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Savic's success story speaks volumes to America's gift
Saturday, July 4, 2009
By rob oller
Courtney Hergesheimer | Dispatch
Pandel Savic, a quarterback for the Buckeyes from 1947 to '49, will be inducted into the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame in September.
Long before speaking in scarlet and gray, Pandel Savic learned to talk in maize and blue -- and orange and green.
The year was 1934, and Savic sat in the Youngstown-area classroom of first-grade teacher Mrs. Armstrong, studying the color charts so he could learn to speak the same language as his classmates. He had come to the United States as a 9-year-old from a village near the Macedonia-Greece border and knew no English.
Now, nearly 75 years later, the former Ohio State quarterback still speaks in colors -- the red, white and blue of an America he grew up loving. Savic, 83, is an unabashed patriot who presents his life as proof that "as long as you kept your nose clean and went to work, you had so many opportunities to do what you wanted to do here."
What the immigrant from Drago, Macedonia, eventually decided to do was attend Ohio State, where after returning from World War II he played quarterback, from 1947 to 1949.
He found success playing football -- his fourth-quarter touchdown pass against Michigan in 1949 enabled the Buckeyes to earn a 7-7 tie and a Rose Bowl trip. And he found it upon graduation, helping to start an industrial safety business eventually worth millions. Those achievements, combined with his involvement in the community -- he helped develop Muirfield Village Golf Club and start the Memorial Tournament with good friend Jack Nicklaus -- factored into Savic being named to the 2009 class of the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame.
As with most American success stories, Savic's was shaped by strong character and fortunate circumstance. When he was 4, his mother died. His grandmother stepped in to raise him, but she soon died and an uncle took over. Finally, he left for the U.S., traveling with a female friend of the family and her daughter through Yugoslavia, Switzerland and France, where they went by ship to New York. No one met them at Ellis Island. They took a train to Youngstown, where Savic's grandfather ran a small bakery.
"It was the Steel Valley, and the only way to get out of there was to make it in sports," Savic said. "So I played basketball, baseball, track -- anything I could get my hands on."
Ohio State soon got its hands on Savic. He accepted a scholarship but put the Buckeyes on hold by enlisting with the Marines in 1943.
The Columbus Dispatch : Rob Oller commentary: Savic's success story speaks volumes to America's gift
ATH: Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2009 Announced - The Ohio State Buckeyes Official Athletics Site - OhioStateBuckeyes.com
