Legendary coach ‘Pivo’ leaves indelible mark on county
One word said it all. Pivo.
His name was Michael Robert Pivovarnick. He introduced himself as Bob, but the Mercer County soccer community referred to him strictly as Pivo. Or Peeve for short.
Pivovarnick passed away Saturday at age 88, and leaves behind a soccer coaching legacy in Mercer County matched by few. For 37 consecutive years, he coached the Steinert boys (1956-68), Rider men (1969-76) and Steinert girls (1977-92) and amassed a combined record of 406-13650. He won both the first boys and girls state titles at Steinert and coached arguably the school’s greatest male and female players — Bobby Smith and Lisa Gmitter.
He also owned and operated the Bronco Soccer Camp for 13 years at Rider — a camp so iconic it was inducted into the Mercer County Soccer Hall of Fame.
“Pivo was a legend and that camp was a legend,” said former Rider player and Notre Dame and Hightstown coach John Wagner. “How many camps do you know that go into a Hall of Fame? He was a genuine person, he ran that camp like clockwork. He was a disciplinarian, the kids respected him, the staff respected him, I think he respected us.”
Some of the best stories from the Bronco days had little to do with soccer, but added to the allure of one of the state’s top camps during the 1970s. Professional players such as Smith, Mooch Myernick, Tim Murphy, Billy Gazonas, Steve Reid and Kevin Welsh all worked for free as junior counselors.
“It was a way to play more soccer in the summer,” said Smith, who played under Pivovarnick for seven years. “And we all liked Pivo.”
Pivovarnick had some of the state’s best players working for him, along with top coaches such as Wagner, Paul Tessein and Lou Angebranndt. He brought in North Jersey’s Manfred Schellscheidt, long recognized as New Jersey’s most influential soccer mind.
“He hired me after my second year at Notre Dame and I’ll always be indebted to him for that,” Wagner said. “I got to work with legendary coaches, and that really meant a lot to my progress as a coach. It was unbelievable. It was a great experience.”
After serving in the Navy during the Korean War, Pivovarnick became Steinert’s first boys coach in 1956. In ’58 he guided the Spartans’ first official team to an 11-0-3 record. They won the City title the next year, and the program’s first state crown in 1966.
Around that time, Steinert moved to its current location in Hamilton Square. The original building is now Nottingham, located several miles down the road. In the new school’s first year, the team still bussed to the old facility for practice.
That became an unfortunate set-up according to Tommy Armenti, an AllCounty player who now owns Fred & Pete’s Deli in Mercerville.
“One day we took the bus over to practice,” Armenti told a breakfast crowd at his deli Monday morning. “As we’re getting off the bus, the driver said, ‘What time do you want me back?’ He said, ‘No back, go home.’ We’re all like, ‘What did he say?’ and he told us, ‘You’re running home, you played really bad yesterday.’ So we ran back to Steinert and guess what, the next game we played better.”
Smith, a U.S. Soccer Hall of Famer and Armenti teammate, was asked if he remembered that day.
“I remember a few days like that,” he said. “I remember one day we had to run to and from practice!”
Those stories sounded familiar to Giallella, who played for Pivovarnick at Steinert.
“The word ‘tough’ comes to mind immediately,” Giallella said. “He was one of those guys who didn’t like a lot of mistakes. He made you know about it and obviously made you run about it. But you knew that the standard was set and you had to meet the standard and you worked at it.”
Giallella, who is better known for baseball, got a soccer scholarship to Rider thanks to Pivo.
“I has always played on the line and as a senior they had an opening and he made me a keeper,” Giallella said. “I only played it a little when I was younger. But I played it, we had a really good year and I got a scholarship out of it. I’ll always be indebted to him for that.”
When Pivovarnick left Steinert for Rider, he brought Smith with him and gave him a scholarship. “Smitty” had a spectacular career with the Broncs and was drafted by the North American Soccer League’s Philadelphia Atoms, who became the first American professional expansion team to win a championship in its first year.
“I liked Pivo a lot, he was a good guy, good to his players,” Smith said. “He gave me an opportunity to play in college, he helped my career get started. I got drafted out of Rider and without him, I wouldn’t have gone to Rider.”
Pivovarnick was not blessed with the greatest talent during his years in Lawrenceville, and pretty much allowed Smith to unleash his talents. He didn’t try to overcoach his star and it allowed Bobby to develop as a draftworthy player.
In 1977 Pivovarnick returned to Steinert and started the girls soccer team. During an autumn when the boys made national headlines for their 24-0 state championship year, the girls quietly went 14-0 as a firstyear team. They won Mercer County titles their first four years and were ranked in the nation’s top 20 in 1987 and 1988. In 1988, they won the program’s first — and to this day only — state title.
Unlike some guys, Pivovarnick was able to make an easy adjustment from coaching males to females.
“He was a coach first and foremost, and he could relate to the girls when they were starting because it was a new sport,” said Giallella, who was Steinert’s Athletic Director during part of Pivovarnick’s tenure. “He kind of set the way. He had some of the greatest players that started the program and he was able to build it his way. I don’t think he changed knowing they were girls. He accepted the same standard.”
Upon retiring, Pivovarnick was inducted to the New Jersey Soccer Coaches Hall of Fame, the Mercer County Soccer Hall of Fame and the Steinert Hall of Fame. He showed a soft side at those banquets, and at the Steinert girls postseason banquets when he usually shed a few tears during his speeches but always followed with a joke.
“He had a side of him that was funny and humorous,” Giallella said. “He was a fun guy to go out with. He as an icon at our school.”
An icon that took just one word to describe.