ERNIE LOUIS HOAR (Old Timer, Class of 2011, Posthumously)

Those who grew up in Warren in the middle of the twentieth century have fond memories of the nationally-prominent Warren Indian Band and its director, Ernie Hoar.   The boys and girls who participated in that drum and bugle corps knew of his gruffness, his attention to detail, his devotion to their happiness and success, and the fact that his mentoring kept many of them “off the streets” and out of trouble.  But few, if any, knew of his athletic accomplishments in earlier years.

In 1921 Ernie was a member of the Warren Grammar School baseball team that captured the Rhode Island Grammar School Championship. 

For the following four years he was both a pitcher and a catcher on the Warren High School baseball nine that he also served as team manager and scheduler.  In a 31-5 defeat of Barrington, he banged out two singles and two doubles.  (Much later in life Ernie recollected that Superintendent Staples used to send out their baseballs for recovering.)

Ernie played for the Warren Wanderers basketball team, served as captain of the Warren High School outdoor track squad, and was a judge at the Sea Scouts Water Carnival during this same four-year period.

Warren High School did not have a football team in the 1920s, so the boys (later men) of that time formed their own semi-pro team, playing under such names as the Wanderers, the Townies, and the Life Savers.  Ernie Hoar was in the thick of things for that outfit for sixteen years, from 1922 to 1937.

Some of the highlights of his football career included: downed St. Andrew’s, 30-0, “behind ‘Savage’ Hoar’s eighty-five yard touchdown run” 1922; player/managed the Rhode Island One Hundred and Twenty-Five-Pound State Championship team of 1923, beating the Richardson Club of Providence, 6-0 (Richardson came into the game with a points for/against margin of 212-0); defeated Mount Pleasant for Mount’s first loss in three seasons 1925; player/managed and “authored fast aerial game” (threw two touchdown passes in a win over Attleboro) 1927; starred in victories over India A. C. and the Berkanders 1928; fullback on 1929 State Runners-Up that notched eight shutout wins; managed the 1931 Wanderers squad whose late-season victory at the Providence Cycledrome made it one of the top two teams in Rhode Island; managed the 1933 Wanderers team that lost the state title in the final game of the season when three touchdowns were called back due to penalties; and managed the Wanderers eleven of 1937 that captured the Rhode Island One Hundred and Thirty-Five-pound Championship.  (This latter team is also being inducted into the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame this year.)

Ernie played for the Wanderers baseball team, served as the Vice President of the W Club, a unit of former high school athletes that raised funds for Warren High School athletics; was the President of the Warren Twilight Baseball League; and volunteered as Warren’s Troop 3 Scoutmaster.