Tue, Feb 09 2010
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Published November 26, 2009 11:02 pm - The term “impact player” is thrown around a great deal. It can carry a variety of connotations. In like Clint Clint Schertzer helped launch the PV program and in two years, made quite an impression KARL PEARSON Star Beacon 10th of a Series...
The term “impact player” is thrown around a great deal. It can carry a variety of connotations. In football, it often means a player who just loves to hit people. It can also imply one who can make a difference either offensively or defensively with his skills. At Pymatuning Valley, players such as Tony Barnes helped make the Lakers a respectable enterprise, even though it was in the initial year of the program. That one season made enough of an impression that Barnes was the PV athlete chosen its initial inductee into the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame in 2004. But when Barnes graduated after the 1963 season, coach Ernie Simpson had to find another player or players to help fill the role Barnes had vacated. Fortunately, there were a couple players who stepped up and assumed the job. One was Larry Lattimer, who manned the quarterback role, and handled it well, although he went on to even greater notoriety as a basketball player, eventually earning selection to the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame. The other was Clint Schertzer, who had already established himself as Lattimer’s favorite target during his junior year. He didn’t disappoint as a senior, either, playing well enough to eventually earn second-team Class A All-Ohio honors at end. He was also one of the key pillars of the PV defense. Together, he and Lattimer even improved the 4-4 record the 1963 Lakers had produced by going 5-4. But those two years of gridiron glory were the only ones Schertzer ever enjoyed. The 5-foot-11, 170-pounder never seriously considered trying to play collegiately, but a conversation his father, Richard, had with a college coach confirmed his thoughts. “My dad knew a Coach Stang at Kent State when he was down there,” Schertzer said. “He told him I wasn’t big enough. We talked about other schools, but it didn’t go far.” Two years doesn’t seem like a lot of time to make an impression on people, so when Schertzer was informed that he had been chosen for the 2009 class of the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame by longtime PV basketball coach Bob Hitchcock, a member of the county basketball hall of fame, and his father, he was quite surprised. He will be inducted Dec. 7 at the Ashtabula County Touchdown Club Awards Banquet at Mount Carmel Community Center. “I figured they had run through just about everyone else,” he said with a laugh. “I’m really honored to have been chosen when you consider I only played football my junior and senior years.” Schertzer also finds his selection amazing considering he never played beyond the high school level. “It’s a real honor to be included when you consider most of the people that are in the hall of fame at least played college ball,” he said. “It’s an extra honor to be chosen with a group like that.” But ask his former coaches, and they attest to Schertzer’s capabilities without hesitation. 
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