The Holy Grail of Bluffton High School athletics is gone and we didn’t even get to say goodbye.

John Hartzler – not a Bluffton household name in 2013 – died at age 100 in January. Who was John Hartzler? Why does his death matter?

Here’s the answer

In the dawn of Bluffton High School athletics the school played an independent schedule in all sports. Its team colors were red and white, but those teams were not called the Pirates. They had no mascot.

When and why Bluffton embraced red and white is, itself a mystery. We know it took place was prior to the 1913-14 school year, but that’s all we know. How do we know that? Because the Del Gratz family has the girls’ basketball uniform that Del’s grandmother Fannie (Lauby) Gratz [Mrs. Harvey Gratz] wore. Guess the colors of that uniform: red and white.

To further confirm this, the late Jack Berry, who played on the great 1923 BHS football team, related this football cheer from 1923:  “Red and White, fight, fight!”

Ron Geiser, BHS sport historian has scoured every Bluffton News backward from the mid-1910 and never found the smoking gun news item that stated the year or reason why Bluffton took the red and white colors.

We’ll probably never know the origins of the colors.

Where Hartzler enters the story

However, we do know how, why and when Bluffton High School’s mascot became the Pirate. Here’s where John Hartzler comes in.

The following account is from the last-ever reunion of the Bluffton High School class of 1929. The remaining class members met at the Vernice Davis’s residence on Main Street in the early 1990s. I attended that reunion to take a class photo.

Here’s the story that was told at that reunion and I took these notes:

Wallace Miller, a member of the class of 1929, came up with the Pirate idea. He approached Norman Triplett, president of the school council that school year. Triplett suggested that Miller present the Pirate idea to the council. The student council liked and voted in favor of the Pirate.

Why did he suggest Pirate? John Hartzler, a member of the class of 1929 who stood either 6-5 or 6-6 - we aren’t really certain - was the center of the boys’ basketball team during the 1928-29 season. His high school nickname was “Long John Silver.”

You may see what’s coming.

The 1928-29 team, led by Hartzler was undefeated.  This unbeaten record was largely a part of Hartzler’s role. In 1929 after every basket, the ball went back to the center court for a jump ball.  With a 6-6 guy in the center ring, you might imagine why Bluffton won all the tips and games.

The great team of 1928-29 advanced to the Class B state high school basketball finals, only to lose by two points in the state championship to Akron St. Mary’s.

With a team of that caliber, led by a guy nicknamed Long John Silver and his Pirate crew, you draw your own conclusion to this story.

Later, in a conversation with Hartzler, he told me, “It seems to me that naming the mascot wasn’t a big deal.”

That may be the understatement of the century, for Bluffton High School sports fans,  but that’s what John said.

I met John on his last-ever visit to Bluffton, when he was 95. He was an impressive figure, full of interesting stories and yet the loss of that game to Akron St. Mary’s still lingered in his mind.

The meeting with John (his daughter drove him to Bluffton from Ashland, where he lived) also took place with another Bluffton athletic legend Spike Berry. Spike’s dad was a member of the 1929 basketball team. He was also nicknamed “Spike.”

John, who never met Spike junior in his life, told Spike, upon meeting him, “You’re Spike Berry. I can tell. I played basketball with your dad.”

And so went the conversation. John did explain why Bluffton lost the game to the Akron team.  You may want to hear his explanation. It's pretty interesting.

He claims the Bluffton boys were goofing off too much at some frat houses at Ohio State University the day before the game. They became tired late in the state finals contest – John blamed the frat boys. I accept his answer.

That’s the story about the Pirates and John Hartzler, as I know it. I can't think of a better way to come up with the name of a school mascot than the way Bluffton High School did. Nor, can I think of a more interesting athlete to name the mascot after.

Some say it takes a village to make a child. For us, it took a John Hartzler to make us  Pirates.

There are three postscripts to this story.

The first is the obituary of Mr. Hartzler, which is linked to this story and also posted in the Icon obituaries.

The second is a photo of the 1929 Bluffton High School boys' state runner-up basketball team. The first-ever BHS squad to be called Pirates. CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Team members  are, front from left, Manley Thompson and Gerald "Spike" Berry. 

Second row from left, Robert Schaeublin, Norman Triplett, John Hartzler, Howard Triplehorn and Garfield Griffith.

Third row from left, Sidney Stettler, Ross Irwin, Odell Alspach, Wade Basinger, Dwain Murray.

The third is an e-mail I received from Robert Kreider of North Newton, Kansas. This message reflected on John and puts a human touch to this story. It follows:

Robert Kreider writes:

In my boyhood, John E. Hartzler, Jr., was a celebrity. At 6'6" he was the tallest youth in town, a member of the high school basketball team that lost in the state championship –teammates, the celebrated halfback and mayor's son Howard Triplehorn, later my scoutmaster Bob Schaublin, Gar Griffith, Swatty Alspaugh and Jim Berry's dad. 

John attended Bluffton College for two years where he, a gifted musician, organized a dance band, the High Hatters, which led to public criticism that questionable activity.

He transferred to Wooster College and married Christine Blosser - the most beautiful girl on the Bluffton campus, went on to a career as educator in the Ashland school system. 

John's younger sister, Helen, would have been a distinguished basketball player had there been secondary and college women's sports. Helen was a member of the First Aid Club we organized and met in a chicken coup behind our residence on Main Street.

The Hartzlers lived in the large brick house on Lawn Avenue next door to the Boyd Smuckers (Bert, Don, Carl, Orden), two doors from Menno Bixel (Ford dealer) and across the street from the residence on a triangular lot of Bluffton News editor Ted Biery, who lived across Grove Street from President S. K. Mosiman. 

J.E. Hartzler, Sr., was president of Witmarsum Theological Seminary and had been president of Goshen College and, for a year, Bethel College. 

A tall, commanding lecturer, he was a world traveler who showed lantern slides along with his lectures. We held in awe the town's two world travelers: Hartzler and C. Henry Smith. 

Mamie, J.E.'s wife, was one of my mother's close friends. She taught the young women's Sunday School class at First Mennonite and her sister taught Bible classes, then a part of the public school program. 

J.E., who lived with flair, invited us to their home for supper and the second Dempsey-Tunney fight on their radio, we not having a radio. 

J.E. was a flamboyant, controversial figure in the Old Mennonite / General Conference stresses and strains in the era of WWI and years thereafter.  He was one of the Goshen College diaspora whom Mosiman invited to Bluffton: Byers, Hartzler, Smith, Smucker, Lantz, Holtkamp and Kreider.