Frank Zoppetti, 93, college quarterback, firefighter

Frank Zoppetti, 93, formerly of South Philadelphia, a star college quarterback and retired firefighter, died Saturday at Saunders House in Wynnewood.

Mr. Zoppetti, nicknamed "Zip" for his speed, led Duquesne University to a 13-12 victory over Mississippi State University in the Orange Bowl in 1937. After graduating from Duquesne in 1938, he coached football at St. Francis High School in Morgantown, W.Va., and was later an assistant coach at Duquesne.

He played the 1941 football season with the Pittsburgh Steelers as a tailback before joining the Marine Corps in January 1942.

During World War II, he served in the Pacific and participated in the invasion of the Solomon Islands. When he disembarked his ship, he told his family, he left his Orange Bowl ring aboard for safekeeping. The ship was torpedoed and the ring was lost.

According to an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mr. Zoppetti was the first U.S. serviceman wounded when Tulagi Island was assaulted in August 1942. He recovered and returned to active duty.

Before his discharge in January 1946, he was stationed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. While in the city, he met his future wife, Carmela Manniso.

In 1948, he joined the Philadelphia Fire Department. He retired from Engine 49 in South Philadelphia in 1976.

Mr. Zoppetti lived in the 2700 block of Colorado Street in South Philadelphia for 37 years until moving to Saunders House four years ago. He helped organize the street's famous 2,000-light Christmas display and cared for the street's median strip, which neighbors called "The Terrace." They contributed money for upkeep of the strip and installed a sprinkler system in the 1980s, when the Fairmount Park Commission stopped maintaining it.

In 1988, an Inquirer reporter wrote that "Frank Zoppetti's energy might not be what it was, but you wouldn't know it from watching the retired firefighter root through bushes pulling weeds." Mr. Zoppetti told the reporter that "it's all ours," and pointed out the daisies, marigolds, petunias, scarlet sage, and azaleas.

"Everybody comes out and does a little," he said. "It's not one man; it's the whole street."

Mr. Zoppetti grew up with eight younger siblings in Latrobe, Pa. As a teenager, he worked in a local coal mine.

He is survived by a grandson and great-granddaughter, two brothers and a sister. His wife died in 2000 and his stepson, Paul Cosentino, died in 1990.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. today at St. Pius X Church, 220 Lawrence Rd., Broomall. Friends may call from 10 a.m. Burial will be in SS. Peter and Paul Cemetery, Marple Township.