KARL PEARSON
11th of a Series...
The term “hero” is one that is thrown around pretty liberally in today’s society. Some would say it’s used far too often.
Then there are those who rightly deserve the title, but flee from it. Those persons are rare indeed.
Jim Holub was just such a person. Those who loved him say he was never comfortable with recognition of any sort. In fact, he was embarrassed by it.
His wife of 641⁄2 years, Helen, gave an example when talking about her husband’s military service at the end of World War II. Jim Holub served in the Marine Corps from 1944 into 1946 as an aircraft repairman, stationed in Hawaii working on planes that were used in the Pacific theater.
“Whenever Jim was at an event where veterans were asked to stand and be recognized, he was very uncomfortable,” she said.
There’s a reason why Holub avoided the spotlight on such occasions.
“He spent his whole time in the service working on the planes,” Helen Holub said. “He wasn’t involved in combat. He didn’t feel he deserved to be considered the same as the men who had been in combat.”
It will be left to the observer if they would consider Holub a hero in that regard, but there is all kind of evidence that he was a hero in so many other ways. For certain, he would be considered a player of heroic stature on the football field in his birthplace of Bentleyville, Pa. and at Ashtabula High School in 1937 and 1938 for Hall of Fame coach George “Chic” Guarnieri. He was also a standout in basketball and track at both schools.
He made a definite impact when he got to Ashtabula. His efforts alone as an athlete would be considered worthy of consideration for his selection into the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame, which he will enter on Dec. 7 at the Ashtabula County Touchdown Club Awards Banquet.
Certainly he made an impact on teammate John DePascale who, at age 90, may well be the last surviving member of Guarnieri’s 1938 team, which produced his first Lake Shore League football championship.
“I was wondering when they were going to put a real football player in there,” DePascale said. “We were champs when he played.
“He was wonderful. He was a terrific running back. But, boy, could he kick the ball. When he punted the ball, it would spiral through the air and you thought it would never come down. He was just a good, all-around player.
“Jim was a wonderful person, too. He was very popular in school. I always wondered what happened that he hadn’t been put in the Hall of Fame.”
But Holub was equally respected by his opponents. Norman “Frenchy” Lesperance, who battled against Holub as a member of archrival Harbor, spoke to his skills, even though his Mariners’ defeated Holub’s Panthers, 10-0, in their annual clash on Thanksgiving Day in 1938 to spoil Ashtabula’s bid for an undefeated season.
“He was a wonderful player,” the 86-year-old Lesperance said of Holub. “He was hard to tackle. He was a great punter, too. He was a real hard hitter.”
Opposing coaches applauded Holub’s play, too.
“Holub was as hard to bring down as a bull moose,” Harbor coach M.K. Kiracofe said in the Star Beacon even in the wake of his Mariners’ upset of the Panthers.
Even Guarnieri, who was known as a hard-driving taskmaster who didn’t throw around compliments lightly, had words of praise for Holub, especially after his role in leading Ashtabula to an 18-0 victory over Harvey that was later billed as the championship game for the 1938 LSL title.
“The work of (Peter) Noce and Holub was something to talk about,” he said in the Star Beacon.
After he finished his term of military service and returned to Ashtabula, Holub became a terrific servant of his community. To the better part of a generation of youngsters, he was vital as one of the organizers of Ashtabula Little League, serving as a longtime manager for teams and working on many of the projects that put that organization on a firm footing.
Then one should ask about his legion of children and grandchildren and their teammates of their impression of their father and grandfather. To young people who were athletes at Ashtabula, Edgewood or St. John, he was an inspirational sight, always there with a supportive smile or an encouraging word.
His sons Rick, Larry and Barry became key linemen for Hall of Fame coach Tony Chiacchiero at Ashtabula. Even though their father had been a skill player for the Panthers, he still helped them with their game.
“He showed me how to block,” Rick Holub, a 1960 graduate who was on Chiacchiero’s first truly successful team at Ashtabula, said. “He showed me all kinds of different techniques. I was a pulling guard, so Dad showed me how to set up my blocks so I could make the defender go the direction he seemed to want to go and so the back could cut off the block.”
“Dad was very big on lifting weights long before it really became popular,” youngest son Barry Holub said. “I used to be the barbell for Rick.”
“The other kids on our grandchildren’s teams used to call him Grandpa Holub,” his wife said.
But, being the humble man he was, all the praise and the adulation would have made Holub uneasy, his family said. Even though he would have been proud of entering the Hall of Fame, he would not have made a big display of it.
“He’d have liked going in the Hall of Fame, but he’d have wanted to keep it quiet,” Rick Holub said.
“He’d have talked about it, but he wouldn’t put the spotlight on himself,” Barry Holub said. “He just went out and performed and let that speak for itself.”
Holub would have taken pride in entering the Hall of Fame with some of his playing contemporaries like Conneaut’s John Anthony and Joe Ferl, Geneva’s Joe Mallone and Mickey Sanzotta and teammate Spiro Dellerba, who was a sophomore for the Panthers when he was a senior.
But he would have taken particular pride in joining Guarnieri, who was in the initial class of inductees in 2004.
“Jim really respected Coach Guarnieri,” Helen Holub said.
“Mr. Guarnieri said Dad was a good player,” Rick Holub said. “He said he was probably the best kicker he ever had. He said he thought he punted the ball 100 yards sometimes.”
The relationship may have gone beyond that for Holub, whose father had died when he was still in elementary school and was being raised by his mother, Anne, when they moved to Ashtabula while the country was still in the height of the Great Depression.
“I think Dad may have even thought of Mr. Guarnieri as a bit of a father figure,” Rick said. “I think he looked out for my dad.”
Chiacchiero obviously benefited from the skills of 1960 graduate Rick on his offensive line, 1962 graduate Larry in his backfield and 1965 graduate David on his offensive line. But, as an elementary student, Chiacchiero came to admire Guarnieri’s teams and the players of those early years.
“When I was 10 years old, Mr. Guarnieri used to have us go out and line the field or shovel snow off it and let us get into the games for free,” he said. “I recall Jim Holub as mainly an excellent punter and a good all-around athlete. I thought all the football players were great.
“When I was coaching, I got to know him really well because three of his sons played for me. He was a great supporter of athletics at Ashtabula High School.”
In turn, when Holub’s sons got to Ashtabula High School, Guarnieri, who was still teaching at the school even though he had retired from football coaching in 1952, had a sense their father’s old coach was still looking after them.
“Mr. Guarnieri got me a job as an usher at Shea’s Theater (now the Ashtabula Senior Center) when I was in high school,” Rick Holub said. “Even though he wasn’t coaching, he used to talk to you about your performance in the football game on Friday night when we got to school on Monday. I think my brothers, Larry and David, would say Mr. Guarnieri looked out for us.”
In a way, Holub may have been a son of sorts for Guarnieri and his wife, who never had children.
“Dad probably was like a child they never had,” Rick said.
Pennsylvania days
In a way, Holub’s induction into the Hall of Fame is an early celebration of what would have been his 89th birthday. H was born on Dec. 6, 1920. He died on June 14, 2005.
Holub was the youngest of five sons of Frank and Anne Holub. He and his older brothers, Frank Addison, Thomas, Wilber and Gene were all born while the family lived in the small coal-mining town of Bentleyville. Even today, the town, located about a half hour south of Pittsburgh on Interstate 70, numbers only about 2,500 inhabitants.
As he was growing up, work in the coal mines was already beginning to dwindle. Then the Depression hit. Shortly after that, Holub’s father died.
They managed to stay in Bentleyville for several years, but as the family shrank as his older brothers moved away, it became tougher for a single mother to keep things going. All the while, Jim was making a name for himself in youth sports in the community, to the point that by the time he reached sophomore year at Bentleyville High School, in an era when sophomores didn’t usually make much of an impact on varsity sports, he was looked upon as a huge prospect.
But the economic conditions in a country still mired deep in the Depression financially necessitated the move of the youngest Holub and their mother to Ashtabula, where his brother, Wilber, had gone to earn work on the docks and the railroads that were still running at a reasonably vibrant level in that era.
His departure from Bentleyville was a cause for mourning in that community.
“His coaches were almost crying when he left,” Helen Holub said.
His parting from Bentleyville after his sophomore year almost read like an obituary, in viewing clippings from the Bentleyville Daily Republican’s Frank M. Cox that Holub included in a scrapbook.
“Coach Alex Ufema gave the impression today that a cloudburst of last weekend proportions was dumping upon his cranium when he announced that Jimmy Holub, potential grid star and ace cager, was shaking the dust of Bentleyville from his feet and jaunting to Ashtabula, Ohio at attend high school,” the story read.
“Meaning that what Bentleyville loses in the way of a stellar athlete Ashtabula gains. But what Ashtabula gains strikes a new low in interest here except insofar as it affects Jimmy, of course. What has the local citizenry looking down their noses in abysmal dejection is losing the versatile and valuable Holub.
“In addition to being one of the gift-edged prospects for the 1937 grid squad, along with Jack Vaire and George Appleby, Jimmy was one of Ufema’s dynamite crew in the cage machine,” the story concluded.
Even after he started playing at Ashtabula, the Bentleyville newspaper occasionally ran accounts of his exploits with the Panthers.
At Ashtabula
Among other things, it appears Holub had a gift for fortunate timing, too. His arrival in Ashtabula coincided with Guarnieri’s first season as the head football coach in 1937, taking over from famed basketball coach Bob Ball, whose football program had gone through three lackluster seasons previously in which the Panthers never won more than three games.
Holub and players like fellow running back Anthony Quaranta, standout linemen John Natchuk and Sam Simon and other fine players like Calvin Hutchins, Harold Root, John Callahan and Clarence “Nooky” Watters turned in an immediate reversal of fortunes for the Panthers, compiling a 5-3-1 record. That was the best record for an Ashtabula team since James McElroy’s 1930 Panthers had gone 6-2-2.
He burst upon the scene with a flourish. Starting at one of the halfback spots in Guarnieri’s single-wing offense, Holub showed he had talent as a passer in the opening game of the 1937 season against Erie Cathedral Prep, completing five of six passes for 130 yards and two touchdowns in a rousing 31-0 victory. He also gave an early display of his skills as a punter with three punts averaging 48 yards in the days when the football used was basically a glorified pumpkin.
He also provided an adept defender. He made a touchdown-saving tackle later in the season in a 21-0 win over Willoughby.
Apparently, Holub’s humble approach to his success as an athlete and his ruggedly handsome good looks quickly won favor with his new teammates and fellow students at Ashtabula High School. By the time his senior year rolled around, he was selected class vice-president, vice-president of the Student Senate and assistant advertising manager of the Dart, the school yearbook.
That special season
It all served as a prelude to the championship season of 1938. Holub helped get the Panthers rolling, scoring a touchdown in their 18-0 victory in the opener against Cathedral Prep.
They went on the road for their second game and received the only other blemish on their season, battling the Canton Lehman Polar Bears in a game that finished 6-6.
DePascale remembers that game well.
“That was the first time we’d played under lights,” he said. “Tony Quaranta ran the opening kickoff back for a touchdown for us.”
The next week, those Panthers had the distinction of becoming the first team to play under lights on what was then called Bula Field and would later bear Guarnieri’s name after the 1960 season. It seemed altogether fitting that Harbor should serve as the opponent for that game, which was also the opening contest in LSL play. Holub’s punting was a key in helping the Panthers gut out a 6-0 win.
His skills as a punter and punt returner were keys the following week as the Panthers outlasted a Conneaut squad that included Anthony and Ferl, 12-7. They caught the Trojans a year before they would go 10-0.
The following week, the Panthers took on Fairport, which in that era was a power in the LSL. But they handled the Skippers, 21-0, in part benefiting from a Holub interception.
They followed that up with a 6-0 victory over Willoughby, which set up what turned out to be the LSL title game against Harvey. Thanks to several long runs and punts by Holub, it really was a comparatively easy 18-0 victory. That was the game that drew plaudits from Guarnieri.
The following week, the Panthers breezed to sole possession of the LSL title with an even easier 26-0 win over the Geneva team of Mallone and Sanzotta, who both went on to stellar college football careers.
The season-ending loss to Harbor was no doubt a deep disappointment. Holub suffered as much as any Panther as two of his punts were blocked for safeties and a bad punt snap produced another. It led to the first victory in the Thanksgiving Day classic for Harbor in 12 years.
“Everything just went our way that day,” Lesperance said of the game played on a snowy Wenner Field.
It didn’t detract from how Holub was perceived, though. Eventually, he received second-team All-LSL honors, while Quaranta, Natchuck and Simon were first-team members and Hutchins was second team. In those days, the team captain was chosen after the season, and Holub was elected by his fellow lettermen.
“He was the star of practically every Panther game,” a story in the Star Beacon announcing Holub’s selection read.
Moving right to the basketball court, Holub led Ball’s team to a 9-8 record and was chosen captain for that sport as well.
The next step
But measuring 5-foot-10, 170 pounds and also facing a situation when he was finding it necessary to support his mother as well, any thought of pursuing athletics farther went out the window quite quickly.
Instead, after graduation in 1939, Holub went to work on the railroad. In January 1940, he met Helen Humphries on a blind date. He was playing recreation league basketball by that point.
“We met after one of his basketball games,” she said with a smile. “I had heard about him playing football and basketball. I guess it was love at first sight.”
They were married on Christmas Eve, 1940. He was 20, while Helen was 19.
Already the rumblings of World War II were around, but the job market was still pretty tough, and Holub was laid off for a time shortly after they were married. But, by the summer of 1941, he was back working for the railroad and was still there when the U.S. was pulled into the war the day after his birthday in 1941.
“We lived on Park Avenue in an apartment right across the street from the Star Beacon when we first got married,” Helen said. “I used to look out the window and watch what was going on over there. Then we moved to West 43rd Street when the war broke out.”
Holub initially tried to go into the Navy in the early days of the war, but his family was beginning to grow, so that was put on hold for a while and he went back to work for the railroad.
“We moved to Seymour Avenue just before Rick was born,” Helen said. “Then we moved again to Bunker Hill, and we’ve lived there ever since.”
Finally, in 1944, his brother Wilber, who lived in Willowick, saw that he was about to be drafted into the service. He and Jim decided they would enter the Marines as a package deal, but through some manner of miscommunication, Jim ended up with the Marines and Wilber wound up in the Navy. So it was off to Hawaii for Jim for his work on the airplanes in Hawaii.
When he was discharged from the Marines in 1946, Holub came right back to Ashtabula and went back to work on the railroad. He continued work there until 1954, completing a 17-year career.
It was during those days that he got involved with Ashtabula Little League. Eventually, he took over as manager of the Phillies.
“I was on those teams,” Rick Holub said. “I remember I was assigned to make the calls to all the other kids to let them know when we were going to practice.
Eventually, Holub shifted his work base to the Detrex Co. in Ashtabula. He worked there for 25 years as a chemical maintenance man. Then he worked for RMI until he retired when he was 63.
A love of sports
All along the way, Holub maintained an avid involvement in sports, either as a facilitator or a participant.
“He used to bowl in the winter and play golf in the summer,” Rick said. “He was almost a scratch golfer.”
He also went into other coaching endeavors, and brought his wife along for the ride. His sons like to tell an amusing story about that.
“Dad got involved in basketball at Bunker Hill School (now McKinsey Elementary),” Rick said. “(Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Famer) Ange Candela always had really good teams at State Road Elementary.
“One night, Dad was running late, so he told Mom to coach the team, and we won. For years after, when Ange we see Mom he’d say, ‘There’s the woman that beat me.’”
“I just told them to do what they were normally told to do,” Helen said with a smile and a shrug.
As an additional illustration of his love for basketball, Holub got involved in officiating boys high school basketball. That fostered a love for officiating with Rick, who went on to referee basketball, football and volleyball for years.
“He used to officiate at a lot of the small schools like Rowe, Williamsfield and Rock Creek,” Rick said. “He was in officiating at least 20 years and he used to take me with him.
“He liked officiating because he liked being around the kids. I definitely think Dad had a role in me going into officiating.”
Eventually, as their 11 grandchildren grew older, Helen and Jim became regular road warriors, literally and figuratively. Rick Holub has three daughters, Larry Holub has two daughters, David Holub has two sons and two daughters and Barry Holub has two sons. The Holubs also have 18 great-grandchildren.
“We loved going to all the games,” Helen said.
“When David’s son, Jeff, was on Edgewood’s 1990 state cross country champions (for coach Ed Best), Dad was so proud,” David said.
“We were there (at Scioto Downs Race Track in Columbus) for it,” Helen said.
Football’s contributions
His family believes football was one of the key foundations in Jim Holub’s life.
“I think it gave him the core of discipline for his life,” Barry said. “That applies not only to his dealings in sports and in his work with the kids he coached, but in his family and work life.”
They believe he would also say Anne Holub made him the man he was.
“I think he learned sticktoitiveness from my grandmother,” Barry said. “It’s amazing what she was able to do raising five fatherless boys during the Depression.
“I think he’d say he learned a lot from his mother.”
