In His Own Words: Johnny Holliday Remembers Jack Scarbath

The first time I met Jack Scarbath, it was my first year on the radio at the University of Maryland, the year was 1979. I knew who Jack was, of course, because of his stature as a legendary quarterback. 

I was in high school in Miami in the early 1950s, when Jack was playing at the University of Maryland. The thing that caught my eye when I was in high school was that we both ran the Split-T offense. So the first time I met him, I said, ‘Hello, Mr. Scarbath,’ he immediately told me to stop and said ‘It’s Jack, Mr. Scarbath was my father.” It started a friendship of more than 40 years. 

In that first meeting, after getting over the initial shock of the size of his hand -- it was twice as large as mine -- when I shook his hand, I made a point of telling Jack that I was a Split-T quarterback just like him. I quipped to him, you were runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, and I did pretty well in my high school career as a quarterback as well -- we had a perfect record - perfectly winless at 0-10 - with me as the quarterback. 

Jack asked me if I ever got hurt playing quarterback, and I said ‘yes, every year.’ He said, that’s to be expected, you are 5-8, then I told him I weighed just 135 pounds. Jack then followed that by telling me to not feel bad because even at 6-2 and 190 pounds, he got hurt a lot as well. 

Jack said, ‘you might have gotten hurt a lot, but you never gave up, right?’ I said ‘no, I never gave up,’ and Jack followed up, ‘and you thought you were pretty good?’ I said, ‘yes, I thought I was pretty good, but our record proved that I wasn’t that good of a quarterback.’ To that, Jack’s response was, ‘but you had fun, didn’t you?’ I told him, yes, I had a lot of fun and as I was telling him, I noticed the way he was talking to me, he was trying to make me feel good - and I was a bad quarterback. That really set the tone for our relationship - he was always gracious and humble - as we became the closest of friends.

When we had an opening for an analyst on the football broadcast team in the early 1980s, the radio station asked me if I had anyone in mind. I said, let me ask Jack Scarbath to see if he would be interested in doing it. He had never done broadcasting before, but he said, ‘Yes, I will do it.’ So, he joined our broadcast team, we had a star-studded broadcast team with Jack and Pete Wysocki, the former Redskins linebacker. We had two guys who played in the NFL on our Maryland Terrapins broadcast team and two former Redskins as they had drafted Jack in the first round after his career at Maryland. We had a great broadcast team for three years. 

Jack was part of our broadcast team when we rallied for the epic comeback to beat Miami in the Orange Bowl in 1984. Another great story about Jack’s spirits and optimism were on display that day. We were down 31-0 at halftime and I remember, off air, we were speaking about the challenge to keep our comments positive because we were getting hammered pretty good. I recall Jack saying during a timeout, ‘this game’s not over, the game’s not over, 31-0 is nothing, that’s not how you look at it from a players’ perspective,’ and that’s what happened, of course, Maryland mounted the greatest comeback in Division I college football history - at that time.

Those stories give you an idea of the type of person Jack was and the outlook he had on life. It was just wonderful to spend time with him. 

It’s hard to put into words the impact that Jack had on me as a person. The thing that I came away with, knowing Jack for more than 40 years, was -- this is the way you would like to be remembered when people respect you and you respect people. People like you, you do things the right way --  that was Jack. I never heard an unkind word come out of Jack's mouth, about anybody. And that's why he was such a true, true legend at the University of Maryland.

I was always taken aback by how humble and gentle of a man he was, because of his stature. He was a Heisman Trophy runner-up. He was a unanimous First-Team All-American. All of his bowl victories, he played lacrosse, he was a football coach. When you have someone like that, there is a tendency to be on a different level than most people because you have accomplished so much. But, you never got that impression from Jack Scarbath. You would never get the impression that he was better than I was or anybody else. He was on even keel with everybody. 

Jack wanted to keep a low profile. When we would be at dinner, he would always tell the waitress, ‘do you know who this is?’ pointing to me. I would say ‘don’t start that stuff,’ then he would say ‘that’s Johnny Holliday, the voice of the Maryland Terrapins.’ Then I would come back and say, ‘that’s chump change compared to who you are looking at right there, a former Heisman Trophy runner-up, college football legend.’ It became a game to get to the waitress first -- to embarrass the other one with quickness. I have so many fond memories of Jack.

Our families were very close, we would go on vacations together. His wife, Lynn was a cheerleader at Maryland, they got married right out of college. She was a physical education teacher in Rising Sun. We would play golf regularly, his wife was a very good golfer as well. 

Off the tee, Jack always outdid me on the drive, of course, being 6-2, 190 and I was just 5-8, 160, we knew that he would get the best of me. But when it came to the game, he was always so gentle with giving me pointers and tips. He would tell me to slow down my swing just a bit, as I was trying to drive it as long, but couldn’t with my size. The way he would do it was so kind as to not embarrass me or tick me off. He would tell me the way I swing with my practice swing is the way to swing when we were playing. He was such an excellent golfer and we had the greatest times together. 

I remember when they would have the Waterfowl Festival on the Eastern Shore, he would take his carvings, his decoys, his ducks, his paintings down there to display. Some of his works would sell for $30-35,000, they were absolutely lifelike. He once had a covey of quail, he had carved and put together, you would swear it was lifelike, he would always have a crowd around and they would see his name. They would have a hard time realizing and believing that he was the same guy who was the quarterback at the University of Maryland. This was a passion of his. In my house, we have so many of his carvings on display. 

When one of my grandsons, Jack Rolle, was diagnosed with a brain tumor when he was 11 years old, Jack carved a gigantic bald eagle for him. My grandson still has the bald eagle in his dormitory at Wake Forest University, where he's a senior now. Jack was so benevolent with everything he did. He wanted to give back to everybody. 

When the church in Rising Sun burned down and they waited for the Diocese of that area to give them the go ahead to build a new church, Jack got sick and tired of waiting. He gathered his friends together and they built it with their own hands, a new church. 

When you would go to lunch or dinner with him in Rising Sun, beware, it was like the King of England arrived. He'd walk into a restaurant, and everybody wanted to say hello and visit his table. He just had that magnitude of a personality, that very, few people of that stature ever possessed.

Jack had unparalleled passion for the University Maryland. I could tell when he was doing the games with us on radio. He really took it hard when they lost -- and they didn’t lose many games when Bobby Ross was coaching, back in the 80s. 

He loved the university. He was a member of the Board of Regents, he was so well respected. If you wanted to go out and try to sell a client on buying into the University of Maryland Athletics all you have to do is take Jack Scarbath along with you, and the deal was closed. 

In recent years, he had mentioned to me that the current teams didn’t really remember the old guys. I told Coach Mike Locksley about our conversation last year, as Jack’s health was really declining. So, Mike put together a box of gear for Jack, it was packed with hats, shirts, pants, sweatshirts -- everything with the Maryland logo on it. We took it up to Jack and he opened it just before Christmas -- and it was like Christmas had arrived early. I’ve never seen a bigger smile on his face. That moment will be with me for the rest of my life. It was so emotional. He had tears in his eyes, he said, ‘I can’t believe they would remember me.’ The impact it had on him was so profound. 

Jack sent a thank you video to the football team and Coach Locksley, he said, ‘Coach, this is so nice of you to send me this, it meant so much to me.’ In the video, Jack was also quick to provide a story for Locks as well. He wanted to point out that Tom Cosgrove was his center at Maryland and Jack never fumbled a snap from Tom. Jack told Locks, ‘tell your center and your quarterback, they've got to work together on the same plane. We never mishandled a snap in my three years as the quarterback of Maryland.’ Of course, when we had quarterbacks going down left and right last year, Jack was also quick to point out, ‘Coach, I can still throw the ball down the field, in case you need me,’ and he was 89-years old at the time. 

Jack never missed a game. He would always have the same spot over in the parking lot for tailgates. Former Terrapin Club President Fred Frederick and his wife Betty Ann would always be there and Jack would always ask me to stop by. He always had the same group of friends who would drive down with him from Rising Sun each week. He came to most basketball games, too. It is so difficult to even describe what he meant to me, and what he meant to everybody associated with Maryland. He was nice to every single person he came in contact with. 

Jack left an example of how to lead a life, one that I would like to follow. I would like to follow in his footsteps, doing the same things that Jack did, the way he did it, the way he acted with people, how responsive he was with people and how nice he was, how gentle he was. And, this was all in spite of the tremendous recognition he had, all the awards he had -- it never, ever went to his head. It's a tremendous example for all of us to examine ourselves and say, hey, what can I do differently? Everyone should say, I want to be like Jack Scarbath.