Zell is a throwback to a different era
At 97 years old, Jim Zell is a true marvel and a throwback to a different era of sports.
“I have Macular degeneration,” Zell said. “But, I can do everything but read and drive. I’m a veteran from World War II, so the VA gave me a big machine, a viewing machine so I can do all the reading that I want to do, but I do everything else. I still play golf.”
Originally form Monongahela, and a 1935 graduate of Monongahela High School, Zell didn’t play football in high school because the coaches thought he was too small.
“We were in Section 5 of the WPIAL back then,” Zell recalled. “We were with Brownsville, California, Donora, Monessen and Charleroi. I played basketball, the coach wouldn’t let me play football. I was too small at 5-foot-9 and 140 pounds. We were pretty competitive in basketball.”
Zell said basketball has changed dramatically from his playing days.
“It’s a little different,” Zell offered. “They grow them tall. When we played, if you were 6-foot tall you were automatically the center.”
When Zell graduated from Monongahela he was searching for a school to play football and basketball and continue his education.
“My older brother Olin and I went over Saint Vincent College and tried out for the football team,” Zell recalled. “They wanted us to turn Catholic, but my grandfather was a Baptist preacher, so that wasn’t going to work.”
Another big change from Zell’s era to the way things are today, it’s against NCAA rules to workout a player at a tryout.
“No, you can’t do that,” Zell stated. “We worked out at Saint Vincent. No pads or anything like that, but we worked out. I played a lot of sandlot ball and I was going to be a running back at my size.”
Zell turned his attention to California University of Pennsylvania.
“My dad was a railroad man,” Zell said. “I got on the train two weeks after school had started and I went up and walked into the coaches office and told him that I wanted to play football and basketball. He said let’s try you out and he gave me a uniform, and I started going to school at Cal.”
Zell has found memories of the Cal head football and basketball coach “Wild Bill” Steers.
“He was quite a guy,” Zell said. “A side note for him, he played in the 1920 Rose Bowl for the Oregon Ducks. He kicked a 25-yard drop kick field goal in a 7-6 loss to Harvard.”
From 1935 through 1939, Zell was a four-year letterman in both football and basketball and a two-year letterman in tennis for Cal.
A halfback who was also a deft passer, Zell led the football team in scoring in 1937 and 1938. He scored the only touchdown in Cal’s 6-0 win over Slippery Rock in 1937, which was the Vulcan’s first triumph over their nearby rivals since 1922.
“We ran the single wing,” Zell remembers. “If you were in the backfield you had to be able to punt, pass, run and block in our offense. I caught a fourth down 9-yard touchdown pass from Cliff Naylor in that win over Slippery Rock. That was the first game played at the new Monessen High School Stadium. We played that game in near ankle-deep mud.”
Zell helped the Cal basketball team produce three straight winning seasons from 1935 through 1937 with records of 7-5, 10-4 and 11-5 and was the tri-state district’s 17th-leading scorer in 1938. The Cal-Monoca labeled Zell, “The best all-round player on the flying circus cagers.”
He was the tennis team’s second-seeded singles player during his senior year.
“Basketball was my sport,” Zell stated. “I continued to play basketball for 23 years, overseas I played for the American All-Stars in Paris against the French All-Stars. I also played on the European Theater championship team in 1944-45 while the war was going on.”
Zell also played tennis and he picked that up in his hometown.
“We had a court in the park in Monongahela,” Zell reported. “I don’t know my favorite sport was always in season. I enjoyed tennis and I played that until I was an old man in my 80s.”
Independent Basketball was a big part of Zell’s resume.
“Playing independent basketball for the Pizzica Garagemen was a big thrill,” Zell said. “That team was considered one of the best independent teams in the Tri-State area. We had some great players on that team, great athletes from the past like Rab Currie, Monessen’s best, Jim Conte, Monongahela’s best, and Stan Musial, Donora’s best.”
Zell earned his B.S. in education from Cal U in 1939. Zell’s first job after his impressive collegiate days was as an English and social studies teacher in South Hill, Va., where he also coached football, basketball and baseball. Zell later worked for the Ford Motor Company and toured the country giving speeches. Always active with athletics, Zell was a two-year all-star in a professional league in Richmond, Virginia.
“I played for the Richmond Bams a semi-pro basketball team,” Zell explained. “I made almost as much playing basketball on Sundays as I did teaching. Bams Jewelry store was the sponsor.”
Living in Florida for many years, he retired as a manufacturer representative, who also owned his own engine parts warehouse business.
“I moved to Orlando in 1946,” Zell said. “I also was in real estate for four or five years. I officially retired in 1992.
Zell and his wife Imogene resided in West Palm Beach, Florida. They were married 53 years before she passed away in 2001. She had a son and he had a step-son. Zell has three grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.
Zell continues to comeback regularly to Cal U basketball alumni events. He was inducted into the California University of Pennsylvania Athletics Hall of Fame in 1998.
“I tell them I’m coming back every year as long as I can move,” Zell stated. “I love Cal U and always will.”