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The eyes have it
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Optometrist Dr. John J. Guerriero of Boardman stands next to a phoropter, an instrument used during eye examinations to determine eyeglass prescriptions. Dr. Guerriero has been in practice 50 years this month, starting in 1959 in Warren, and opening an office on Canfield Road in Cornersburg two years later.
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Dr. John J. Guerriero demonstrates a retinal camera that makes images of the interior of patients eyes and enables the optometrist to view blood vessels and determine if there is damage from conditions such as diabetes and macular degeneration. Unlike the old days, when the doctor had to remember from examination to examination, the images of the eye can be kept from year to year to make comparisons to determine if a condition has changed.
Dr. John Guerriero
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Dr. John Guerriero, a Cornersburg optometrist, says he still enjoys his work after 50 years.
After 50 years as an optometrist, Dr. Guerriero sees no end to his practice.
Optometrist John J. Guerriero started out to be a dentist but quickly found out he “couldn’t handle” looking into people’s mouths for a living.
He missed out on a chance to hit up Roone Arledge, who went on to become president of ABC’s sports and news divisions, for a job in television, so on the advice of his counselor at Columbia University he “gave optometry a try.”
Fifty years later, as of July 15, he is still in practice in Cornersburg and in his own words, “still going strong.”
“I never felt like I was coming to work. This is my life. It keeps my brain alive. I can’t quit because my patients have become my dear friends,” he said.
Guerriero, 79, adopted when he was about 18 months old by Tony and Elsie Guerriero, grew up on Wayne Avenue on Youngstown’s South Side near the Pyatt Street Market.
“The [Interstate] 680 bypass goes through where my house used to stand,” he said.
His father worked 40 years at the Youngstown Post Office, and his mother was a homemaker.
Guerriero, who worked in construction in the summers as a teenager and through college and at the post office during Christmas holidays, graduated in 1948 from South High School, where he earned All-City and All-State football honors as a 195-pound end.
He received football scholarship offers from Ohio State University and other major schools but ended up accepting an academic scholarship at Columbia in New York City even though his 3.1 grade-point average wasn’t quite up to Ivy League school standards. The Columbia coach interceded for him, he admitted.
He played football four years at Columbia and graduated in premed in 1953. While at the university, Guerriero was a member of Reserve Officer Training Corps, which led to his serving two years in the Navy after college.
He played football for the Little Creek, Va., Navy team, which competed against other service teams that had some future professional players, including Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lattner.
Playing against that caliber of players and the lack of money at the pro level made him decide against trying to make his living on the gridiron.
“At the time, the pros were making about $3,000 a season. I wasn’t going to go out there and get busted up for that. I was going to come back to Youngstown and coach for about the same money,” he said.
“I had a lot of fun playing football at Navy, but I have bad knees today because of it,” he said.
Instead, he went to the Ohio State University School of Optometry on the GI Bill and opened his first office on Washington Street Northwest in Warren in 1959.
While in Warren, he was a volunteer coach for Warren G. Harding High School, working with the ends during the era when Paul Warfield was on the team. Warfield would go on to star at OSU and play professionally for the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins. He was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1983.
Also while in Warren, he fitted a Harding student with contacts, which were new technology at the time. Guerriero said the young man has since retired from General Motors and lives in Hawaii.
Guerriero, however, said he is proud that the patient stops in to get his eyes examined when he comes home for a family visit each year, as do others from those early days.
“He gets his eyes examined, and we go out to lunch,” Guerriero said with obvious pleasure.
In 1961, Guerriero opened his practice in Cornersburg in the professional building at 3507 Canfield Road, going into partnership with Dr. Patrick D’Agostino, Frank DiGiacomo, and Dr. Fred Dunlea, all 1948 graduates of Youngstown schools.
In 1983, Dr. Guerriero built a facility down the street at 3155 Canfield Road, the location of his current practice, Vision Care Associates.
“I went from 500 square feet to 3,000 square feet, and it’s still not too big,” he said.
He recently sold the building and practice to Dr. Robert Gaetano, but he said they have an agreement that he can stay and see patients as long as he wants. He is assisted in his practice by optician Rachael Razo of Boardman.
“I couldn’t get along without her,” he said.
Also for 20 years, beginning in 1977, he owned the Donut Oven on Meridian Road, along with partner Frank Buday.
Football remained a part of his life when he returned to Youngstown, where he said he recruited many local players for Columbia.
And though he did not use his voice to be come a broadcaster, he has been a singer virtually all his life, starting with the choir in the first grade at St. Patrick School on Oak Hill Avenue.
He said the highlight of his singing career was playing the role of Captain Georg von Trapp in a “Sound of Music” production at Ohev Tzedek Temple auditorium on Glenwood Avenue in 1968. Also in the production was Maureen Collins of East Street Productions, who played a nun, he said.
“God gave me a voice. If you don’t use a gift, he won’t be happy,” he said.
Guerriero exercises regularly, riding his bike six miles in Mill Creek Park “nearly every day,” and playing a lot of tennis. “I joined the Boardman Tennis Club the day it opened in 1967, and I still belong,” he said.
He said it is his love of tennis that prevents him from having his football-damaged knees replaced.
“I keep fighting surgery because I don’t know anybody with a knee replacement that plays tennis. I’m holding out for better technology,” he said with a laugh.
Guerriero said he is all for new technology in optometry, too.
“The advancement in eye care over the past 50 years is unbelievable. We were in the dark ages 50 years ago; we just didn’t know it,” he said.
For instance, cataract surgery once involved removing the lens from the eye and prescribing glasses with “Coke bottle” lenses. Now, a new lens is implanted in the eye through such a small incision that it doesn’t even need a stitch, he said.
Guerriero said he has been very lucky in life.
“I had great parents, and football — I was big and could knock people down — got me a college education. Then the Navy and the GI Bill allowed me to become an optometrist,” he said.
A Boardman resident, he lived 40 years on Hopkins Road, 20 years in his first home and then 20 years in his “dream home” that he built on 10 acres down the street, which featured a tennis court. He is no longer married and lives in a Boardman condominium.
He has six daughters: Linda Strub of Canton; Cheri Guerriero, Nancy Kurko, Donna McAuley and Kim Boccia, all of Poland; and Maribeth Moore of San Diego.
He says the secrets to his longevity and zest for work and life are exercise and drinking red wine.
“God has been good to me,” he added.
alcorn@vindy.com