‘The Express’ ... and the movie’s connections to Parkersburg
By JODY MURPHYArticle Photos
PARKERSBURG - A movie to be released Oct. 10 that tells the story of one of college football's greatest players has roots in Parkersburg.
"The Express" is the story of Syracuse University running back Ernie Davis and his drive to become the first black to win the Heisman Trophy. One of the principals in the movie is Syracuse coach Floyd "Ben" Schwartzwalder, played by Dennis Quaid.
Long before Schwartzwalder, Davis and Syracuse were challenging well-established racial barriers - a central theme of the movie -the coach spent some of his formative years in Parkersburg as head coach of the Parkersburg High School Big Reds football team from 1936 to 1940.
Schwartzwalder, born in Point Pleasant, came to Parkersburg after one year at Sistersville High School. He played football at West Virginia University when he weighed 148 pounds.
In his five years with the Big Reds, Schwartzwalder led Parkersburg to a 45-6-2 record and two state championships (1938 and 1940). He later brought one of his former Big Red players to Syracuse to serve as offensive coordinator and backfield coach.
Schwartzwalder left a lasting impression on many of his young players.
Lawrence Mason, a guard on the 1938 and 1939 teams, credits Schwartzwalder with changing his life. Mason recalled being on the verge of leaving school when Schwartzwalder intervened.
"I got in trouble - I was wanting to get kicked out of school anyway - and I was in the office waiting for the (principal) to kick me out," Mason said. "Coach had seen me watching (football practice) all the time and he knew about me through some of the older kids.
"He came over and told me to get into wrestling, (the season) was just starting. When the principal came to kick me out he talked to Schwartzwalder a little while. Instead of getting kicked out, I went out for wrestling,'' he said.
"I just turned it all over,'' Mason said. ''I decided I was going to stay in school."
Mason stayed with wrestling and football and graduated. He remained dedicated to Schwartzwalder, who tried to convince him to play at Muhlenberg (Pa.) College after the war.
Mason passed on the offer, but Bill Bell didn't.
Bell, a 1940 graduate of Parkersburg High, played under Schwartzwalder both in high school and college. When Schwartzwalder made the jump from tiny Muhlenberg to Syracuse in 1949, Bell soon followed. He left Marietta High School after a year to become backfield coach and offensive coordinator under Schwartzwalder at Syracuse from 1950 until the mid-1960s.
"I can't say enough good things about Ben," Bell said. "He was a really fine person. We had a really close relationship. We became friends, very, very good friends."
Bell wasn't the only Parkersburg native to follow Schwartzwalder's path to Syracuse.
Jim Gaskins, a member of the Big Reds 1958 championship team, was a three-year letterman at Syracuse in the 1960s. Gaskins, who moved to Parkersburg from New York during his junior and senior year, played end for the Big Reds. He was recruited to Syracuse by Schwartzwalder where he played halfback and fullback.
"I always thought a lot of Ben," said Gaskins, who now lives in central Illinois. "He was a fair, good guy who called it the way he saw it. He treated everybody the same."
"He was a motivator," Bill Morrison said of Schwartzwalder. Morrison was a center for Parkersburg High from 1937 to 39.
"I look back in my life and what I have accomplished and I put a lot of it on his outlook on life,'' Morrison said. ''He motivated people to do their best."
Mike Hayden, a former Parkersburg High athletic director, said Schwartzwalder would come to the area in search of recruits. And when Syracuse played West Virginia University in Morgantown, a caravan of former players often went.
"Whenever Syracuse played at WVU there was always a contingent of folks who went to the game and had a kind of reunion with him," Hayden said.
After Parkersburg High, Schwartzwalder coached one year at Canton-McKinley High before joining the Army, where he served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne. He saw action on D Day at Normandy and was awarded several medals, including the Silver and Bronze stars.
After the war, Schwartzwalder resumed coaching, this time at the collegiate level. He coached at Muhlenberg for two years before landing at Syracuse.
His arrival at Syracuse was hardly bally-hooed.
"The alumni wanted a big-name coach. They got a long-named coach," he once quipped to reporters.
Things worked out well.
Schwartzwalder spent 24 years at Syracuse from 1949 to 1973 and guided the Orangemen to 22 consecutive winning seasons and seven bowl games, including a national championship in 1959 with the freshman phenom Davis leading the way.
Schwartzwalder is the school's all-time winningest coach and was widely regarded as an innovator, devising punt protection schemes, jump switching on the defensive line and revolutionizing the wing T with an unbalanced formation. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1982.
The winner of the annual West Virginia-Syracuse game receives the Ben Schwartzwalder Trophy, which features his likeness.
Schwartzwalder retired to St. Petersburg, Fla., where he died in 1993. He is survived by his wife Ruth, 94, and two daughters.
A few years before his death, he returned to the state - to Charleston -for a speaking engagement.
"Many of his former PHS players showed up to speak," Morrison said.
"The Express" is an adaptation from the Robert Gallagher book "Ernie Davis, the Elmyria Express."
Bell was the Orangemen's backfield coach and offensive coordinator. He coached collegiate legends Jim Brown, Floyd Little, Larry Csonka and, of course, Davis. Bell is not featured in the movie.
"The Express" has two unnamed Syracuse assistant coaches and a strength coach. While one would most assuredly be Bell, he is not mentioned by name. Bell, now 86 and living in Las Vegas since 1985, is confounded by it.
"I wasn't consulted. That kind of confuses me," he said. "I coached Ernie. No one has ever talked to me about the movie. I did coach Ernie and knew him well."
Gaskins said he has not read Gallagher's book, but he plans to see the movie. He turned down an invitation to return to Syracuse last week for the movie's world premiere.
Gaskins, who was a year behind Davis, recalled the "Elmyria Express" as a quiet, kind person.
"He was not loud or showy," Gaskins said.
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bobzim
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09-21-08 9:21 AM
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Good story!
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MalibuDrew
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09-21-08 12:02 AM
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That's a pretty neat story. I love the history and tradition that PHS carries, both in the school itself, and in the people that have walked it's halls. I never heard this story before, but I'll be looking into it now.
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Oldart
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09-20-08 10:44 AM
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While Coach Schwartzwalder was at PHS, in addition to coaching the Big Reds, he taught a class known as "American Problems." I was not on the football team, but did get to know him as a teacher. His work-ethics and desire to bring out the best in everbody he came in contact with made a life-long impression on me. He was one of the finest teachers I ever had, and the way he taught us all to be the very best we could be has remained with me ever since. BTW, another former Big Red he took with him to Muhlenberg as an assistant coach was Bill, the oldest of the three Early brothers (Bill, Fred and Jim) who all played at PHS.
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