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Off-Topic Charles Grodin Dies, attended the U

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"A native of Pittsburgh, actor Charles Grodin briefly attended the University of Miami, then returned to Pittsburgh to study acting and appear in summer stock theater. After moving to New York in the 1950s, he studied acting with Uta Hagen and Lee Strasberg while working as a cabdriver, night watchman and postal clerk," from his obituary in the Washington Post yesterday. Link - https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...cb6696-b800-11eb-96b9-e949d5397de9_story.html

It got me thinking about an old sportswriter's line about Miami from Grodin's era in Coral Gables: "The Hurricanes' roster has more Pennsylvanians than Fred Waring." Explanation: The Fred Waring Show was an American television musical variety show that ran from April 17, 1949 to May 30, 1954 on CBS. The show was hosted by bandleader Fred Waring and featured his all-male choral group "The Pennsylvanians". Miami HOF coaches Jack Harding and Andy Gustafson both played at Pitt, and the pipeline of players coming to the U from the cradle of American football that includes Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania was strong on into the 1960s and '70s.

From a 2003 story archived online by the UM Sports Dept. about football recruiting back in the day: During his senior year in high school, DE Walt Chwalik received a letter from Coach Gustafson, inviting him to the University of Miami for ‘a screening.’ A train ticket to Miami accompanied the letter, and Walt came down in August of 1948. The train had picked up some 200 (!) young men from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York who received the same ‘screening invitation’ from Coach Gustafson. “We get off at the train station (in Miami) and there are buses to take us directly to the athletic field house,” remembers Walt. “The same day we got off that train we were scrimmaging. We scrimmaged three times a day, morning, noon and again at night. If they liked you in scrimmage, then you stayed around for another day of August practice. If they didn’t like you, then they took you back over to the train station.” Obviously, Chwalik did get to stay. Link - https://miamihurricanes.com/news/2003/08/05/205552588-2/
 
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casino said:
"A native of Pittsburgh, actor Charles Grodin briefly attended the University of Miami, then returned to Pittsburgh to study acting and appear in summer stock theater. After moving to New York in the 1950s, he studied acting with Uta Hagen and Lee Strasberg while working as a cabdriver, night watchman and postal clerk," from his obituary in the Washington Post yesterday. Link - https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...cb6696-b800-11eb-96b9-e949d5397de9_story.html

It got me thinking about an old sportswriter's line about Miami from Grodin's era in Coral Gables: "The Hurricanes' roster has more Pennsylvanians than Fred Waring." Explanation: The Fred Waring Show was an American television musical variety show that ran from April 17, 1949 to May 30, 1954 on CBS. The show was hosted by bandleader Fred Waring and featured his choral group "The Pennsylvanians". Miami HOF coaches Jack Harding and Andy Gustafson both played at Pitt, and the pipeline of players coming to the U from the cradle of American football that includes Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania was strong on into the 1960s and '70s.

From a 2003 story archived online by the UM Sports Dept. about football recruiting back in the day: During his senior year in high school, DE Walt Chwalik received a letter from Coach Gustafson, inviting him to the University of Miami for ‘a screening.’ A train ticket to Miami accompanied the letter, and Walt came down in August of 1948. The train had picked up some 200 (!) young men from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York who received the same ‘screening invitation’ from Coach Gustafson. “We get off at the train station (in Miami) and there are buses to take us directly to the athletic field house,” remembers Walt. “The same day we got off that train we were scrimmaging. We scrimmaged three times a day, morning, noon and again at night. If they liked you in scrimmage, then you stayed around for another day of August practice. If they didn’t like you, then they took you back over to the train station.” Obviously, Chwalik did get to stay. Link - https://miamihurricanes.com/news/2003/08/05/205552588-2/
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Bringing da deep sauces!

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ItsAUThing.com said:
He was flawless in Midnight Run. Absolutely played his Jonathan Mardukas character to perfection.
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I think that was the only time I liked/appreciated Grodin. I basically hated him in everything else, both his acting and his personal appearances. He was a complete *******.
 
casino said:
"A native of Pittsburgh, actor Charles Grodin briefly attended the University of Miami, then returned to Pittsburgh to study acting and appear in summer stock theater. After moving to New York in the 1950s, he studied acting with Uta Hagen and Lee Strasberg while working as a cabdriver, night watchman and postal clerk," from his obituary in the Washington Post yesterday. Link - https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...cb6696-b800-11eb-96b9-e949d5397de9_story.html

It got me thinking about an old sportswriter's line about Miami from Grodin's era in Coral Gables: "The Hurricanes' roster has more Pennsylvanians than Fred Waring." Explanation: The Fred Waring Show was an American television musical variety show that ran from April 17, 1949 to May 30, 1954 on CBS. The show was hosted by bandleader Fred Waring and featured his all-male choral group "The Pennsylvanians". Miami HOF coaches Jack Harding and Andy Gustafson both played at Pitt, and the pipeline of players coming to the U from the cradle of American football that includes Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania was strong on into the 1960s and '70s.

From a 2003 story archived online by the UM Sports Dept. about football recruiting back in the day: During his senior year in high school, DE Walt Chwalik received a letter from Coach Gustafson, inviting him to the University of Miami for ‘a screening.’ A train ticket to Miami accompanied the letter, and Walt came down in August of 1948. The train had picked up some 200 (!) young men from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York who received the same ‘screening invitation’ from Coach Gustafson. “We get off at the train station (in Miami) and there are buses to take us directly to the athletic field house,” remembers Walt. “The same day we got off that train we were scrimmaging. We scrimmaged three times a day, morning, noon and again at night. If they liked you in scrimmage, then you stayed around for another day of August practice. If they didn’t like you, then they took you back over to the train station.” Obviously, Chwalik did get to stay. Link - https://miamihurricanes.com/news/2003/08/05/205552588-2/
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This is a great story (if you don’t mind my brief episode of lucidity—sometimes call a lucid interval in medicine and the law). Howard Schnellenberger took one of those recruiting trips down to UM. He talked about scrimmaging during his visit and he called it “one hellacious scrimmage.” That’s a direct quote of Schnellenberger that I remember reading almost forty years ago. Howard ended up going to Kentucky, where I think he was an A-A end. I believe his college coach at UK was Bear Bryant but can’t remember for sure.

in the early sixties, the media played up the comparative numbers of Pittsburgh area players on our roster every time we played Pitt. Often we had as many if not more. Pitt was a huge rival back in the 50’s and ‘60’s. Walt Kichefski did a lot of our Pittsburgh area recruiting. Although he was a native of Rhinelander, Wis., Coach Ski played for the Steelers after he finished at UM so he had a lot of Pittsburgh area connections.

A bit of trivia I’ve mentioned before. A lot of you might have gone to Pitt games in their old stadium, the one with a track around the field inside a tall wall. Coach Gus scored the very first TD in that stadium as a Pitt fullback back in the 1920’s.
 
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casino said:
"A native of Pittsburgh, actor Charles Grodin briefly attended the University of Miami, then returned to Pittsburgh to study acting and appear in summer stock theater. After moving to New York in the 1950s, he studied acting with Uta Hagen and Lee Strasberg while working as a cabdriver, night watchman and postal clerk," from his obituary in the Washington Post yesterday. Link - https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...cb6696-b800-11eb-96b9-e949d5397de9_story.html

It got me thinking about an old sportswriter's line about Miami from Grodin's era in Coral Gables: "The Hurricanes' roster has more Pennsylvanians than Fred Waring." Explanation: The Fred Waring Show was an American television musical variety show that ran from April 17, 1949 to May 30, 1954 on CBS. The show was hosted by bandleader Fred Waring and featured his all-male choral group "The Pennsylvanians". Miami HOF coaches Jack Harding and Andy Gustafson both played at Pitt, and the pipeline of players coming to the U from the cradle of American football that includes Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania was strong on into the 1960s and '70s.

From a 2003 story archived online by the UM Sports Dept. about football recruiting back in the day: During his senior year in high school, DE Walt Chwalik received a letter from Coach Gustafson, inviting him to the University of Miami for ‘a screening.’ A train ticket to Miami accompanied the letter, and Walt came down in August of 1948. The train had picked up some 200 (!) young men from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York who received the same ‘screening invitation’ from Coach Gustafson. “We get off at the train station (in Miami) and there are buses to take us directly to the athletic field house,” remembers Walt. “The same day we got off that train we were scrimmaging. We scrimmaged three times a day, morning, noon and again at night. If they liked you in scrimmage, then you stayed around for another day of August practice. If they didn’t like you, then they took you back over to the train station.” Obviously, Chwalik did get to stay. Link - https://miamihurricanes.com/news/2003/08/05/205552588-2/
Click to expand...
That pipeline actually extended all the way to Indiana. It was all blue collar industrial towns, we would recruit blue collar working class kids that were real tough. One of our best players from he late ‘60’s, Tony Cline, was an Indiana kid if I remember correctly. He was overshadowed at the other end by Hendricks but was a very good football player in his own right. We used to recruit western PA, northern WVA (Wheeling and Weirton),Ohio, Indiana and western NY. Don Bosseler was from Batavia, NY. We also recruited western Maryland (Cumberland) These were all rich football areas.
 
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