How an ex-football star and new turf could help Sto-Rox
Among those in the audience earlier this month for the opening concert at the restored Roxian Theatre in McKees Rocks was Chuck Fusina, a hometown football star in the 1970s who became Penn State’s quarterback and was a runner-up for the Heisman Trophy before playing in the NFL and USFL.
Mr. Fusina, 61, now lives in Franklin Park, a half-hour drive from his native Stowe.
But his bond to the place has remained strong. His mother stayed there until her death 10 years ago.
While civic leaders are counting on the Roxian and other redevelopment efforts to help revive the Ohio River town that once hummed with railroad and manufacturing operations, Mr. Fusina has been quietly pushing another project he believes can be just as critical to rejuvenating Sto-Rox: artificial turf for the high school athletic field.
“I’ve always felt the high school in a small community is a focal point,” he said. “It’s where kids become people.”
A fundraising campaign chaired by Mr. Fusina to date has raised $700,000 — enough for work to begin last month to replace the battered grass field at the high school’s Memorial Stadium on Valley Street.
Money is still needed for ongoing maintenance of the synthetic field surface.
The grass field had not been resurfaced for more than four decades. Because of its deterioration, it had recently been used only for football games and a handful of other events each year.
Mr. Fusina and others say new turf will make the field a natural venue for activities, including school and community sports, band festivals and other local celebrations.
“That section of town will be lit up at night, instead of dark,” said Peter Leone, a 1979 Sto-Rox graduate who played football at Columbia University and was among those who spearheaded the fundraising effort.
If weather conditions cooperate, the field work could be completed by August, he said.
Factor in economic development
Those who led the effort and community leaders say the project symbolizes more than a state-ofthe-art surface for the long-neglected stadium.
“It’s kind of like what the Roxian does for our community and our
downtown,” said Taris Vrcek, executive director of the McKees Rocks Community Development Corp.
“It creates a psychological boost and something the community can feel proud of and proud the school has,” said Mr. Vrcek, who grew up a few blocks from the stadium and recalls climbing over the fence to play on the field.
It can also help economic development efforts, he said.
“It’s an amenity we can show in the heart of our residential neighborhoods. It’s something families will be attracted to.”
But raising enough money to get the turf didn’t come without resistance.
When Mr. Fusina was approached three years ago by his former Sto-Rox football coach, Ray Puskar, to chair a fundraising committee, he worried it would be a tough sell.
The collapse of steel and other manufacturing industries in the 1970s and 1980s hit Sto-Rox hard. Loss of industry and population left behind a withering tax base, high unemployment, and a declining school district with low student test scores and limited resources.
About a quarter of people in both McKees Rocks and Stowe live at or below the federal poverty level, which was $28,290 for a household of four in 2017.
“The district has been hurting for many, many years … tangible results weren’t happening,” Mr. Fusina said.
He didn’t sign on to the project until he consulted with athletic directors and others outside the community about the benefits a new turf field could generate.
Since his playing days, Mr. Fusina has remained entrenched in the sports community through a business he owned and operated, A.D. Starr, which distributes baseball and softball equipment. The company is now owned by Findlay-based retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods and Mr. Fusina continues to work there.
His research convinced him the turf made sense for the school and the community; the school’s administrators and board of directors were “behind us the entire project,” he said.
No school funding or taxpayer dollars are being used, though a defunct school boosters fund of $55,000 was donated.
A lot of skepticism
In late 2016, Mr. Fusina convened a meeting in the library of the district’s Upper Elementary School in which about 15 men and women — including other former football players, a current Sto-Rox teacher and the wife of a deceased coach — agreed to move ahead with fundraising.
When they began seeking donations in early 2017, they encountered plenty of naysayers.
Mr. Leone contacted many people who grew up in McKees Rocks and Stowe “who now have successful careers and love to say they are from there and how far they’ve come, but they don’t really want to help it now,” he said.
“They say, ‘Look. It’s gone,’ or ‘It’s throwing good money after bad.’”
A financial representative for Northwestern Mutual who lives in Thornburg, Mr. Leone has been involved in a number of charitable fundraisers throughout his career. He said the Sto-Rox field project was the most difficult.
He never considered abandoning it because athletics and other school activities “could be the only way out” for many in Sto-Rox, he said.
“I would not have the wherewithal to apply to Columbia without a successful football career,” said the former team lineman who uses a green felt tip pen for his handwritten notes in a nod to Sto-Rox’s school colors.
Though many declined to donate, “We had many more that gave,” including individuals who wrote checks for as little as $25, said Mr. Leone.
A couple of significant grants provided the boost the project needed. Those included $250,000 from the Pittsburgh Steelers through the NFL Foundation Grassroots Program and Local Initiatives Support Corp.
Mr. Fusina contacted team president Art Rooney II early in the fundraising effort. The resulting grant “was our kickstart,” he said.
In September, the state’s Commonwealth Financing Authority awarded $100,000 to the McKees Rocks CDC for the project.
The Allegheny County District Attorney’s office provided $10,000 from its drug forfeiture fund, which is money seized and forfeited in drug crime prosecutions.
Other supporters included community merchants and the Heritage Valley Health System, which will have its name on the field’s goal posts.
The committee solicited bids and awarded a contract to FieldTurf, a division of Tarkett, a global company that provides indoor and outdoor sports surfaces and other flooring.
More than turf
Now that construction is underway, Mr. Fusina hopes more donors will step up.
He acknowledged the school and the town need more than new turf to rebound.
“That is why the project is called, ‘It Starts With the Field,’” he said. “We hope this springboards many other educational and community projects.”
Mr. Leone’s mother, 86, and father, 91, lived in the house he grew up in Stowe until recently, when they moved to a patio home in Kennedy.
His father still works at the Anthony M. Musmanno Funeral Home on 7th Street in Stowe.
“Saving this town takes commando raids, not one big thing,” he said. “We never portrayed [the turf] as a panacea or magic bullet to save the whole thing.
“We can’t predict the future, but the school district and the town are better with it than without it.”