Legends of the fall
Longtime coaches enjoy an afternoon of laughs, memories
Eleven WPIAL football coaches — retired and active — gathered for an informal lunch last week. Lunch analytics suggest there has never been such a feast of WPIAL championships and wins on one table.
It was coaching eminence and royalty rubbing elbows. The 11 coaches had 56 WPIAL championships and 2,877 wins between them. Some of the faces would be on the WPIAL football’s Mount Rushmore.
But what was so ironic about this gathering of greatness was the common thread that ran between a number of the coaches. More than half of them were either fired during their career or came close to being fired.
The stories of highly successful coaches being let go or forced out of their jobs seem to crop up more and more these days. Mike Zmijanac is the poster child for such a move. His ouster at Aliquippa this March was a big story in Western Pennsylvania high school circles. He sat at the end of the table at the lunch, with an Aliquippa basketball ring on his right hand. He has Aliquippa football championship rings also, but he won’t wear them any longer.
“That’s in the past,” said Zmijanac, who is now Ringgold High’s coach.
Although Zmijanac’s story is the freshest one of an ultra-successful coach being ousted, even he said it’s not a new story.
“Things haven’t really changed from years ago,” said Zmijanac. “The deal is if you stay anywhere long enough, you’re going to make some enemies, whether it’s parents or people on the school board. It’s like that in any business and not just high school coaching. It’s because most of the time, we make decisions we think are right, but what’s right isn’t necessarily what people want to hear.”
The other 10 coaches at the lunch at Grand View Golf Course in Braddock included active coaches Jim Render of Upper St. Clair, Bob Palko of West Allegheny and Bill Cherpak of
Thomas Jefferson. Retired coaches present were Joe Hamilton (Blackhawk, Hempfield, New Brighton and Midland), Jack McCurry (North Hills), Joe Mucci (Jeannette and Greensburg Central Catholic), Tom Nola (Clairton and Serra), George Novak (Woodland Hills and Steel Valley), Don Yannessa (Aliquippa, Baldwin and Ambridge) and Pat Tarquinio (Beaver and Ellwood City). Seven of the 11 winningest coaches in WPIAL history were present. The other four of the 11 are deceased.
Bill Priatko, who played for the Steelers in the late 1950s and is a retired WPIAL athletic director, has put together this lunch for four years running, just because he wants to. Former Steeler defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau called the group and spoke on speaker phone, dishing out compliments. Every coach present won at least three WPIAL titles.
But consider the list of those who faced firing squads, besides Zmijanac:
• Render, the winningest coach in WPIAL history who needs two wins to reach 400, was fired at Uniontown before he came to Upper St. Clair in 1979. Sixteen years ago, a disgruntled parent of an Upper St. Clair player also was on the school board and led a charge to possibly get Render fired. It failed.
• McCurry, fourth on the WPIAL’s all-time wins list, was fired at North Hills in 2000, but got his job back five days later after a public meeting that attracted a few hundred supporters.
• Hamilton, second on the win list, almost was fired at Blackhawk in 1983 after two losing seasons.
• Nola won six WPIAL titles at Clairton. But he had two stints at Serra before coming to Clairton and was once fired from Serra. He was 15-32 at Serra.
• Despite still wanting to coach, Tarquinio was forced out at Beaver in 1999. He was the winningest coach in the WPIAL at the time with a 269-143-11 record.
“I remember [legendary former NFL coach] Paul Brown once said the longer you coach, the more chance you have of getting fired,” said Render. “Look at Paul Brown. As great as he was, Art Modell came in [as owner of the Cleveland Browns in 1963] and fired him.”
McCurry said, “I was a coach and a school principal. Usually, things boil down to an agenda by certain individuals on the school board.”
Throughout the lunch, the group of coaches laughed and shared some stories about everything from former games to players and school boards. But the subject of coaches being let go stoked some strong opinions. Yannessa, whose personality and humor could always take over a room, was his usual colorful self. He sipped on a glass of wine, sitting next to Zmijanac. It was two legendary former Aliquippa coaches with 10 WPIAL titles between them. Yannessa threw some zingers at Render next to him.
The coaches remarked about how some superintendents and principals these days won’t stand up to disgruntled parents — or school board members who have something against a coach.
“The other thing these days is fewer and fewer professional people want to be on school boards and that’s everywhere,” said Zmijanac. “Then superintendents can’t do much because their contract won’t be renewed by the board.”
“Most athletic directors can’t be athletic directors these days because they can’t buck the school board. If the AD stands up, his butt is going to be on the chopping block,” said Yannessa. “Superintendents shouldn’t have time to deal with a lot of these clowns because it’s all subjective baloney.
“It’s happening everywhere and you better have a game plan to fight and defeat these people because there is always going to be a segment who say things aren’t right. If they are given a voice, the naysayers will win and a good man or woman will lose their job.”
Palko was never fired or close to being fired, as far as he knows. He retired as a teacher in June and this will be his last season coaching West Allegheny. He shook his head about the state of high school coaching these days at some schools.
“It just seems common sense has gone out the window a lot of times,” said Palko. “It’s common sense a lot of times to say, ‘Hey, this coach doesn’t have a hidden agenda. He’s just trying to win and play the best people.’
“But what happens is school boards and administrators don’t say anything to complaining parents these days and they’ll give parents a pulpit to speak from.”