Truscello, Hugo

Hugo Truscello – (1996)

 

Hugo Richard Truscello loved the challenge of athletic competition. A product of Hawthorne Junior High School and CYO football, Truscello also excelled in basketball, baseball and hockey. But it was his football exploits at Lorain High School in 1940-41-42 that brought out the best in him.

Longtime Lorain Journal sportswriter-columnist Jim Mahony in 1959 ranked Truscello among Lorain’s all-time greatest gridders. An explosive scatback with burning speed and elusiveness, his career was punctuated with sparkling long runs, pass receptions and pass completions—many going for touchdowns.

His scholastic football career was a virtual highlight film. Oldtimers recall the 1940 LHS season opener against Akron North, Truscello’s first varsity game as a sophomore. He stood out among such veteran backfield teammates as fullback Al Kuncel and Wee Willie Davis at quarterback. Up front were equally great linemen as Thad Jones, Paul Nitzke, John Magyary, co-captains Bob Hahn and Joe Sislowski and Dick Prosser at center. Lorain romped to a 33-0 win.

Against Cleveland city champion John Adams, Hugo broke off a 71-yard TD scamper which, unfortunately, was nullified by a penalty. He would later circle left end on a touchdown run as LHS rolled, 37-0. Then came a 43-0 rout of Lake Erie League rival Cleveland Heights in which Truscello scored on a 15-yard dash and set up another TD with a 79-yard sprint to the Heights one-yardline.

Launching the 1941 season, again versus Akron North, Hugo slipped inside left tackle, reversed his field and waltzed 25 yards into the endzone with over 8,200 fans roaring at Recreation Field. Later, Truscello showed his versatility by lofting a TD pass to Al Cleavers in a 14-0 win. Hugo’s running skills were really showcased in a 26-12 victory over arch-rival Sandusky before 8,400 fans as he scored on runs of 55 and 44 yards, then set up a third score with a 53-yard sprint to the Blue Streaks’ 15-yardline.

Truscello and fullback Jim Wielgos were voted co-captains in their senior year, 1942. In a 12-7 Lorain victory over state power Canton Lincoln, he scored both TDs on a 60-yard dash up the middle and on pass from the late Joe Bartos. On defense, he batted down a potential winning touchdown pass at the goalline. In the 1942 season finale, Truscello swept around end for one touchdown, then hauled in a 44-yard scoring pass from Bartos as LHS beat Sandusky, 13-0, to finish the season with eight wins, one loss and a tie.

Truscello also played forward on the LHS basketball teams, lettering all three years. But it was football that produced a deluge of college scholarship offers from Northwestern University, Bowling Green, Kent State, Ohio University and Wooster College. However, World War II took precedence. Hugo enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving three years in the south Pacific aboard the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid where his heroism earned the Victory Medal, Philippine Liberation Medal and two bronze battle stars.

Now a resident of Venice, Fla., with his second wife, Betty, he is a consultant for the auto carrier industry. Hugo returned to Lorain following the war and was employed by E&L Transport with whom he became terminal manager. Truscello and his first wife, the late Mary Frances (Shilling) had five children: daughters Mary Jo Cook, of Lorain, and Pat Wilcox, of Clarkston, Mich., and sons Rich, of Lambertville, Mich., Jim, of Baltimore, Md., and Tom (deceased). He also adopted his second wife’s children, daughter Linda and son Barry. Hugo has nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren.