In Their Words is a weekly feature appearing Sundays in The Blade s sports section. Sports writer Steve Junga talked with John Niezgoda, a Central Catholic football standout and a member of the University of Toledo Hall of Fame.
Ask John Niezgoda about life and he ll tell you about persistence. He developed it early on and it has never paid off more than in recent years.
Niezgoda, 56, first learned about adversity when he was eight years old and his father died from electric shock in a freak construction accident.
As a teenager, Niezgoda got another blow when a knee injury cost him all but the first few minutes of his senior football season at Central Catholic and a scholarship to Michigan State.
But Niezgoda made the best of what followed those traumatic hits, and life s challenges just never seemed too difficult for him thereafter.
The death of John s father, Leonard, forced his mother, Virginia, to become more of an absentee parent while she worked long hours to support her son and two daughters. But John grew up just fine in the family s Parkside Boulevard neighborhood while attending Gesu Elementary.
With some mentoring from Central football coaches Jim Cordiak and Pete Benedict, the promising athlete turned his football talent into a college scholarship and a degree from the University of Toledo. Most notably, fate aligned Niezgoda with a Rockets football team that was quite simply, a perfect fit.
While Niezgoda and more-celebrated Rockets teammates Chuck Ealey and Mel Long were each earning first-team All-Mid-American Conference honors three times, their 1969-71 Toledo teams were helping forge a 35-0 record complete with three Tangerine Bowl victories.
The streak is the third longest in NCAA Division-I history since 1900, and no team has won that many games in succession since.
For his part, the 6-foot, 205-pound linebacker was a tackling machine. His Hall of Fame plaque at UT credits him with 563 stops in 34 games (a 16.5 average). Although the current Toledo media guide doesn t include him in this category, that unofficial tackle total ranks No. 1 in UT history.
But no struggle on a football field was as challenging as the one Niezgoda and his wife, Carol, tackle every day.
Having raised their own daughter and son, Audrey and Chad, respectively, over the last 15 years, the Niezgodas have welcomed nine adopted children into their home in Curtice. Plus, they are in the process of adopting three foster children.
Their children range from 5 to 16 years old, and the foster children are 4, 2, and 17 months. Collectively, the children keep Carol and John going from 6:30 a.m. until bedtime each day.
All in a day s work. If you re persistent.
GROWING UP, it was like the movie Sandlot. It seemed like every day we were over at the CYO fields playing baseball or football or whatever. We had a close-knit neighborhood. You d play baseball during the day and then a game of round-up in the evening, running through everybody s yards.
Kids are different now. They want to sit in front of the video games rather than go outside and run around like we used to do. It s a whole different world.
IT WAS KIND of tough [as a child] because my mom was always working. I lost my dad when I was eight. I was out front playing in the sprinkler and the priest drove up [to explain the news]. There was an industrial accident and, boom, he was gone that afternoon.
It was really crazy. He was working in Toledo putting in a sewer line. The crane operator put the crane wire against the high-tension wire and he grabbed it. When he grabbed a sign to hook it up, it completed the circuit.
CENTRAL FOOTBALL was very rah-rah-rah. There was a lot of excitement to the games. The student body was very active. I think we were 2-8 and 4-6, so there weren t a lot of great memories. One thing I really remember is the game I ripped up my knee at Steubenville. I was in the hospital all night. In the morning, Pete Benedict put me in the back of a station wagon. We went to his parents house [in Pennsylvania] and they put a mattress in the back. I rode all the way back from Steubenville looking at the top of the station wagon with my nose about two inches from the ceiling.
TOLEDO WAS a good fit because it was a safe place for me. If my knee held up, I could play. If not, I was home. Plus, I could always help my mom out. She was living alone by then. It worked out good for me and for her.
I just kind of grew into [football]. I always played on the scared end of it, like I can t do this or that, but I ll give the best I can.
THE ONLY THING I can say about the streak is, you know you played in all those games, and you know you won all of them, but then you sit back and look at it and say, Did this really happen? That winning streak is the same as getting a diploma. You have it in your hand and nobody can take it away. It s part of the history of the [college] game now, and I m just happy to be associated with it.
CHUCK EALEY got a lot of accolades and he deserved all of them. I remember we were down playing East Carolina one game and there were four guys coming in [at him]. All he did was go around in a little circle inside of them and they all missed him, and he just took off. I don t know how he did it, but he did it. How can you teach somebody that? You can t.
MEL LONG was good. He was super fast and had super moves. Speed is what it s all about, even in today s game. Back then, we weren t all that big, but we were faster than heck. We really made things happen. We were able to back each other up. The team concept was the real big thing there.
WE ALL JUST played extremely well together. There wasn t a lot of infighting or a case where this or that player had to be made to look good. Everyone did their initial push and then went to the ball. What I learned [from 35-0 run] is that persistence pays off.
You ve got to have persistence. A lot of times today kids will say, I can t do this, and they back away. But if you keep working at it, day in and day out, something s going to happen. You ve got to try to be the best you can be.
I LIKED the bowl games. That was the only time I got my mitts on the ball and got a touchdown. We were playing Lou Holtz s team [William & Mary]. I got an interception and ran it back 54 yards. I ve got all these defensive backs running behind me saying, Gimme the ball, gimme the ball. I wasn t going to give it up.
HAVING THESE KIDS is a lot more difficult than playing football. You ve got a little of this and a little of that going on all the time. But it s fun and it s challenging. They don t always do what you want em to do, but most of the time we have a lot of fun.
How do I do it? I have a good wife. She handles the kids most of the time. When I get home from work she says, They re yours; I m going to take a little break. She does a lot for them, and she does what s best for them.
THE THING I VE learned about this is never give up. Like our little guy, Kyle. He came into our home very, very sick. But the little guy just keeps going and going and going. Now he s getting a little bit older and a little bit healthier.
Contact Steve Junga at: sjunga@theblade.com or 419-724-6461.
First Published October 29, 2006, 3:58 p.m.
