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Struthers’ Suber was super athlete, better person
Photo
Vince Suber in a yearbook photo during his basketball playing days at Struthers High School. Suber will be among 13 individuals who will be inducted into the Ebony Lifeline All-Sports Hall of Fame today during the group’s annual banquet. Suber also played baseball and football and ran track before attending Ohio State.
STRUTHERS
Vince Suber is in the upper echelon of Struthers High athletics, hands-down.
He also ranks high in the good-guy category.
“He was the main person on the football team and the basketball team, but, most of all, he was a quality person, an outstanding person — an unbelievable person,” said Gary Zetts, another former Struthers athlete with multiple athletic skills of his own.
Both are in the high school’s hall of fame, but Suber is among 13 individuals to be inducted into the Ebony Lifeline All-Sports Hall of Fame during the organization’s 17th annual banquet today at Mount Carmel Social Hall.
Suber’s posthumous recognition is well-deserved for the man who was a notch above most in the sports realm.
In high school, Suber played baseball, basketball and football and also ran track, then went to Ohio State.
“He was playing [on special teams as a sophomore], but, unfortunately, got sick and everything came to an end,” Zetts said of an illness that first hit Suber in college.
Suber had Struthers’ school record in basketball for points in a game (45) until it was broken by Jim Fox by one point. Suber’s accomplishment came against Warren Western Reserve. He was a senior quarterback/DB when Zetts was a sophomore receiver/defensive end. Zetts assumed the QB role after Vince graduated in 1967.
The two also played baseball together during Suber’s junior and senior seasons of 1966 and ‘67. Zetts made the varsity squad as a freshman.
“Vince was shortstop and batted third,” Zetts said of Suber’s baseball acumen, which earned him a likely Major League opportunity.
“The Detroit Tigers had an interest in him and were going to draft Vince, but he opted for football at Ohio State.”
Suber was on Ohio State’s national title team that beat USC and O.J. Simpson in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day, 1969.
Struthers had two other players on the Buckeyes’ 1968 roster: Jim Gentile and Ted Kurz.
“He was an unbelievable athlete,” Zetts said of Suber. “In fact, when people in Struthers talk about who was the best athlete ever in Struthers, Vince’s name is definitely in the top five. There wasn’t any sport he couldn’t play.”
Zetts said that Suber was penciled in to be a starter his junior season at OSU.
“He contracted some disease when at Ohio State and it totally destroyed him, physically,” he said of what was believed to be a liver disease. “He got sick and had to come home. He almost died when he was down there. He was fortunate to live the few years afterwards. He tried to walk on at Youngstown State to play basketball, but he couldn’t do anything like he used to.”
Vince had two younger brothers: Pete and Aaron.
Zetts, who will be 63 this month, also went to Ohio State, but didn’t cross paths because Suber was finished when Zetts arrived.
“Vince was a special person, athletically and otherwise,” said Zetts, who noted that Suber was an assistant coach with Struthers junior high and freshman football teams for a while.
“All the kids who ended up graduating in the early 1980s remembered him and loved him as a coach.”
South High graduate Julius Livas played against Suber in high school and during Class B League summers.
“He played for Campbell A.C. and I played for McAuley Awnings,” said Livas, who was a year younger.
“We scrimmaged in football every year and played a couple times in basketball, too. Vince was a fierce competitor and a nice guy. He was the quiet type and got along with everybody, but, on the field or court, you couldn’t find anybody more fierce than him. He was a great athlete.”