IUP Athletic Hall of Fame
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Blair Studebaker, a graduate of Blairsville High School, was a four-time letterman in both football and basketball, from 1927-31 while also participating on the track and field team during the 1929-30 school year.
He played right defensive end in football and was a forward on the basketball team.
An old edition of the yearbook, The Oak, states that, "few and far between were the gains made at (Studebaker's) end, and the opposing back fields were constantly on the lookout to prevent him from snaring a pass and galloping off for a touchdown.”
A highlight of Studebaker's basketball career occurred in the Indians' victory over Youngstown when he made a last second half court shot to lift his team to a 13-12 victory. Indeed. Studebaker was a sharp shooter and an old yearbook states he," had a deadly shot with the ability to drop it in from anywhere on the floor.''
At an athletic honors banquet, he was awarded a golden football. He was the president of the I-Club from 1929-30 and, after graduating from IUP in 1932, he was a salesman and staff manager at the Prudential Insurance Company from 1934-70.
Studebaker was the director of the Wilkinsburg school board from 1948-71 and the director of Standard Bank from 1963-1992.
He founded and coached the Blackridge Bantams midget football team in 1945. A squad that still exists today as the Penn Hills Bantams. Studebaker was the president of the Allegheny County Midget Football League after founding it in 1947.
The league had seven fully equipped teams, and a Wilkinsburg Lions Club Boosters meeting program states the league was formed because of. "The welfare of boys and the growing concern for organized and proper training in the fundamentals of football and sportsmanship."
Studebaker and his wife Frances, a graduate of the Indiana Normal School, are the parents of Blair Jr., John, and James. The couple has four grandchildren and five great grandchildren.
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