Frank Cady
By Patricia Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, May 8, 2005 Frank Cady could sing, swim and box. He scored 27 points in a basketball game in an era when that inspired awe. When he switched high schools at the start of his senior year, sportswriters predicted upsets in the coming football season. He was dubbed one of the "greatest all-around schoolboy athletes in the South." Mr. Cady, 84, one of the District's best-known high-school athletes in the 1930s and '40s, died of complications from a stroke April 28 at a niece's home in Purcellville.
Mr. Cady's athletic career may have peaked during his teenage years, a family member acknowledged, but as an adult, he received great satisfaction from working with kids and sports at the Jellef branch of the Boys Club of Greater Washington and later as special events director for the city's recreation department. "He loved what he accomplished as a youngster, but then he spent his whole life working with kids, and he loved that, too," said his niece, Sharon Hamby. A 1942 Washington Post article about him said: "Cady will be remembered as one of the greatest all-around schoolboy athletes in the South. At Charlotte Hall [Military Academy], he sparked the football, basketball and baseball teams and captained the boxing team. He has a fine tenor singing voice; is a crack swimmer and rifleman and plays a creditable game of tennis. "Had Cady not entered Uncle Sam's armed forces, he today would be continuing his athletic career at one of the major colleges. Columbia, the University of Virginia, Duquesne University and several other major colleges were interested in offering the youngster an athletic scholarship before he cast his lot with the Coast Guard." He was "the finest backfield prospect  St. John's College High School has turned out in some years," the Post declared in 1938. The District avidly followed the exploits of the 190-pound halfback and his teams; more than 12,000 fans filled Griffith Stadium for the first high school night game, between St. John's and Central High School. In basketball, the "husky forward" was lauded for his "sensational shooting." All those sports took a toll on his grades. Sportswriters seemed stunned when the Mr. Cady was declared scholastically ineligible for his senior year at St. John's. Rather than following the principal's recommendation to skip the football season, raise his grades and renew his eligibility in time for basketball, Mr. Cady transferred to Charlotte Hall Military Academy, where in his first game, he made a 60-yard kick return. Mr. Cady was all-metropolitan in high school basketball and football. He was the city's and South Atlantic Golden Gloves heavyweight boxing champion and sparred with world-champion boxer Jack Dempsey during World War II, when Dempsey was training inductees in hand-to-hand combat. In 1940, he worked out as a catcher with both the Washington Senators and Detroit Tigers, but his family was uncertain if he played a game with either team. After World War II, he spent 1946-47 attached to the Washington Redskins football organization, playing for the Norfolk Shamrocks football team in the Dixie Pro League. That seemed to be the end of his personal athletic career as far as anyone can tell. He was pleased when people remembered him, but he didn't spend much time talking about the past, friends said. "He was an incredible athlete. People who have grown up here, the name Frank Cady is name they all know," said Jim Folks, the golf professional at the Bethesda Country Club. "Frank was a very personable individual, very lighthearted. He always liked to tell a good story and always had a joke with him. He had a real heart of gold." He became president of the Georgetown Big Brothers Club in the mid-1950s and went to work as athletic director for what was then known as the Boys Club of Greater Washington. Robert Stowers, director of the Jellef branch, was a boy when he met Mr. Cady at the club. "All the kids liked him; he was always there for you if you needed to talk to someone and always had a smile on his face," Stowers said. Mr. Cady joined the District's Recreation Department in 1961 and had a hand in the July Fourth fireworks displays at the Washington Monument. He organized and coached countless teams. He retired in 1977, but within a year he was a starter at the Bethesda Country Club's golf course, a position he held for 20 years. The honors returned late in life. He was inducted into the Washington Boxing Hall of Fame in 1981, the Jock's Hall of Fame in 1986, the Washington Sandlot Hall of Fame in 1995 and St. John's College Hall of Fame in 1996. His three marriages, to Emily Leach, June Cady and Ada Cady, ended in divorce. He had no immediate survivors.