HOW TO GO
WHAT: Weeb Ewbank-John Pont Golf Classic
WHEN: May 16. Event has shotgun start at 1 p.m. with a dinner served afterward.
WHERE: Indian Ridge Golf Club, 2600 Oxford Millville Road
COST: Entry deadline is May 1 and cost is $80 for both the golf and the dinner, or $20 for only the dinner
MORE INFO: 513-523-7360
Two coaching legends with ties to Oxford are being remembered in this year’s golf outing to raise money for high school scholarships.
The golf event has been held for 30 years, involving a host of former professional football players and coaches. It was held for many years in honor of the late Weeb Ewbank, but this year the name of John Pont is being added for the Weeb Ewbank-John Pont Golf Classic, being held May 16 at Indian Ridge Golf Club.
“It started as the Weeb Ewbank Golf Classic, but when John passed away, we decided to make it for Weeb and John,” said Jay Fry, a former coach in both the National Football League and the Canadian Football League, as well as the college ranks and a long-time Oxford resident.
Both Ewbank and Pont are charter members of Miami’s Athletic Hall of Fame Class, inducted in 1969.
Ewbank, Miami class of 1928, is best known as the coach of the New York Jets when they stunned the sports world with a win over the Baltimore Colts, for the American Football League’s first world championship in Super Bowl III.
Earlier, he had been the coach of the Colts when they won back-to-back NFL championships in 1958 and 1959. When the Jets won the AFL title in 1968, he became the first coach to win titles in both leagues.
His athletic career began at Miami where he was a three-sport star. He was a quarterback on three winning football teams, helped lead Miami to two Buckeye Conference baseball titles as captain and earned three letters as a forward in basketball. Ewbank coached football at McGuffey High School where his teams won 71 of 98 games. He also coached Miami’s basketball team during the 1938-39 season.
He coached with Paul Brown at Great Lakes Naval Training Station as an assistant football coach and after World War II, became backfield coach at Brown University and head basketball coach for the Bruins before moving to Washington University in St. Louis to become head grid coach. In two seasons he brought the Bears their finest record in 30 years, compiling a 14-4 record, including a 9-1 mark in 1948. In 1949, he entered the professional ranks by rejoining the Cleveland Browns, serving as line coach. While a member of the Cleveland Browns coaching staff, he helped lead the Browns to four Eastern Division titles and the NFL crown once.
Pont got his Miami football career off to a good start, fumbling the opening kickoff of the season as a sophomore, but retrieving the ball and returning it 96 yards for a touchdown.
In three years as an All-MAC halfback, Pont scored 27 touchdowns, gained 2,390 yards in 340 rushing attempts and returned 33 kickoffs for 874 yards. Pont totaled 4,184 yards of total offense. He was part of the 1950 MAC championship team coached by Woody Hayes that also recorded a 34-21 win over Arizona State in the Salad Bowl. Pont was part of the first team All-MAC in 1949, 1950 and 1951.
Following graduation in 1952, he played one season of professional football at Toronto. He returned to Miami in 1953 to be freshman football coach under Ara Parseghian and was named head coach when Parseghian went to Northwestern in 1956. In seven years his teams compiled a record of 43 wins, 22 defeats and two ties and won MAC titles in 1957 and 1958. He became the head football coach at Yale in 1963 and had a two-year mark of 12-5-1 before moving to Indiana in 1965.
Pont accomplished the seemingly impossible in 1967 when he led a sophomore team to a share of the Big Ten title and a trip to the Rose Bowl. For this feat he was selected Coach of the Year by both the Football Writers Association and the American Football Coaches Association. He also coached for Northwestern and Mount St. Joseph.
Both men retired to Oxford.
Money raised from the golf outing goes into scholarships for area high school seniors, but Fry notes the scholarships are not solely for athletics and that Talawanda students have been well-represented in past years.
This year’s winners will be announced April 16.
Fry, now 87 years of age, is still active in coaching with the Miami University club football team, which was undefeated last fall until losing the national championship game.
Fry also has a rich coaching history as well as long ties to Oxford.
He earned football letters under Woody Hayes as a linebacker on the 1950 Mid-American Conference and Salad Bowl championship team and as an all-MAC guard under Ara Parseghian in 1951. He graduated in 1952.
He returned to Miami in 1956 to assist Pont in football and was head wrestling coach for seven years. He followed Pont to Yale and Indiana and also served under Bill Arnsparger and John McVey with the New York Giants. He coached the Ottawa Rough Riders four years in the Canadian Football League and a Grey Cup championship. He also coached Memphis in the World Football League for two years.
He currently serves as president of the Cincinnati Chapter of the NFL alumni organization, which awards the scholarships as part of a long-time concern for children.
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