Parkway: The 1st MAC Football Champion

1973 MAC Football Standings

Teams		MAC     Overall 
1.  Parkway	7-0-0	10-0-0
2. Marion Local 6-1-0	7-3-0
3.  Coldwater	5-2-0	6-3-1
4.  Minster	3-4-0	6-4-0
4.  St. Henry	3-4-0	4-5-0
6.  Ansonia	2-4-1	3-6-1
7.  Bradford	1-5-1	1-7-2
8.  New Bremen	0-7-0	2-8-0

(6-22-17) In 1973 the Midwest Athletic Conference played its first football season, eight teams were a part of the founding members.  Forty-four years later the MAC is one of the most successful small school football conferences in Ohio, 31 total state football championship trophies among the member schools.

That first season would see Parkway win the first ever MAC title going 7-0 in the MAC and 10-0 overall. For the Panthers it was the start of four consecutive winning seasons,  the next three years they went 9-1, 9-1 and 6-4, with the only three MAC titles in school history included during that run.

• MAC Championships (1 outright and 2 shared)
• Overall Record in 43 years of MAC play 87-231-1, in the first four years the Panthers went 33-6-1.

The 1973 Panthers were quite impressive when you look at the numbers, 5 of 10 games were shut-outs, most points they gave up in a game was in a 25-14 win over Ridgemont. Two close MAC games were won by less than a TD, 14-8 over Minster and 8-7 over Marion Local.

John Reed, in his first head coaching position, would lead the Panthers during those four years.  After a successful run at Parkway Reed would leave for Marion Harding, two more stops followed around Ohio (Upper Sandusky and Lebanon),  before he would end up in Coldwater in 1995, the rest is MAC and Ohio high school football history.

1973 was the second year of the OHSAA State Football Championships and there were only three classes (A,AA and AAA). Despite going undefeated the Panthers did not qualify for the playoffs.