The Canton ties, tested one by one

Lambeau, McNally, Trafton, Connor — at exact strength

Curly Lambeau played one season on this ground, and it is the whole of his tie. Earl "Curly" Lambeau of Green Bay came to Notre Dame in 1918 and made the varsity as a freshman fullback on Knute Rockne's first team; the South Bend Tribune's account credits him with the first touchdown scored under Rockne, in the season opener at Case Tech on September 28, 1918. A severe case of tonsillitis ended it: he dropped out in December 1918, went home to Green Bay to recover, and never returned — his later account held that by the time the infection cleared he had missed too much school, and money from home could not be depended on. What followed belongs to Green Bay: work at the Indian Packing Company, the founding of the Packers in August 1919, and a coaching apprenticeship at his own Green Bay East High School, where he coached in 1919–21 alongside the young Packers. There is no South Bend coaching stop in his record — the brief for this section asked for the test by name, and the record answers it plainly: Lambeau's coaching began at his hometown high school and continued with his hometown team for thirty years. He entered Canton's charter class in 1963 as Green Bay's founder, captain and coach. The South Bend season was real, brief and formative — Rockne's first team, a letter, a touchdown in the first game — and it is neither more nor less than that.

John "Blood" McNally's tie is enrollment, not play. McNally's college stardom was made at St. John's University in Minnesota, where he lettered in four sports. He transferred to Notre Dame — the standard accounts date the transfer to 1926; an encyclopedia biography gives 1923 — and never played a down for the Fighting Irish, leaving school for semi-professional football, from which the "Johnny Blood" career of fourteen professional seasons ran. The Pro Football Hall's record lists both schools against his name, St. John's and Notre Dame, and the honest print of the tie is the one the record supports: he was a Notre Dame student who never played a Notre Dame game, and a charter member of Canton's class of 1963 on a career made elsewhere. George Trafton's tie is one full season, fully played. The Chicago center played one year at Notre Dame, at the heart of Rockne's undefeated 1919 team — the first center, the record credits, to snap the ball with one hand. Over the Christmas holidays that followed he played professional games under an assumed name; the South Bend Tribune's report of the exposure — "It has been satisfactorily proven to the local officials that Trafton played under an assumed name" — ended his eligibility, and he signed with the Decatur Staleys for the new league's first season in 1920. Canton took him in 1964. George Connor's tie is the standard transfer, stated once: Holy Cross first, then Notre Dame in 1946–47, where he won the first Outland Trophy; both halls count him, and both schools claim him, and the dual line is printed in both enumerations above rather than resolved into one.

And the direct question — a South Bend man in Canton — answers no. The same born-and-formed register tested against the College Hall in the entry above was tested against the Pro Football Hall of Fame's inductees: no man born in South Bend, and no man schooled at a South Bend high school, stands in Canton. The city's Canton presence is the university's fourteen and the three partial ties above, and no more; the register that holds the city's professional line entire, from Frank Bacon in 1920 to the present, contains no Canton name of the city's own.

Sources:

1. Pro Football Hall of Fame — its "Hometown Hall of Famer" account of Curly Lambeau: Notre Dame in 1918, the varsity as a freshman, the tonsillitis that sent him home, and the charter induction of 1963.
2. Green Bay Packers, from the University of Notre Dame Archives' student file — Lambeau's December 1918 withdrawal, the January 6, 1919 letter to Rockne, and the tonsillitis account he gave in 1962.
3. South Bend Tribune, August 27, 2026 — Lambeau as Rockne's fullback, the first touchdown of the Rockne era on September 28, 1918, and his Green Bay East coaching of 1919–21.
4. Pro Football Hall of Fame and the standard biographical record — John "Blood" McNally: St. John's stardom, the transfer to Notre Dame and no game played there, the charter class of 1963; the transfer year given as 1926 in the standard accounts and 1923 in the encyclopedia biography.
5. University of Notre Dame athletics and the Pro Football Hall of Fame biography of George Trafton — the one Notre Dame year, the undefeated 1919 team, the one-handed snap, and the 1964 induction; the South Bend Tribune's report of the assumed-name games, via the professional football history record.
6. Sports Players record of this history — the born-and-formed register against which the Canton test was run.