The following story was featured in the Panther Club e-newsletter over a year ago and demonstrates the relationship and dedication to Panther Athletics of Jerry Myerscough. On September 25, 2010, he will be amongst five others inducted in to the EIU Hall of Fame – an honor well-deserving of a man who built his successes in Charleston yet continually returns to the program that forged his roots.
The year was 1978 and Eastern Illinois University's football team had just defeated Youngstown State by booting a field goal late in the fourth quarter to earn the right to play the University of Delaware in the Division II national championship game. The students rushed the field, tore down the goal post and marched it from O'Brien Stadium past the recently-built Caesar's Pizza on Fourth Street and Lincoln Avenue to a house on Sixth Street.
In front of Caesar's Pizza the entrepreneurial Jerry Myerscough stood, a former Panther football player himself, taking in the moment. The scene repeated itself shortly thereafter as thousands of EIU students flooded Lincoln Avenue, stopping traffic while they celebrated the Panthers' 1978 national championship victory.
Much has changed since then: EIU Athletics has joined the FCS Division I ranks, football greats Jeff Gossett, Sean Payton and Tony Romo have come and gone, and Caesar's Pizza was forced to choose a new name when Little Caesar's came to town in 1982. The new name: Jerry's, after the founder himself.
It is those memories that keep Myerscough closely tied to Panther Athletics. Oftentimes he can be seen at the Chicago and Springfield Panther Club golf outings where he is able to reconnect with the people who share that common bond of Panther Athletics greatness. Further, he is always willing to step forward and assist the progress of EIU athletic programs; his donations of cash and in kind gifts total over $200,000 and have made projects such as the O'Brien Field turf resurfacing and Academic Success Center expansion possible.
Myerscough's journey began in the late 1960s as a Charleston High School football player. Plagued with a “testy” knee, former EIU athletic trainer “Doc” Aten helped heal him physically and provided a future academically by introducing him to coach Clyde “Big Man” Biggers – the 6-foot-7, 270-plus pound head football coach who had previously played professionally for the Green Bay Packers. “We had one-third of the scholarships that athletic departments have today, but all of the drive and ambition. We believed, as a team, that we could turn things around from the sub-.500 years.”
A long football career Myerscough would not have, as his sophomore season brought a blown-out knee that even Doc couldn't heal. So, Myerscough turned his focus to the food business, buying Pizza Joe's on the Charleston Square. “In the off season, the football guys delivered pizzas for me and really made the business successful. Even today, I owe the success I've experienced to EIU and to the student-athletes.”
In '78 – right before that fateful national championship season – Myerscough built Caesar's Pizza. Since then his presence in the restaurant business has grown; he is now the owner of nine Arby's, three Cheddar's and the recently-opened Stadium Grill in Mattoon.
Myerscough also came to know R.C. Johnson, EIU Director of Athletics, who had the vision of organizing a group of volunteers to raise money and awareness for Panther Athletics. The Panther Club was born.
In establishing the Panther Club, Myerscough took the lead on many fronts, serving as president and fund drive chair. “Back then, we were amazed to raise $100,000 in a year – we were just havin' fun and drinkin' beer. Now it's more professional and is great to see all of the alums who support their alma mater.”
All of that support will go directly to what so many, like Myerscough, hope for: a bright, competitive future for Panther Athletics. “I'd like to see basketball back at the (NCAA) Tournament and football in the playoffs; it's such a thrill to see the Panthers on TV, achieving with the same drive my teammates and I felt back in 1970.”
