stark candidates for hall of fame

Many of the candidates for the first class have their busts next door from McKinley at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Names such as Jim Brown and Peyton Manning are obvious football royalty.

Candidates with Stark County ties include Paul Brown, Marion Motley, Chris Spielman, Mike Doss, Percy Snow, Don Nehlen and Thom McDaniels. Other candidates with ties to Northeast Ohio high schools include Bernie Kosar, Robert Smith, Chuck Kyle, Ted Ginn Sr. and Ray Freeman.

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Marcus Dupree will be in National High School Football Hall of Fame's inaugural class

At least one person already revealed his selection. Marcus Dupree, a legendary high school running back in Mississippi before playing at the University of Oklahoma, posted his congratulatory letter to social media earlier this month.

Former NFL player (and a candidate on the 50-man list for the first class) Jerry Ball also is working with Robinson, Hall and vice president Russell Johnson on the project.

"This process has been intimate because there are only three or four guys on the ground level putting this thing together right now," Hall said. "The opportunity to make this thing what it should be is very exciting."

Members of the first class will receive a custom blazer, a trophy to keep for their own and a plaque that will go in the hall.

LaMont Robinson also founded National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame

Robinson, a Warrensville Heights native who now calls Detroit home, trademarked the hall in 2010.

He also founded the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame and held the 2014 induction ceremony at the Palace Theatre in Canton. He's currently attempting to build a permanent structure for the R&B hall in Marks, Mississippi.

Robinson's ulimate dream for the high school football hall would be a 30,000-square-foot facility that he described as "state of the art, highly interactive." He estimates needing to raise $10 million to build such a structure.

The project's biggest fund-raising tool right now is the induction ceremony.

Said Robinson, "It's going to be very important that the first go-around goes off first class."

The hall's website is www.nhsfootballhoff.com.

Reach Josh at josh.weir@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @jweirREP 

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Canton to host National High School Football Hall of Fame