The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Harvey all-time great Mummey dies at 80
One of the area’s first and greatest multi-sport athletes has died. Sept. 6, former Harvey All-America football player, coach and teacher John Mummey died at age 80.
Former Harvey athletic director and coach Mike Mohner posted on Facebook: “We mourn the passing of legendary teacher, coach and ambassador for the Painesville City Local Schools and Harvey High School, John Mummey.”
Mummy, a 1959 graduate of Harvey, was a multi-sport athlete at the high school. He was a standout in football, basketball, baseball and track and field. Recruited by the likes of Michigan and Alabama, Mummey chose to play for Coach Woody Hayes at Ohio State and helped the Buckeyes to the 1961 national championship.
Fellow Harvey graduate and the NFL’s all-time winningest coach Don Shula was an assistant at Kentucky under former Browns coach Blanton Collier at the time Mummey was in high school. Shula recruited Mummey, but the pull of Ohio State and Hayes was too great.
Mummey was a quarterback for the Buckeyes but made headlines at Harvey as a running back. In 2000, The NewsHerald ranked the greatest area high school football players of the 20th century, and Mummey was No. 10.
The accolades poured in during his high school career. As a junior in 1957, he was named Ohio’s “Back of the Year” by United Press International after he scored a state-best 181 points and had 29 touchdowns in a 9-0 season.
The next year, Mummey injured his knee against Mentor in a 14-14 tie — the only blemish during the Red Raiders’ 8-0-1 season. After that campaign, he was named to Teen Magazine’s high school football All-American squad by a panel of 52 U.S. sportswriters.
The honor included a three-day trip to New York City, where he was introduced on “The Dick Clark Show.”
That was just a sampling of Mummey’s exploits as an athlete.
His longtime friend Stu Baffer met him when they were in first grade. They played sports together through middle school, junior high, high school and football at Ohio State, where Baffer was a punter.
“He could do anything as an athlete,” said Baffer.
One day in the spring while at Harvey, the two were walking in their baseball uniforms to Painesville Rec Park for a game. Harvey’s sprinters were there practicing at the track inside what is now known as Jack Britt Stadium, after the school’s former longtime football coach.
“John raced all the sprinters in his baseball uniform and beat ’em all,” said Baffer, who was a middle-school math teacher in Madison for 39 years. “He’s the most gifted athlete Harvey’s ever had.”
Baffer also remembers a baseball game in which Harvey played St. Ignatius at League Park. The Red Raiders were underdogs. Final score: Harvey 13, St. Ignatius 5.
“John hit two home runs and tracked down everything in center field,” said Baffer.
If Harvey were to create a
Mount Rushmore of athletics, those in the know agree Mummey would certainly have a spot — perhaps at the top.
“Right there with Don Shula and Jack Britt,” said Mohner.
After his playing career was over at Ohio State, Mummey tried out for the NFL’s New York Giants, then the Canadian Football League, but the knee injury he sustained at Harvey lingered and he called it a playing career.
“John used to tell me he thought he could have gone all the way,” said Baffer. “But he would say, ‘The knee (injury) held me back.’ “
He eventually returned to Harvey and coached the varsity football team for two seasons in 1967 and 1968 and had a 14-6 record.
That return to Harvey coincided with the start of longtime boys basketball coach John D’Angelo’s career
at the school.
“We came in together and became good friends,” said D’Angelo. “John was a great football player, a three-sport star. He put Harvey athletics on the map and was just a great person.”
Dick Huntoon was an assistant football and basketball coach at Harvey and also the head track and field coach. He had a promising shot putter in Chuck Baxter and asked Mummey to assist.
“Chuck won the state title,” said Huntoon. “I got the credit for having a state champ, but John deserves credit.”
Hayes eventually persuaded Mummey to join his staff and spent nine years as an assistant for the Buckeyes. Following that stint with Ohio State, Mummey coached and taught in the Kettering area near Dayton before he and his wife Emily — who had three sons — moved back to Lake County.