Catchin' Up With a 'Cat
To keep updating the site through the off-season, every so often there will be a look back at former Bobcats.
Frank Soupy Myers may have suited up as a Bobcat from 1962-1966, but even to this day still sports the Green & White.
“I still wear OU hockey t-shirts and am very proud to have gotten the chance to play there for four years,” Myers answered through an email interview.
Before coming to Athens, Myers grew up in Toledo and began playing the game at the age of 10.
Myers will never forget the very first game of his freshman season, “I never played in front of a large crowd before and they were playing the OU fight song in warm ups,” Myers said. “It really pumped me up.”
His scoring line, all freshmen and Toledo natives, scored 4 of Ohio’s 5 goals en route to a 5-2 victory over rival Ohio State that game.
Myers remembers the caliber of his opponents.
“We were a club sport, but our coach, John McComb, who had visions of going Division I, scheduled many Division I schools,” he said.
Through his seasons, Myers played against Division I schools such as: Colorado College, Michigan, Michigan State and Wisconsin.
“We lost to these teams, but gave them a good game, except Michigan,” Myers said.
After Ohio, Myers taught and coached at Highland Middle School in Medina. In 1973, Myers moved to Colorado, where he continued coaching and teaching until his retirement in 2002. In 2003, he moved to Punta Gorda, Florida and had to give up hockey.
But while Myers may be thousands of miles from Athens, he still keeps in touch with his teammates, “I am in contact with a lot of former players. Some on a weekly basis,” he said.
In 2004, golf outings started for the former players in Port Charlotte, Florida. Ten former players are in the area.
“Other players from around the States would come in different years, usually averaging 16 to 20 of us playing golf and partying for a weekend in the spring,” he said. One of the courses played is right near the home of Bill “Sheik" Gurnick, who acts as a host.
This year, the players met in Homosassa Springs, for a weekend including fishing, kayaking and swimming with manatees.
He may have left Athens in 1966, Myers still knows the effect the school has on alumni, “I have been waiting for 40-plus years to find someone that went to OU to tell me they didn’t love their time there. Usual response is, ‘best time of my life,’” he said.
