Rod Andrew’s life and career add new meaning to the term well-rounded. This top-drawer 5 sport athlete earned eleven letters in baseball, football, basketball, track and tennis. He was a play making guard and the best defensive man on the basketball city champions in 1947. Two of his teammates were Slivers Hall of Famers, Chuck Grigsby and Dale Andrews. In football he played halfback and quarterback. Baseball was perhaps his best sport, a top notch pitcher on the Stivers team that went to the 1946 National Amateur Baseball Tournament finals.
Rod played a leading role in the Stivers class play, The Little Minister. He also entered and won a national contest,”So You Want to Lead a Band.” He went to New York City where he competed against other regional winners and emerged as champion while leading Sammy Kaye’s orchestra in Carnegie Hall.
At Ohio University, Rod played quarterback in football and pitched in baseball. Starting as a sophomore with a 7-1 record, he became the Bobcats’ top pitcher during his years at Athens. Rod beat O.S.U. and beat his old Slivers teammate Whiff Brown. He also shut out Notre Dame.
After college Rod played baseball in the St. Louis Browns organization and for the major league team for a short time. After an injury, he taught school for a year and then went to work for Delco Moraine where he climbed rapidly up the corporate ladder to vice president of personnel for General Motors of Canada which had 40,000 employees.
Rod and his wife,Carole Lee Maxson Andrew, had one son, Mark.
