On Friday and Saturday, Oct. 16-17, Boardman resident Larry Napolitan, 89, of 7900 Walnut St., will be honored at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. as a member of the only team in Indiana Hoosier’s history to outright win the Big 10 football championship.
      With a record of 9-0-1, his 1945 team is also the only undefeated team in the history of Indiana football.
      The celebration will mark the 70th anniversary of that team’s victory. A banquet will be held on Friday honoring Napolitan and the other nine remaining, living members of the team. They will also be honored on the field before the homecoming football game on Saturday where the Hoosiers will host Rutgers.
      Napolitan graduated from Farrell High School, Farrell, Pa. in 1944 where he played football under Hank Day and assistant coach Tony Paulekas. He also was an outstanding wrestler, going undefeated in his senior year when placed first and was named junior champion at the tournament of the Allegheny Mountain Association in the 174-lb. class.
      Napolitan went on to Indiana University on a football scholarship. As a freshman that year he wore number 86 and played end, weighing just 170 pounds. The team was coached by Bo McMillan. Two players from that team went on to play professional ball--Pete Pihos, a football Hall of Fame inductee who played for the Philadelphia Eagles; and slugger Ted Kluszewski, who played baseball for the Cincinnati Reds.
      Napolitan later graduated from Youngs-town State University with an accounting degree and became a CPA. He worked as the CFO at Lake Park Tool and Machine for most of his career.
      He has been married for 66 years to the former Anita Pettola, originally from Sharon, Pa, and has three children---Mary Ann (Ed) Keifer, Nancy Napolitan and Larry (Shelly) Napolitan; as well as four grandchildren---Melanie (Carl) Angiuli, and Jacob, Emma and Ben Napolitan; and two great-grandchildren, Gisella and Marialena Angiuli.
      Among the highlights of that 1945 season were---
       •Sept. 28, 1945; Pete Pihos and Howard Brown return from World War II in time for the second game of the year at Northwestern. The Hoosiers tie the Wildcats, 7-7. Pihos was a lieutenant in the 35th Infantry Division, and Brown received three Purple Heart citations for his service in the European Theater of Operations. Neither had been discharged when the season began, but they were granted 60-day leaves by the Army and returned in time for the second game of the season against Northwestern
       •Nov. 24, 1945: “This is the greatest thrill of my life,” said Head Coach Bo McMillin after the Hoosiers defeated Purdue, 26-0, to clinch the Big Ten title and a 9-0-1 season.
       •Nov. 27, 1945: IU finished fourth in the Associated Press football poll behind Army, Navy and Alabama.
     
      Pictured: LARRY NAPOLITAN WORE #86 as a member of the greatest football team in the history of Indiana University. That 1945 team went 9-0-1 and captured the school’s one and only outright Big Ten football crown. Napolitan is one of eight living members of that team who will be honored this weekend in Bloomington when the Hoosiers face Rutgers.