Remembering John Sulsberger

This Friday is the last home game of the Zanesville High School football season…And everyone will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of John Sulsberger Stadium.

John Sulsberger played football for the Blue Devils in the early 1960s. He went on to start playing at Ohio State University but was diagnosed with cancer and passed away a few months later. Mike Jackson played along side Sulsberger at Zanesville and was great friends with him.

Jackson has never stopped thinking about his friend and said it’s the reason he named his oldest son after and wrote a book about what Sulsberger meant to him.

"They don’t really know him," said Jackson. "There are hundreds of students at the high school that see the name John Sulsberger, but they don’t know him. To me it’s a reminder not so much of the stadium but a reminder of the type of person he was. And I don’t want people to ever forget that."

Jackson recalls Sulsberger as being a great person, and he said the stadium is very important because it means Sulsberger will never be forgotten in Zanesville.

"Zanesville is very supportive and remembers, and all I’m hoping they do is that they remember not just the stadium but who John Sulsberger is," said Jackson. That’s my hope."

There will be a historical reading on the history of the stadium and John Sulsberger shortly before the coin toss Friday night at 6:35.