Clippers Retire #61

Printed Saturday, August 7, 1999
Salem News, Thursday, August 5, 1999

Clips to honor Caffro on Friday

Team to retire fallen player’s number during a special ceremony
By Brian McGee

COLUMBIANA – Columbiana High School will honor the late J.C. Caffro, by retiring his jersey at a ceremony on Friday at 8 p.m. at the locker room at Firestone Park.

Tri-W Lumber out of Leetonia has built a locker which will be enclosed in Plexiglas where his help and his No. 61 jersey will be.

Since J.C.’s funeral we know they were going to do something, but we didn’t expect this,” Larry Caffro, J.C.’s father said. “We’re very gratified with this.”

At the ceremony, Columbiana assistant head coach Larry Baughman will speak briefly.

“Everybody thought it was a real good idea,” Spaite said. “You don’t want to forget the people who have given so much to you. We wanted to do something special.”

Larry Caffro had worked as the Columbiana’s athletic director during the time J.C. was in school.

“Columbiana will always be our home,” Larry Caffro said. “The people in Columbiana County are very special.”

In addition to the coaches, also attending the even will be a lot of J.C.’s former teammates from the 94 team that was the first in the school history to go 10-0.

The clippers ended up as regional runner-ups that year.

In addition, all who have played football for Columbiana are welcome to attend.

“We think this is going to be something special,” Larry Caffro said, “Though education, we got to know a lot of those young men and we were very close to the,.” Larry Caffro said.

“This will help us focus on a positive memory of J.C.”

Larry, his wife Sandy, and daughter Tami, who is a senior at Waynesburg College will make the trip for the ceremony. Larry is currently the principal in Ashland.

“J.C. was a quality kid,” Spaite said, “He was everything you would want in a leader. He was such a good student who would lead in all the ways you would want a kid to lead. He never threw his weight around.”

Photo by Steve Schenck, Morning Journal
Printed Saturday, August 7, 1999

Morning Journal, Saturday, August 7, 1999

Columbiana honors one of its own
By Vincent F. Taddei

COLUMBIANA – For any football team on any level anywhere in the country, the word “family” has a special meaning. In a football family as in a regular family, members stand by one another through good and bad times.

Last night, the Columbiana Clippers football program exhibited this fact.

In May, J.C. Caffro, the center on the undefeated 1994 squad, died in a motorcycle accident near Akron, and last night those who knew him gathered at Firestone Stadium to try to bring some sort of closure to this tragic episode.

Coach Bob Spaite coordinated the formal even and offered some thoughts to the people in attendance.

“You begin each day so that when it’s over people can look back and know you lived for something. I believe J.C. lived for something.”

Every football season has its last game but it never dies. Years persevere the test of time thought players and coaches endlessly spinning stories of days past.

This is where one of coach Spaite’s greatest regrets enters the picture. Spaite feels that he didn’t reminisce enough with his former player and urged those who pass through to stop in before and after the games.

Spaite and his staff retired Caffro’s number 61 and sealed off the locker with some of his belongings as a permanent memorial.

The emotional service concluded shortly after Spaite spoke for everyone when he said this of J.C., “He’s a Clipper and will always be.”