Camp Countdown: John Mackovic, A Barberton Boy
7/20/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
This week's five Camp Countdown installments all revolve around the magical fall of 1979, where Wake Forest overcame back-to-back seasons of dismal 1-10 records to finish 8-4, taking down 13th ranked Auburn and 12th ranked Georgia along the way. The team ended the year with a frustrating loss to LSU in the Tangerine Bowl, but the season still stands as one of the best in Wake Forest football history.
Leading the Deacons of 1979 was 34-year old John Mackovic. This mid-western gridiron giant lettered at Wake during the 1960s, playing along side the legendary Brian Piccolo. He had dreams of playing professionally for the Cleveland Browns but when he realized he wasn't big enough nor "had any special ability to throw a football" he re-routed his goals towards coaching.
Since his time at Wake, Mackovic has coached collegiate and professional teams and most recently led the U.S. National Team to victory in the 2007 IFAF World Cup.
A Barberton Boy
By John MontagueOriginally published 3/24/78 in the Sentinel
A wild bunch they must have been, back there in the fall of 1964. That was the year Brian Piccolo ran for 17 touchdowns, Barry Goldwater ran for president and four chaps from Liverpool ran away with rock `n' roll.
"There were about five of us who always hung around together," recalls John Mackovic, leaning back in his chair in the Wake Forest football office which only recently has become his own.
"Most people ask me about Piccolo when they find out I played with him. Brian was one of our little group. But there was also Joe Carazo (a halfback from Palmerton, Pa.), Jim Mayo (a 5-foot-11 tackle from Philly), Steve Unger (a center from Northhampton, Pa.) and myself.
"Hey let me tell you about Unger. Steve was a real shy kind of guy . . . from the Pennsylvania Dutch country. We were all in Dr. (Franklin) Shirley's speech class and I mean Steve wouldn't say `boo.' He'd get up to speak and he'd clam up. So, Dr. Shirley got two other football players to stand on each side of Steve. And whenever Steve stopped talking, they'd yank on his arms - really, stretch them right on out and pull hard until Steve started talking again."
 John Mackovic  | |
"Isn't this weather just great?" he asks rhetorically, focusing his Paul Newman blue eyes directly on his interviewer. "You know, I think it was a mistake to move up the recruiting period to December and January like they did. It used to be the kids would come down in the spring when all the trees were turning green and the flowers were blooming. They'd also come then to watch practice. But a beautiful spring day down here would really convince them this was the place to be. I came down in the spring. I was sold."
Billy Hildebrand was the coach who recruited a young quarterback named John Mackovic out of Barberton, Ohio, in 1961. There has been a lot of water over the dam since then - namely Bill Tate, Cal Stoll, Tom Harper and Chuck Mills. But many of the frustrations - of a small, private school trying to play big time football - remain the same. And now it is Mackovic who is looking for a quarterback.
"Barberton is about 35 miles from Cleveland and I grew up wanting to be the quarterback for the Cleveland Browns," says Mackovic. "Otto Graham was my childhood hero. Later, Lennie Dawson became one of my all-time favorites. I'd never miss a Browns game - either on radio or on TV.
"However . . . ," and there is a long sigh and a pause for dramatic effect, "about midway through my college career my dreams met reality. I realized that I had neither size nor speed, nor any special ability to throw a football. In short, I realized the Cleveland Browns weren't going to draft me.
Barberton, population 32,000 is a hard industry town in the northeastern part of Ohio.
"Practically everybody there is a blue collar worker," says Mackovic. "My dad is. He worked for the same rubber company practically his whole life. He's still doing it."
Northeastern Ohio is also football country - like no place else north of Texas. The very names of the towns sound like a defensive line. Akron. Masillon. Canton. Stow. Rugged sounding names - as tough as the second and third-generation Polish-Americans who stoke the blast furnaces and the bruising tackles and punishing fullbacks Woody Hayes loves to take south to Columbus. Akron produced Ara Parseghian. Masillon High School once went something like eight years without a defeat. The Canton Bulldogs started pro football. Larry Csonka grew up running into people in Stow.
And Barberton isn't about to take a back seat to any of its neighbors when it comes to football.
"Three guys who grew up in Barberton became head coaches this year," says Mackovic proudly. "Mike Stock at Eastern Michigan, Tom DiMitroff with the Hamilton Tiger Cats in the Canadian League and myself. I didn't grow up with them or play ball with them. They're about five or six years older.
"There's also a fourth head coach from Barberton. You've probably heard of him. Bo Schembechler. He coaches at Michigan. Also, Jack Murphey, formerly head coach at Toledo, is from Barberton. And Archie Strimel, on our own staff here, is a Barberton boy.
"The Barberton group is sort of unique. We stick together. We're a proud group.
"You know, I've always thought of Barberton people and Wake Forest people as having a lot in common," says Mackovic. "We're both proud and both small. And like Barberton, Wake has a disproportionate number of its graduates in coaching and sports administration - Pat Williams (general manager of Philadelphia 76ers), Billy Packer (NBC-TV basketball analyst), Ernie Acorsi and Jim Husbands (Baltimore Colts public relations), Charlie Dayton (Atlanta Falcons PR) . . "
And John Mackovic, head football coach, Wake Forest.
 Mackovic graduated from Wake Forest in 1965. | |
The camaraderie that existed in the early 1960s had a lot to do with the making of John Mackovic. Wake Forest was a big part of John. Now John is a big part of Wake Forest.
"Yes, I would have gone to Ohio State if I'd had a chance," admits Mackovic 17 years later. "But I really wasn't recruited much by the Big 10. Wake Forest was the best opportunity for me - to get a good education and play football. It also helped that I was recruited by a Barberton guy, Dick Hunter, who was on Coach Hildebrand's staff."
Like most college kids in those days - before Vietnam and civil rights turned students into long hair and deep thoughts in 1965 and '66 - Mackovic, Piccolo and their friends were a pretty silly bunch at times.
"We flooded a whole wing of our dormitory one time," recalls Mackovic with a laugh. "Kitchin Dorm, right over there," he adds, pointing out the window. "They call it Kitchin House now. We never called `em houses back them, I don't think."
Other Wake memories center around intramural softball and basketball.
"I was the coach, general manager, equipment manager and everything else for our intramural basketball team. One Friday afternoon he had a big game scheduled and Piccolo says he isn't going to play. `I'm going to Atlanta to see Joy (his future wife),' he says.
" `Brian, you can't do this to us,' I tell him.
" `Oh yes I can,' he says. And he's off."
"We ended up getting Clinton Gentry, who had a broken leg or something to be the fifth man. He played the whole game with a cast on his leg. He stood in the corner and scored four points."
Day 30: Wake Forest Football, 1889
Day 29: Assistant Coach Beattie Feathers
Day 28: Wake Forest in Japan, 1974
Day 25: Deacon History 101
Day 24: 'M' Non-Lettermen
Day 23: WF Stuns Undefeated Vols
Day 22: Larry Tearry's Poetry
Day 21: Bill Barnes Just Walked In