Bobby Wolfe, the stocky, diminutive athlete known as phenom, dominated Stivers sports in the 1940s.. He received honorable mention on the 1940-41 city championship basketball team and All City the next year for both his ball-hawking and defensive play as well as scoring at least 10 points each game in those two years on the Horace English coached teams. His senior year he was also All City on the football team, where he was known for his speed and aggressive defensive play. In addition he was on the bowling team. Bobby the Giant stood 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 135 pounds during those years at Stivers, but what he lacked in stature, he made up for in character, power and determination to be the best.
Not only a sports legend at Stivers, he also acted in theatrical productions and was elected vice president of his senior class. Civic minded and driven to do community work, he was chosen as the student Dayton City Manager for a day under Mayor Frank Krebs. After graduation, the Wonder Boy joined the army air force as a rst Lieutenant, serving as a bombardier with the 453rd bomb group, 735th squadron stationed in England, -ying 18 missions over Germany.
Returning home in 1945, he entered the University of Dayton and joined the basketball team, playing four years, rst under Coach James Carter in 1945-47 and then under the new young Coach Tom Blackburn. The roster listed Bobby as 5 feet 8 inches and weighing 140 pounds. He graduated in 1949 with a business degree, after which he entered the working world at his Uncle Willis’s tool & die company. When his uncle died in 1959, Bobby purchased the business, renamed it Wisco Products, and served as president until his death in 2006. Bobby touched many lives with his love – love of family, Stivers High School and the University of Dayton.
Bobby was married to his wife Carol for 29 years and they reared two daughters, Jackie and Jill and three sons, Je (now deceased), Timothy and Tom, and Carol’s two daughters, Stephanie Paxson and Amanda Ware, and many grandchildren. It might be noted here that when Bobby’s son was reached by the committee, he remarked in a choked voice: “Today happens to by my dad’s birthday, and he would have considered this honor to be the greatest present ever because he so loved Stivers.”