Akron Zips player collapsed on Rubber Bowl field and died in 1975

The University of Akron football guide is filled with the names of memorable players who played for the Zips over the years.

The distinguished list seems endless: Jack Beidleman, Tony Pallija, Frank Wahl, Mike Clark, Charlie Frye, Domenik Hixon, Luke Getsy, Don Zwisler, Tom DeMarco, James Black, Dwight Smith, Scotty Bierce …

The one player I won’t forget — can’t forget — is Chris Angeloff.

I was there on the night when he fell.

I was 11 years old and a sixth-grader at Nimisila Elementary School when my mother took me to the Acme-Zip Game on Sept. 6, 1975, at the Rubber Bowl. The season-opening crowd of 27,949 was probably the biggest I had ever seen as a kid.

The University of Akron played Marshall that evening, and it began as a joyful, raucous event punctuated by peppy music and school cheers. Fans celebrated as the Zips jumped out to a 17-0 lead in the second quarter.

I remember seeing No. 89 trot off the field with the offense after a change of possession. Chris Angeloff, 20, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound tight end from Berea, was a junior accounting major with a 3.20 grade-point average.

When he got to the sideline, Angeloff unexpectedly collapsed. It didn’t seem serious at first. Watching in the stands, I thought he’d injured his leg or something. Players and coaches huddled around him. Team doctors rushed to his side.

A worried murmur swept the crowd as physicians kept working on the player. Suddenly, the game didn’t matter. Conversations hushed. That uneasy silence of nearly 28,000 people has stayed with me for 40 years.

We realized that No. 89 hadn’t moved his arms or legs since collapsing. Doctors spent about 15 minutes trying to revive Angeloff before an ambulance rolled to the sideline to take him to Akron City Hospital.

The second half of the game was an afterthought as the Zips beat the Thundering Herd 20-8.

Afterward, I remember exiting the Rubber Bowl with my mother and turning on WAKR radio as soon as we got into her Chevy Nova. Within seconds, a somber reporter announced that Angeloff had died.

Cardiac doctors spent 45 minutes but were unable to resuscitate him, and he was pronounced dead at 9:30 p.m.

Minutes after the game ended, coach Jim Dennison informed his team of Angeloff’s death.

“What did I tell the players? It was sort of a family thing,” the shaken coach told the Beacon Journal. “I’d rather not say exactly what was said. We talked and prayed.

“I don’t know what to say about it. He was a great kid and a real good athlete. He was always happy and we never had any problems with him.”

I read in the newspaper how Angeloff’s parents, Mary and Carl Angeloff, his brother Craig, 21, and sister Lisa, 14, were at the game when he collapsed. How awful, how terrible. How could this happen?

On Tuesday, Sept. 9, a funeral was held at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Berea. The entire Zips football team attended the service. In his sermon, the Rev. William Wilkins called it “a dismal day.”

“It’s not because someone has died, but because a young person has died,” Wilkins said. “There are no simple answers to why Chris died, why now, why this place.”

Angeloff was buried at St. Paul’s Lutheran Cemetery on Eastland Road in Berea.

Dr. A.H. Kyriakides, the Summit County coroner, ruled that Angeloff died as a result of a rare bleeding of the heart muscle. The death was unrelated to the football game, he said.

“It’s something that could have happened five minutes before, during the game, or four days before,” Kyriakides said.

The grief-stricken UA team dug deep to defeat Western Michigan 27-21 the following weekend, dedicating the victory to Angeloff and signing the game ball to present to his family. The Zips finished the season 7-4.

At the end of the year, teammates voted to retire Angeloff’s No. 89 jersey “as an honor to a great athlete and person,” the first Zips football player whose number was retired.

A memorial fund for the Chris Angeloff Scholarship was established in 1975 through contributions from family, friends and teammates. To this day, income from the endowed fund is applied to athletic scholarships, a lasting legacy for a player who died at such a young age.

The Acme-Zip Game is gone. The Rubber Bowl is empty. No. 89 is retired.

But I will never forget Chris Angeloff or that 1975 night — and I know I’m not alone.

Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron Zips player collapsed on Rubber Bowl field and died in 1975