Longtime high school coach won titles in baseball, swimming, basketball

Sheldon Warren “Shelly” Goldstein was known as many things during his life — an athlete, coach and community leader.

But the word that comes up most frequently, when his loved ones reflect on his life, is “friend.”

“Everybody that knew him was his friend,” said Phil Gefsky, a former Mt. Lebanon physical education teacher. “If you knew him you would say hey, that’s my friend. He treated people like a best friend. That’s who Shelly was. He was that type of guy and people respected that.”

Mr. Goldstein, a longtime Pittsburgh area high school coach, affected the lives of countless student-athletes during a career spent coaching baseball, swimming and basketball. He died Saturday after a lengthy illness at the age of 77.

His win tally was large. At Mt. Lebanon, he won several WPIAL and PIAA state championships as a baseball coach in the 1980s and 1990s. He also won swimming and basketball championships at Brashear High School, and retired after winning the 1995 city league championship in basketball.

“His thing was always coaching and helping kids, things like that,” said Mr. Goldstein’s brother, Bob. “He did so much of it. And he was a coach in the inner city at Brashear, where he won city championships, and he coached at Mt. Lebanon, where he won state championships. All he was doing was always with sports, helping kids and being a good person.”

Mr. Goldstein’s love for sports grew from a childhood spent at local basketball courts, baseball fields and at Goldstein’s Restaurant, a delicatessen on Fifth Avenue started by his father and uncles in 1932. The restaurant was a sports mecca for several decades. Local athletes, collegiate and professional, dined there.

“When his dad had the delicatessen, that was a favorite spot for anybody who played at Duquesne [University] over the years,” said Matt Furjanic, a former Robert Morris University basketball coach who is a lifelong friend of Mr. Goldstein. He is the head basketball coach at Polk State College in Lakeland, Fla. “And also Pirates and Steelers [players] would go to the deli; it was a Jewish delicatessen on Fifth Avenue. So Shelly would hear those stories from his dad and just told them for years and years to everybody who was listening. I used to just love listening to them.”

Mr. Goldstein attended Schenley High School and played basketball and baseball. He went on to attend Marshall University on a basketball scholarship, later transferred to Slippery Rock University, and earned his master’s degree at the University of Pittsburgh.

Mr. Goldstein also had a role in the Dapper Dan Roundball Classic, where he scouted WPIAL basketball players who would represent the Pittsburgh team.

He was later inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame of Western Pennsylvania, where he served as president and was a board member for over 30 years.

“People would just gravitate toward him, and he gravitated toward them,” said Ed McCloskey, who coached baseball with Mr. Goldstein at Mt. Lebanon. “He just had a sunshine personality. Everything was positive, everything was smiley and happy. That’s who he was.”

In addition to his brother, Bob, Mr. Goldstein is survived by a daughter, Araan, and two grandchildren. Arrangements were by Ralph Schugar Funeral Chapel, Shadyside. Interment was in Tree of Life Memorial Park.

The family suggests memorial donations to the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, 5738 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, 15217. A memorial scholarship fund for high school senior athletes has been set up in his memory.