80-YEAR-OLD COACH RESURRECTS CAREER
No, it’s not his jersey number (now that’d be crazy), but the truth is only a little less surprising
Neil Diamond has a little concert tour planned over the next year — and he’s 80 years old. Robert Kraft is the owner of the New England Patriots — and he’s 80.
Heck, look at how Anthony Fauci’s opinion on an infectious disease can influence a country — and he’s 80.
So, why in the name of octogenarians can’t Tony Ruscitto resurrect his high school head coaching career at age 80?
Bethlehem-Center High School in Washington County hired a new coach in July and turned to a man who was born four years before World War II ended. But Ruscitto doesn’t see the big deal. He’s experienced (he was a head coach at eight different WPIAL high schools) and believes he is 80 years young.
“People ask me, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why would you want to do this?’” Ruscitto said. “Because I love coaching. I’ve loved this game all my life and it’s still fun.”
You might ask, has there ever been a WPIAL football head coach who was 80? Well, there are no such records kept by the WPIAL. But the winningest coach in WPIAL history is Jim Render and he retired when he was 76 after 50 seasons as a head coach. Joe Hamilton is second on the WPIAL wins list and he retired when he was 73 after 47 seasons. George Novak, No. 3 in wins, retired when he was 66 after 40 seasons. Chuck Wagner was 77 and was the fourth-winningest coach in WPIAL history when he retired after 47 seasons.
And now comes Ruscitto, who turned 80 Jan. 27. Some 80-yearolds can’t work the TV remote, but Ruscitto will try to work Beth-Center’s program back to respectability. The Bulldogs haven’t had much bite lately, going 1-6 and 1-9 the past two seasons.
“I saw my doctor a few weeks ago. I saw my heart doctor, too,” Ruscitto said. “They said I have the body of a 50-year-old man. I can still hang. That’s the best thing I can say. I still have the work ethic and can put in a lot of hours.
“I still think all these kids need someone to look out for them, someone who can teach them about life. I’ve always called myself a maker of men. People call me who played for
me 30 or 40 years ago and thank me for helping get them established.”
But how exactly did Ruscitto get the Beth-Center job? Well, Joe Kuhns resigned in late June after five seasons. Ruscitto hadn’t been a head coach since 2003 at Elizabeth Forward, but he had continued to be an assistant coach at various places through last season. He was an assistant for his son, Jason, for a while at Sto-Rox. He was an assistant at California in 2018, followed by assistant jobs at Brownsville in 2019 and Uniontown last season.
When the Beth-Center job opened, he figured why not? He still had the desire to be a head coach and he was once the head coach at Beth-Center for two seasons (1988-89), where he went 713. Besides Beth-Center and Elizabeth Forward, Ruscitto also has been a head coach at California, Duquesne, Mon Valley Catholic, South Allegheny, Canon-McMillan and Belle Vernon.
Ruscitto applied for the BethCenter job, interviewed and persuaded the school board to hire him.
“Usually, nobody wants to hire an 80-year-old because they think you can’t relate to the kids,” said Ruscitto, whose first head coaching job was at California in 1983. “I look back at every
job I had and I averaged 18 more kids on the roster than the predecessor. I always could get kids. The last time I was at Beth-Center, we had 56 kids. They’ve been lucky to get 30 now.
“Beth-Center has been struggling the past few years. I don’t know the reason they hired me, but I think I have a lot to offer.”
Ruscitto’s biggest concern is growing the roster and getting more kids to play.
“We have 16 seniors, 5 juniors, 3 sophomores and 3 freshmen,” Ruscitto said. “We picked up a few more and have around 30 now. It’s going to take a great effort, but these kids here will work.”
And so will Ruscitto.
“I only have time to work and coach. That’s my life,” Ruscitto said.
Ruscitto and his wife, Catherine, have been married for 56 years and have three children (two boys and a girl) and seven grandchildren. Tony and his wife live in an old Civil War house in Scenery Hill, part of the Beth-Center school district. The house is on a 500-acre farm owned by the couple.
Ruscitto is a Pittsburgh City League man at heart. He played football at Carrick High School, but didn’t play in college. In his younger years, he ran a cement business and then got into the construction business. He said he sold the construction business to his brother and now dabbles in construction management. But he works on his farm, too.
“I put in 15-16 hour days sometimes,” he said. “We have a farmer who works the farm. But I basically just built a new barn over the past couple years and a new tenant house. I work physically.”
What physical work does an 80-year-old do?
“There are lakes that need work on, tons of grass to cut and dirt to move,” Ruscitto said.
And now a football program to run. Ruscitto knows what Twitter and Instagram are and knows high school players are heavy into social media. But he’s not.
“I do use the ‘Remind’ app with the kids because it’s good for scheduling,” Ruscitto said.
He does text message, though, and surfs the internet.
“My high school coach made me what I am,” Ruscitto said. “He taught me how to handle adversity and never give up and I’ve used those principles my whole work life. Being in a business, it’s not always peaches and cream. There’s always adversity and problems. You have that in football, too.”
Think of it: President Joe Biden is only two years older than Ruscitto. So how long does Ruscitto plan to coach Beth-Center? That’s a tough question to answer for an 80year-old, but he said, “My goal is to coach maybe 5-7 years, if my health holds up. Right now I’m holding up and this is what I love to do. I’ve loved this game my whole life.”