George Schiro

Schiro, George J.

Madison: George Joseph Schiro, age 93, passed away Saturday, October 27, 2018, at Brookdale West Madison. He was born at the family home April 5, 1925, the son of Joseph and Catherine (Renda) Schiro on Regent St. in Madison. George attended Draper Grade School and graduated from Central High School where he lettered in football, basketball, and golf. Following high school, he attended Kansas University before serving his country in the Navy Air Force as Gunnery Radio Man 3rd Class. George returned to Madison in 1946, and began his life-long love of the game of golf.

George began his career working for 3 years as an assistant golf professional at Nakoma Golf Club under Head Professional George K. Vitense. George then opened up a sporting goods shop on Monroe Street with Billy Milward, specializing in club repairs and refinished woods. In 1950 George bought a liquor store on E. Wilson next to what is now the Essen House. In 1952 he sold the liquor store, and opened up a hobby shop on Monroe Street. After adding a few pet supplies the business grew quickly and George made the decision to move the business to a new location in the 1800 block of Monroe Street where it became the well known Monroe St. Pet Shop. In the early 60's George directed and produced a live TV show that aired on Fridays from 4:30 to 5:00 on channel 33 (now channel 15), featuring small children and unusual pets.

George ultimately decided that golf would be his career path. At age 48 he entered the PGA program, earned his PGA card, and spent the rest of his life teaching and working as a golf professional. He was an exceptional teacher and truly enjoyed teaching the game to others. He especially enjoyed working with high school golf teams. He received many awards for his work with Jr. golfers and took great pride in the jr. golf program he had at Vitense Golfland. George made many cherished friendships over the years on the golf courses of Madison. He truly loved the game and the thousands of golfers that he met through his career. But, in his own words, "all good things must come to an end," so in his late 70's George hung up his spikes and enjoyed his membership at the course where it all began, the Nakoma Golf Club. He truly loved life, and lived it to the fullest.

George is survived by his wife, Patricia (Brewer) Schiro, sons, Mark A., George "Jay", Monty D. (Jodi), step son Tom Dean (Debbie), 9 grandchildren: Joseph, Alison, Hannah, Travis, Devin, Lauren, Ian, Cassidy, and Logan, and great granddaughters, Sicily and Ena, his sister Mary (Lyle) Bull, and many nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents and brothers Frank (Marge), Damian (Audrey) and LaVonne Schiro.

A visitation will be held from 10:00 am until 12:00 noon, Monday, November 5, 2018, at HOLY WISDOM MONASTERY, 4200 County Rd M, Middleton, WI 53562, followed by a memorial service at noon and luncheon following the service. The family would like to thank the staff at Brookdale West and the angels on the Agrace Purple Team for their wonderful care for George. In lieu of flowers the family suggests memorial contributions in George's name be made to Agrace Hospice Care, The Italian Workmen's Club Scholarship Fund, or the charity of your choice. To view a longer recap of George's life or to share a memory, please go to www.CressFuneralService.com .

You only go around once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

SCHIRO GOLF TALES A LINK TO PAST
OPEN GEORGE Schiro's golf bag and eight decades of memories come tumbling out with the Titleists.
He can tell you about the time Walter Hagen played Monona, or Arnold Palmer killed a drive on what is now No. 16 at Odana, or about the time, in the 1940s, when he, Schiro, made the mistake of trying to take Ben Hogan's picture on the driving range of the Tam O'Shanter Country Club in Chicago.
He can tell you about any of that, but in a life in golf maybe there has never been a better time than when he was just a kid, caddying at Nakoma, and the caddies could play for free on Mondays.
"We'd get up before it was light and have 72 holes in before noon," Schiro was saying Sunday. "We'd play barefoot, with three or four clubs, just hit it and run. We had to be off the golf course by noon."
There is something of that barefoot kid still in George Schiro, who turns 80 Tuesday. You sense it when you see him helping young golfers, as I've seen him with my son. Somehow, he speaks their language. Maybe it's just that the kids can spot the mischief in Schiro's 80-year-old eyes. Listen to what I'm telling you, those eyes say, or you might find yourself in a match playing barefoot with four clubs with your allowance on the line, and you know who is walking away with the cash? Not you.
Schiro may be best remembered around here for the decade or so he spent running the city-owned golf shops at both Yahara Hills and Odana Hills in the 1970s. His parting with the city was not amicable -- I give the city a double bogey in the deal, though I'm biased -- but Schiro landed on his feet teaching and talking golf, as he always has.
Now George's wife, Pat, is putting together a party in celebration of George's 80th. The details have just been finalized and the party is April 17, from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Nakoma Golf Club.
"The world is invited," Pat says.
It should be a delightful event, and good tonic for George, who is still getting over the loss of his great friend, Steve Caravello, who died last year. Caravello was the best amateur golfer in Madison history, but more than that, he and Schiro are links to a fading era -- a time of blade irons, steak houses and Sinatra albums, when male friendship meant golf but also gruff humor, side bets, whiskey afterward, and stories, always stories.
Nobody seems to have time for that anymore, and what business do I have getting sentimental about it? Times change. Hell, today even Schiro has a cell phone.
He couldn't have imagined that 80 years ago, not in that old house in the 800 block of Regent Street, where he was born in 1925. George's dad worked for Madison Gas and Electric then, and he worked hard, digging ditches for their power lines.
When Prohibition was repealed in the early 1930s, his dad opened Schiro's Tavern on Regent, one block from the house, and that lasted a long time, decades, until the brilliant urban planners decided to get rid of Madison's Greenbush neighborhood.
George was long out of the house by then. His life's passion arrived by accident one day when he was walking with some kids to go swimming in the lake. George figures he was 12, maybe 13. An adult of his acquaintance, local businessman Jerry Onheiber, was hitting golf balls in a field near the beach. Would George liked to shag them for him, for 25 cents?
Schiro did. Then before long he was caddying for Onheiber at the now-departed Burr Oaks Golf Course off South Park Street. From there he looped at Blackhawk and Nakoma, until finally -- after a stint in the Navy -- Nakoma pro George Vitense offered Schiro a job as his assistant.
Since then, you'd be hard pressed to find a job in golf that George Schiro hasn't held. He's taught, made and fit clubs, run courses and ranges. There was the day in the 1970s when he was in the shop at Yahara and an old man came in and asked for a cool drink. They got to chatting and the man asked, "Are you a PGA pro?" Schiro said that he was. "Me, too," the man said.
He was a pro, all right. The man was Johnny Farrell, who had an adult child living in McFarland at the time. Farrell had come to visit and found his way to nearby Yahara, where he found Schiro, a student of the game who knew that in 1928 Johnny Farrell shocked the golf world by beating Bobby Jones in a 36-hole playoff for the United States Open at Olympia Fields in Chicago. Farrell was from the era of stories, too. "He talked about Jones, Hagen, Gene Sarazen," Schiro recalled. "He must have been 80 years old by then."
It was at another course in Chicago, on the range of Tam O'Shanter in Chicago -- where Byron Nelson won one of his remarkable 11 straight tournaments in 1945 -- that Schiro spotted the legendary Ben Hogan hitting balls on the range next to fellow pro Lloyd Mangrum. Schiro was excited. Nobody swung the club like Hogan. If Schiro wanted a life in golf, he should get a picture of Hogan's swing. He pulled out his camera but Hogan growled: "Get out of here."
Mangrum laughed. "You can take my picture."
"Cut it out, Lloyd," Hogan said.
Schiro grinned, and moved on. He missed the picture, but he got the life.


Cress Funeral Home
3610 Speedway Rd
Madison, WI 53705
(608) 238-3434