Frank Pizza, Football (1946-47)
Frank T. Pizza is a local boy who made good. He was a star on some of the great Libbey High School teams and followed Bill Orwig to Toledo, along with a lot of other Libbey greats, when Orwig became UT head football coach after World War II. There are not a lot of statistics to quote about Frank Pizza as a player because he occupied one of those unglamorous positions about which too few words are written. He played in the trenches; he was a starting tackle on the great Rocket teams of 1946 and 1947. Teams that won 15, lost 4, and tied 2. These were teams that initiate and won the first two Glass Bowl games. Following his Rocket career, the pros came calling, and Frank played briefly with the Buffalo Bills of the old All-America Conference and with the Detroit Lions of Bo McMillan before an injury ended his football career. Since then Frank Pizza has been one of the university's proudest products and one of its staunchest supporters and workers. He was a member and chairman of the UT athletic board of control for nearly a decade and was chairman at the time Frank X. Lauterbur was chosen to put the football program back on the winning track, he also was chairman when Bob Nichols was named head basketball coach. Frank is a past president of the UT Alumni Association and is a member of the executive of UT Law Alumni Association. He has been awarded one of the alumni association's highest awards, the "Blue T" Award, for service to his Alma Mater. Frank Pizza also was a founder and member of the Board of Directors of the Rocket Club, the Chief in fundraising are of the Athletic Department. A practicing attorney in Toledo since 1953, Frank became assistant law director in 1971. On several occasions since then he has served as Toledo's acting city manager during times of crisis, like the Great Blizzard of 1978. Frank Pizza was member of local, state, and national law-related bodies too numerous to mention and is also remembered as a great former football linemen.
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