During his six years with the Canton Bulldogs, Cusack led the team to Ohio League championships in 1916 and 1917, and was responsible for bringing Jim Thorpe into professional football.
Cusack also is responsible for helping revive the Bulldogs following the Canton Bulldogs-Massillon Tigers Betting Scandal, which eroded public support for the game from 1906 until 1911.
Cusack developed a love for professional football during the early days of the Canton Bulldogs franchise, then headed up by Blondy Wallace.
In his book, "A Pioneer in Pro Football", Cusack still believed, years later, that the Bulldogs and Wallace threw the game.
As manager of the Pros, Cusack slowly added star college players to his roster along with the local sandlotters who constituted the bulk of the team.
Just before Canton's first game with the newly revived Massillon Tigers, Cusack signing the Jim Thorpe, the Sac and Fox Indian from Oklahoma who was then rated as the world's greatest football player, and all-around athlete.
After leaving high school in 1907, Cusack went to work as an office employee for the East Ohio Gas Company, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil.
Hay, who was a very good friend of both Thorpe and Cusack, was acquainted with most of our 1916 and 1917 players, and therefore was in position to organize a team from that foundation.
He hired Cusack to look after his personnel affairs as he felt that he was not receiving his full amount of gate money owed to him.
He later found out that when Cleveland played in a baseball venue, the stadium personnel would take a larger cut for themselves and leave the rest for the players.