Do you know who hit the most home runs in 1962? Or who won the NBA title in 1979? Or who led the NFL in rushing in 2003? There was a man who knew the answers to all these questions — and who could even tell you every fact of that NFL rushing leader’s career, from where he went to college to how many teams he played for to what jersey number he wore to what he had had for breakfast that morning. Well, maybe not that last one, but if he had happened to know that too, it wouldn’t have surprised us. That’s because this man was Howie Schwab, the human sports almanac who was ESPN’s leading sports researcher for over 20 years and the star of the network’s hit sports trivia show “Stump the Schwab.”
Schwab, who died this past week in Aventura, Florida, at 63, was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 17, 1960, and was raised on Long Island. Young Howie was not gifted athletically, but those who knew him claim that he was blessed with a photographic memory. He found an outlet for his sports fandom in numbers — and in helping other sports fans make sense of them.
A graduate of St. John’s University (where I teach), while earning his degree in athletic administration, Schwab wrote for the school’s student newspaper, the Torch. Schwab was the first writer anywhere to report that the highly sought-after high school college basketball prospect Chris Mullin was committing to St. John’s, to the chagrin of Johnnies’ coach Lou Carnesecca, who had wanted the news to remain under wraps until it was 100% certain. Mullin did indeed suit up for the Red Storm, and from there went on to play for the fabled 1992 Dream Team and later earned a place in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts (my birthplace).
Schwab’s post-St. John’s career also proved to be illustrious, though his success in the field of sports was not as predictable as Mullin’s. Schwab worked for College & Pro Football Newsweekly from 1982 to 1987, serving as its editor in chief during his final years at the magazine. After joining ESPN as a freelance researcher in 1987, Schwab quickly rose up the ranks, becoming the sports conglomerate’s head researcher by 1991. Schwab’s encyclopedic sports knowledge was so helpful to the network (especially in the pre-internet era) that major ESPN personalities like Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann avowed that ESPN would not have become ESPN without him.
Schwab emerged from the research room when the network asked him to appear on a sports trivia show in 2004. Although sports trivia has been a favorite pastime of sports fans for as long as sports themselves have been around, and although sports trivia night has long been a proven draw for bars everywhere, putting a sports trivia show on TV was not an easy sell. At least not one built around Howie Schwab, who looked more like the guy you’d see in line for a refill of his nachos at the Mets game than someone born to be in front of the camera.
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But paired with the show’s host, Stuart Scott, the exuberant ESPN anchor who sadly died at 49 in 2015, and matched with three different contestants each episode, the show became a surprise hit. Even though Schwab was the sports version of The Simpsons’s Comic Book Guy, not just in looks but often also in demeanor, Scott’s warmth and affability tempered Schwab’s intimidating frostiness, making for an unexpectedly enjoyable viewing experience. Sports fans like myself tuned in each time not just for the sports trivia but also to see how Scott and Schwab would play off one another (and also to see which vintage sports jersey Schwab would be wearing that show, a trademark of his that I loved for how it honored the great players of the past). The experience may not have been as fun, though, for the show’s contestants; going up against “the Schwab” in sports trivia was like playing the computer in chess.
I’m sure someone did actually stump him at least once, but if so, I can’t remember. And I’d bet that no other sports fans can remember it either. For anyone who knew him, even if it was only from TV, I’m sure that that’s how Howie Schwab would like to be remembered: as our generation’s one true unstumpable (and surprisingly lovable) sports know-it-all.
Daniel Ross Goodman is a Washington Examiner contributing writer and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Divinity School. His latest book, Soloveitchik’s Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America, was published last summer by the University of Alabama Press.
