The Newark High School football stadium in Ohio has been named after Parkersburg native Paul “Hoss” Starr.

At 6:30 p.m. Sept. 1, just before the Newark vs. Mount Vernon high school football game, a ceremony will be held to dedicate Paul “Hoss” Starr Stadium at White Field.

White Field has been the name of the Newark High School football stadium since it opened in 1938, said Jeff Quackenbush, Newark High athletic director and boys basketball coach. The stadium seats 5,000 people and has recently undergone renovations.

“Paul Starr impacted a lot of kids and coaches” at Newark High School, Quackenbush said. “Coach Starr was a great man and coach … a guy you wanted to talk to and be around.”

Starr, who died in 2011 at the age of 79, is the winningest football coach in Newark High School history with 96 wins, 63 losses and two ties in two stints as head coach. He was Newark’s head football coach from 1968-1976 and again from 1990-1996, retiring in 1997.

In 1975, Starr led the Newark Wildcats into the state playoffs with a 10-0 record and was named Central Ohio High School Coach of the Year.

Starr was inducted into the Newark High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002.

“I am so excited they have not forgotten him,” said Starr’s wife, Carlyn “Punch” (Schauwecker) Starr, also a Parkersburg native. “He made a mark,” she said.

Paul graduated from Parkersburg High School in 1950 and Carlyn graduated from PHS in 1951. They were married in 1954, after Paul graduated from West Virginia University that year.

Starr played on the Big Red football teams and was a state high school wrestling champion.

Starr wrestled and played football at West Virginia University as a teammate of Sam Huff and Bruce Bosley on the 1954 Mountaineer Sugar Bowl team.

Starr served in the U.S. Army and began teaching and coaching at Parkersburg High School in 1957. He was an assistant football, wrestling and track coach at PHS, where he taught for six years.

Beginning in 1963, Starr was head football coach at Circleville High School in Ohio for five years, where he had a record of 43 wins and 7 losses.

Quackenbush said Coach Starr was demanding in a “good way,” expecting a lot from his coaches and players.

“He taught people how to win. He was a great motivator,” said Quackenbush, who was in Starr’s weight-training class as a student at Newark High.

Starr was inducted into the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2012.

Anyone who played football for Starr or coached with him is invited to meet in front of the Newark High grandstands at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 1 for the stadium dedication. Newark is 33 miles east of Columbus.

Boston Field at Nelsonville-York High School in Athens County is named after former football coach Dave Boston, who was the fullback and co-captain on the state champion Parkersburg High School football team of 1958.

Paul “Hoss” Starr was an assistant football coach on that state champion team.

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The Parkersburg High School Football Hall of Fame Committee is looking for relatives of Richard Custer, who will be inducted into the school’s football hall of fame this year.

Custer (1935-2000) was first-team all-state in both football and basketball for the Big Reds — the last PHS athlete to be so honored, according to the PHS committee. At 225 pounds Custer was the heaviest player on the all-state football team (1953) and at 6 feet 5 inches tall he was the tallest member of the all-state basketball team (1954), the PHS committee said.

Custer graduated in 1954 and played a year of basketball at Indiana University. Custer spent his adult life in Florida, where he passed away, the committee said.

“Community help would be appreciated. Custer will be recognized during one of the upcoming home football games but it is always nice to have family or friends to participate in the ceremony,” said Ross Snyder of the PHS Football Hall of Fame Committee.

Anyone having information on the whereabouts of Custer’s relatives can contact Snyder at (740) 525-1347 or Carroll Jett at (304) 488-9176.

Contact Paul LaPann at plapann@newsandsentinel.com