Timing helped Corazzi carve his niche
Timing is a big part of your success in life and timing is what enabled Ed Corazzi to have a career in college football.
Corazzi was an outstanding football and basketball player at Beth Joint High School (now Beth-Center) in the mid 1950s.
“My senior year was a very good year in football,” Corazzi recalled. “We had some really good players, guys like Bob Corrigan, who later went on to play pro football for the Chicago Cardinals. When you have quality people playing with you it made it easy.”
Beth Joint posted records of 5-3-1 in 1954 and 7-1-1 in 1955.
“Corrigan did it all,” Corazzi stated. “Sometimes he played fullback and sometimes he played tackle and sometimes he played end. I was more of a passing quarterback. We ran that belly series all the time, in those days we tried to fool people with it, we tried to hide the ball and we would ride the fullback way in and then we would option the end. We would look for the pitch for the halfback. The difference now is these kids are a whole lot bigger and faster. I was 5-11 and 155 pounds in high school.”
Beth Joint and Centerville merged to form Beth-Center, but back in the day those to schools had a nice rivalry.
“Centerville had to be our biggest rival,” Corazzi said. “We always were going up against Jefferson and Carmichaels, as well, and they were powerhouses. I played against Red Worrell at Centerville. He was a big boy and a very good runner.”
Jim Freeman was the head coach at Beth Joint during Corazzi’s playing days there.
“I really liked Freeman,” Corazzi opined. “He stressed the fundamentals. He was a football man and was a good teacher. The players looked up to him and enjoyed playing for him.”
Corazzi was also a standout on the hardwood at Beth Joint.
“When I think back to playing basketball, there were a lot of good basketball players in the area at that time,” Corazzi said.
In 1953-54, Beth Joint had an outstanding season and made it to the WPIAL Class B semifinals before losing to eventual state champion Irwin, 52-46. During Corazzi’s junior season, Beth Joint went 22-4 in 1954-55. They lost to Wampum led by the great Don Hennon in the WPIAL Class B championship game 75-63. Hennon had 36 points for Wampum. Corazzi had a big game for Beth Joint with 23 points. The Bulldogs finished 13-9 and 6-6 in Section 18 in 1955-56.
“I was a good play maker and those same guys that played basketball with me were also on the football team,” Corazzi said. “Corrigan was a good center.”
Corazzi was All-Section 18 in basketball a couple of seasons. “I didn’t really think about honors,” Corazzi stated.
The Beth Joint basketball team was coached by Stan Volkavich, who was also a football assistant.
“Stan was a good guy,” Cozazzi offered. “He knew our interaction with each other and he knew how to get the most out of us on the basketball court.”
When Corazzi graduated from Beth Joint in 1956, he sifted through some college offers.
“There was some interest in both sports,” Corazzi said. “But most of the interest was in football. Most of that came because of the Jaycee All-Star game that I played in. Ben Parker was the coach at Jefferson and he was the coach of that All-Star team. I played well and I took an offer from Nebraska. The coach was Bill Glassford but when he retired, Pete Elloitt came in and said he was only going to use Nebraska boys and the choice I had was stay at Nebraska and be fodder for the varsity or transfer.”
Here is where good timing comes into play, Corazzi’s high school coach Jim Freeman had become the head coach at Ball State.
“I called coach Freeman and told him what was going on,” Corazzi recalled. “He asked me to come to Ball State, it was great timing. It all worked out really well.”
Corazzi became a three-year starter for the Cardinals on teams that posted records of 2-5-1 in 1957, 6-2 in 1958 and 1-7 in 1959. He was an All-Conference selection in 1957, when he passed for 894 yards. He passed for 557 yards in 1958 and 527 yards in 1959.
Looking back, Corazzi felt the Cardinals were competitive.
“We got in close games and had some tough losses,” Corazzi stated. “Getting people to come play football at Ball State during those days was tough. The Muncie players even wanted to go out of town. It was tough for coach Freeman, he never got his due.”
When Corazzi graduated, he went into teaching. He taught in Muncie Central and was assistant football and baseball coach for six years. He went to the Developmental School in Fort Wayne for 11 years. He taught adapted physical education for 22 years. He retired and then went to work for Easter Seals ARC with the mentally handicapped, which he found to be “very rewarding.” He retired in March.
For 30 years, Corazzi was a football and wrestling official. He was inducted into the Indiana Wresting Hall of Fame in 2000.
Corazzi, 76, resides in Fort Wayne, Ind. His wife of 23 years, Sandra, passed away on July 16, 2013.