ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512100022
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
TODAY'S STAGG BOWL will be special for Joe Schwartz. Two years ago, he drove all the way from New Jersey, couldn't get a ticket and wound up watching the game from a motel room in West Virginia.
To say Joe Schwartz is a sports fan would be an understatement. To say he is a Rowan College fan would be even more of one.
Schwartz, a retired high school maintenance manager from New Jersey, once hitchhiked 80 miles to watch Rowan's softball team play in the national tournament.
And when the school's football team played in the 1993 Division III championship, the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, he drove from New Jersey to Salem but ended up watching the game from a motel room.
``Everyone gives me hell,'' he said Thursday from a Roanoke motel room he'd checked into that day. ``They say, `What's an old fogy like you doing taking off by yourself?'''
The retired World War II and Korean War veteran from Franklinville, N.J., has been following Rowan College sports for about 16 years. He will turn 79 on Monday but is hoping for an early birthday present when Rowan plays the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse in today's Stagg Bowl.
Schwartz, born and reared in Philadelphia, has been a die-hard Phillies and Eagles fan since childhood. He probably has been to more baseball and football games than many of the players have played in.
He was at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia in 1935 when Babe Ruth played his final baseball game.
He watched Lou Gehrig hit a home run off Dizzy Dean in the 1937 All-Star Game in Washington.
And he remembers when, as a 12-year-old, he saw the Chicago Bears come to Philadelphia to play the Frankford Yellow Jackets and Red Grange ran 90 yards for a touchdown.
Up until two years ago, he never missed an annual trip to Chicago to watch the Cubs play in Wrigley Field.
But he says the professional athletes and the owners have become too greedy and he lost interest.
Today, ``money rules,'' he says.
When ticket prices started rising for Phillies and Eagles games, he quit going.
But instead of losing interest in the sports themselves, he transferred his loyalty to Rowan College in nearby Glassboro, N.J.
He has no connection to the school other than that the campus is minutes from his house.
``I'm no alumni from the university. Don't have no son or grandson playing there. I just like to go see them play,''Schwartz said.
He attends Rowan's men's soccer and baseball games religiously.
Schwartz played semi-pro soccer in Philadelphia during the Depression. While at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the Shenandoah Valley, he played baseball in a Northern Virginia league.
Because of his association with those two sports, they remain his favorite to watch, he said.
But he goes to just about any sporting event at Rowan College.
Last spring, he followed Rowan's women's softball team to Iowa to watch them play in the national championship.
``Why not? I watched them all year,'' Schwartz said.
He flew to Sioux City, Iowa, to catch a bus to Storm Lake, where the game was being played. But there was no public transportation to Storm Lake. Nor were there any rental cars. So, he hitchhiked the final 80 miles to the game.
When the school's football team played for the national title in the 1993 Stagg Bowl, Schwartz drove to Salem hoping to get a ticket at the gate.
But the game sold out, and he would have had to wait more than an hour to buy a standing-room ticket. Schwartz said he has a medical condition that causes his hands to freeze quickly and lose feeling, so he couldn't stand in line.
``I had no choice, really,'' he said.
Instead, he drove ``up the road a ways'' - to West Virginia - and checked into a motel room to watch the Profs play on TV.
``It certainly was a letdown.''
This year, the school made sure he had tickets. On Friday, he went to Salem Stadium and checked out his seat - right on the 50-yard line six rows up from the field.
Schwartz has become a legend around Rowan College, said K.C. Keeler, the Profs' head football coach. But he's not the kind of legend you could pick out of a crowd, Keeler said. Many of the players have never met Schwartz, but they know he's there, Keeler said.
On Friday, Rowan Athletic Director Joy Reighn saw Schwartz leaving the Salem Civic Center for his motel room. She pulled him into a coaches' luncheon where former Philadelphia Eagles star and television analyst Tom Brookshier was the guest speaker.
Schwartz, wearing a baseball cap and Rowan College sweat shirt, sat next to Reighn and other coaches, athletic directors and media representatives during the luncheon.
Schwartz's wife of 44 years, Anntoinette, rarely makes the trips with her husband. ``I'm really not a sports fan,'' she said Wednesday from New Jersey. ``He likes to get up at 2 or 3 a.m.'' and go to games, she said. ``That's not my cup of tea.''
But she has no problem with that: ``It works out fine for us.''
Joe Schwartz admits he's a die-hard fan, but doesn't think that's worth all the attention he's received.
``I don't understand. I ain't nobody,'' he said. ``I just came to watch the game.''
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: MIKE HEFFNER/Staff. Today, Joe Schwartz will sit justby CNBseveral rows behind his beloved Rowan College Profs as they play
Wisconsin-LaCrosse for the Division III championship in the Amos
Alonzo Stagg Bowl in Salem. color.