DEDICATED TO BJ ALUMS FOUNDER HARRY LIGGETT 1930-2014, BJ NEWSROOM LEGEND 1965-1995, AND TO JOHN OLESKY JR., 1932-2024, BJ MAINSTAY 1969-1996 AND BLOG EDITOR 2014-2024. Blog for retired and former Beacon Journal employees and other invited guests.
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Monday, August 13, 2007
Rubber Bowl piece recalls Jim Schlemmer, Oscar Smith
Beacon Journal staff writer Mark J. Price does a great job in a regular Monday series called This Place, This Time on the Arts&LIving section front.
Today's article recalls the grand opening of the Rubber Bowl which will be sold when the University of Akron builds a new stadium on campus.
The article mentions a couple of old timers which a few may remember even if they were not around themselves for the grand opening.
More than 40,000 cheering citizens jammed the rubber boll for the opening in August, 1940, Price notes. "Promoters called the dedication of the $546,000 stadium the "greatest civic affair in Akron's history." Every seat was filled in the stadium designed to seat 37,000.
B. J. "Shorty" Fulton, manager of Akron Municipal Airport, and Beacon sports editor Jim Schlemmer championed the cause. The Works Project Administratin in 1939 agreed to provide $246,000 in federal funds if Akron contrbuted $30,000. Schlemmer led a committee to raise pledges and had no difficult persuading 30,000 citizens to donate $1 each.
Beacon Journal writer Oscar Smith described the spectacle:
''There were Akron university uniformed football players; 100 talented dancers, pupils of cooperating dance teachers of Akron; high school students, some in caps and gowns, some in lettered sweaters, students from North, South, East, West, Garfield, Central. St. Vincent's, Kenmore, Ellet, Hower and Buchtel; there were representatives of archery, badminton, casting, boxing, softball, dog shows, fencing, gymnastics, field hockey, motorcycling, pingpong, polo, skating, skiing, tennis, track in fact, about every sport and activity you could name.''
Click on the headline to go to Price's article.
I remember both Jim Schlemmer and Oscar Smith from when I first started as a part timer at the Beacon Journal in late 1952. Schlemmer was one of the legends, one of the five that the whole town claimed as their own in that era. This was before TV, and even before Murphey. Murphey was there, but didn't enjoy legend status at that time. The five were, Schlemmer, Nichols, Greenfield, Waterhouse and Jaycox, not necessarily in that order. Everybody in Akron was familiar with their names. Oscar Smith was part of the City Desk staff. Mostly rewrite, plus did additional duty as music critic. Never saw him without a smile on his face, very friendly guy. Crippled with polio, never let it get in his way. Long before my time, but lots of stories about his bathtub gin back in prohibition days. He liked to party. Most of the staff from that era would never get past the battery of tests that the personnel department liked to give in a later era. We had a bunch of wonderful characters back in those days. We didn't make much money, but we did have fun.
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