'

SRU ORAL HISTORY
"

IN THE SIXTIES"

INTERVIEWEE:
INTERVIEWERS:

MR. MICHAEL SURKALO
DR. JOSEPH RIGGS AND LEAH M.

25 AUGUST 1992

R:

Welcome.

S:

Thank you.

R:

Do you have a beginning point where you would like to start?

S:

My first visit to Slippery Rock College was in 1947.

I'm glad to be here.

Being a

sports editor I covered football, and one of the most memorable
games that I can recall in the very early years was that Slippery
Rock had a fine team.

They were scheduled to play Grove City

College who also had a very fine team.

In fact, they had a young

man by the name of Shankle who was good enough to be considered
as a candidate for the Cleveland Browns who in those days
were a powerful team in pro football.

I think Grove City was

undefeated that year, and Slippery Rock had lost maybe a game.
So they played this game at Grove City College, and there were
big crowds in those days.

Of course, if you consider back in

1946, the population was a hundred thirty million in the United
States and now it is two hundred and sixty million.
in those days were not nearly as large.

So the crowds

I think the enrollment

at Slippery Rock was only 700 or some and Grove City College was
probably even less because it was a smaller school.

But Slippery

(2)

S:

Rock had a fine quarterback in Paul "Red" Uram. and all of
these coaches who have made a name for themselves in recent years
were on this team.

They were out of the service years. and they

came back to college. and wanted to play and then wanted to coach.
Most of them were very successful later on in life.

Slippery

Rock being a much smaller team was probably the underdog.
fact.

it was.

Slippery Rock won that day.

In

The students were

so overjoyed that they wanted to tear down the goalposts. which
is all part of the game.

I don't recall who was the president

of Grove City College that year. but he decided upon himself to
be a one man force in going out to stop this.

Right out on the

football field to try to prevent these students from Slippery
Rock from tearing down the goalposts.
who he was.

Well. they didn't know

So he got knocked down a few times.

Probably got

a few bruises he didn't expect to get. and his feelings were
hurt on top of that. but they got the goalposts down.
with kind of a mob scene they prevailed.

Naturally.

So that was the last

football game that Slippery Rock and Grove City College ever
played officially.

Since then they have had preseason scrimmages

and what have you. but they haven't played any official game.
like on a Saturday afternoon.

That was one of my first impres-

sions of Slippery Rock was. that to me down through the years it's
always been a minor version or smaller version of Notre Dame.
spirit of Notre Dame which you have Knute Rockne proud of.

The

(3 )

S:

Winning against all odds. and performing the spectacular.
And because Slippery Rock was so small. the physical structure
of the college. and the players were smaller than any other
teams. they were forever the underdogs.

More often than not

they would pull one or two upsets during a year. and it would
be a happy occasion for them. and surprising to the other
team.

Here's this little Slippery Rock team knocking them

around.

Probably part of that history goes back to when the

Slippery Rock team went to Boston and played a team from New
England.

I think it was Boston College or somebody they played

and gave a good account of themselves.

A sports editor from

the New England area. I think his last name was Cunningham.
brought this about.
Rock.

That this school ought to play Slippery

Sure enough they got together and they played.

I think

that's the background to me of Slippery Rock football as they
accomplished the unexpected when they were expected to lose,
they would win.

They would rise to the occasion.

the student body had a lot to do with that.

I think

The spirit of

Slippery Rock down through the years has been pretty phenomenal.
The players all knew each other.

The students knew them

because it was such a small school.

It kind of sent a chill

down your back when these students would be sitting in the
stands and yelling at their buddies to do something great and
more often than not they would.

Those are the early years

(4)

S:

and down through the years it's just carried on.

R:

Was there a Pennsylvania championship among the state colleges
back then?

S:

Not at that time.

I think it started in the early 1960's and

Slippery Rock did very well under Coach Chuck Godlasky.
Chuck was here for about four or five years , and he brought
together some very fine talent.

Again when they would go and

play, more often than not it was West Chester in the eastern part
of the state. They recruited major ball players from the major
colleges that were turned down.
more or less.

So these were like retreads

They were just as good a football player but

perhaps it was a split second slower, maybe ten pounds lighter,
maybe a couple of inches shorter. They didn't quite measure
up to the physical statistics that they wanted.

In those

days they started using the stopwatch to see how fast a
player could run or what he could do, how far he could throw
a football and Slippery Rock lost a couple that year.
Probably one of the greatest victories came when East Stroudsburg
came here to Slippery Rock to play.

East Stroudsburg was a

well organized, very powerful, strong football team, and got a
lead on Slippery Rock.

It was a wet, muddy day.

A big football

team when it gets ahead on a wet day has an advantage.

They were

driving for another touchdown. Probably if they would have made
it they would have solidified their victory.

It would have put

( 5)

S:

Slippery Rock at odds with making their victory come true.

But

the defense came through, stopped the drive, and as you might
like to say, they picked themselves up by their bootstraps and
they start moving the football and before you know it they are
over in midfield, and they scored. And they went on to win the
football game.

It was a tremendous victory in adverse weather

conditions. Tony Nunes was the quarterback that year.
some spectacular things.
on his own.

He did

He did a lot of things on the field

He was a thinker out there.

He liked the game,

loved the game, understood it, and went beyond the call of duty
in running these plays.

He had a great receiver in those years

by the name of Jim McElhaney who set some records here and then
later on coached a while and is now back to coaching Moniteau
High School for the second time.
players on that team.

There were many good ball

It was a great victory.

I remember it

personally because my photographer and I, who happens to be the
one to watch and is now the outdoor editor of the Pittsburgh
Press, well, Wendell was writing for the Eagle then and he was
writing an outdoor column for the Eagle and doing football
and stuff and he could also handle

a camera.

So

we went into the locker room, and take some shots like you
do in a locker room, and when
you come from the cold damp of
the outside into a warm locker room that fine mechanism sometimes doesn't want to work.

The lens fogs up and what have you.

(6)

S:

That particular day the lens not only fogged up but the flash
refused to work.
it didn't work.

You need to use a flash inside indoors

Well,

So we tried about three or four times to take a

picture of these football players in their moment of glory, their
celebration, but the camera wouldn't work.

So one big tackle,

a giant of a man, he always reminded me of Lyle Alzado who died
recently with cancer.

He just came growling out.

He says, look

you guys, you've got one more chance to make that camera work or
you guys go in the shower with me and the rest of the guys.

So

I told Wendell, I said, Wendell, if you ever did anything right
in your life, please let this camera work.

I think the good Lord

must have been listening because the camera worked and everything
was fine.

To this day Wendell still thinks about that day. It was

another moment of football and sports for me, and I think a
glorious page in football history here.

When Chuck Godlasky left

and went to Indiana, I don't know what all of the circumstances
were, but I think he wanted to work on his Ph.D., and he could
accomplish that at IUP [Indiana University of Pennsylvania], and
the job here was open.

For a while we thought that Al Jacks who

had been a quarterback at Penn State and coached quarterback here
at Slippery Rock would get the job, but the job was thrown open
which is normal for the situation and Bob DiSpirito came into the
picture.

I think the spirit of Slippery Rock and the name DiSpi-

rito kind of match each other.

He had many fine accomplishments

(7)

S:

here.

He took his team to the playoffs three years in a row.

a period of time just dominated the conference.
the players.

For

Naturally he had

You can't do it without the players.

He had a lot

of fine players, but he had a cohesive group there of staff and
players.

They all worked so well together like Mr. Clinger and

Stan Kendzierski and a few of the others.

They were just

simply good, and it all worked out for them.

Although he won

a lot of championships, probably the one game that sticks out
in my mind that Bob DiSpirito won was earlier, before that, before
Slippery Rock became a powerhouse.
play.

Slippery Rock went to IUP to

Down through the years, Indiana has always had great

recruits, fine coaches, excellent material, and also the same
could be said for their band.

They used to have a tremendous

band. It was always by far the best band in the league.
large, well-trained.

It was

After the football games at home they

would give these concerts and people would stay and listen
to the concert.

Sort of like in the summertime where you go

to the park and these bands will play.

This particular Saturday,

Slippery Rock, an underdog team, beat IUP.

One of the heroes of

that game was Gene Collodi who's now coaching at Burrell, and
Bob only had I think the only l i n e mthat
a n he had were the ones
who started the game. Everybody else was hurt that particular
weekend.

So Gene Collodi was one of the players who filled in

some of the spots here and there.

Wherever they needed him, he

( 8)

S:

played that day.

If anybody got hurt and was out for five min-

utes, Collodi would fill in.
had the band there.

Slippery Rock won and they also

Well, the Slippery Rock band in those days

in the early 1960's wasn't too large.

Just a handful of students.

It didn't become the band that it is today.

Today it matches any

around, and so when the game was over and Slippery Rock had won
and they started marching up and down the football field playing,

v'

they were

deliriously happy. They played on and they played on and

they played on.

The IUP band wanted to get on the field, and I

thought for a minute we're going to have a donnybrook there.

The

Slippery Rock band refused to budge, it was so happy, and IUP
was determined at home that nobody was going to get away with
this.

But eventually the Slippery Rock band left, and they were

happy and they wanted to go out and see the players and congratulate them.

So IUP also had its moment.

So that was another

moment that I remember about Slippery Rock football.

I mentioned

this to Bob DiSpirito a few years ago, and he never knew about
that because naturally he was in a locker room and never realized
what was going on. But that's the way it was.
R:

Does IUP have an advantage now because of its size and the
availablity of alumni funds and all of that?

S:

I think definitely that is an advantage for them.

At one period

of time, IUP had been considering going up a class from the
conference, and as a result they started recruiting more

( 9)

S:

heavily.

They started giving greater scholarships, more scholar-

ships. But once they started playing these larger schools and
larger teams. they discovered that it took even much more than
that.

That the growing process was painful at times.

It was

painful because they really weren't competing on a level with
these teams .

They had a great coach and a former Slippery Rock
Klausing

graduate, Chuck _ _ _ _ was

the coach at IUP.

Klausing

Chuck

always reminded me of Knute Rockne because he was a great
talker, and he could get these players to do anything.
did that in high school and then later on at IUP.

He

He used to

wear this old overcoat and an old sloppy hat and he looked like
Knute Rockne standing on the sidelines on these fall. wintry days.
blustery days when the wind is blowing.

He has always been one

of my favorite Slippery Rock graduates.

I got to know Chuck

because he and Red Uram were great friends.

They played

on that team that beat Grove City College.

Chuck coached

partly at West Virginia and then I think he had a year or two
as

an

assist
Pitt and he's still coaching at Saltsburg

down at Kiski Prep.

He loves coaching and he's so successful

at it you can't blame him for it.
of my favorites.
R:

Chuck's always been one

One of the Slippery Rock greats. certainly.

We were told in some other interviews that when Bob DiSpirito
came here that the football program was in bad shape. They
had very few uniforms. equipment had disappeared, and he walked

(10)
R:

into a kind of a mess.

S:

I remember his early years.
too much of a program.

Do you remember when he first came?
That's true. when he didn't inherit

The players were not that good.

weren't that many of them.

They played a good schedule.

remember Waynesburg coming up in the early years.
in those years was a real powerhouse.
ball players.
ing.

There
I

Waynesburg

They had some great foot-

Slippery Rock lost something like fifty to noth-

It was really a one-sided thing.

R:

That was his opener.

That was his first game.

S:

Might have been his opener. but he wasn't discouraged.
well. that's the way it goes sometimes.

He said.

One of these days. we're

going to beat somebody else fifty-six to nothing.

Sure enough.

the very last game that was played at old N. Kerr Thompson
field. they played Lock Haven.

Lock Haven came in with a poor

team. Slippery Rock had a great team.
seventy something to nothing.

They beat Lock Haven

Really. I had never seen a Slippery

Rock team score that many points. but Lock Haven was so inept that
even at the very last minute of play. Lock Haven was down on a
five or ten yard line.

Regardless what the score is and how much

time is left. you have to make an attempt to do something positive
like scoring a touchdown or a field goal or something.

So Lock

Haven had second or third string quarterback in there and he
threw a pass and somebody from Slippery Rock intercepted it and
he actually walked in to the end zone with about 30 seconds to

(11 )

S:

go.

Plays like that are one of the reasons there were so many

points scored because Bob had his second stringers in early. his
third stringers in early.
team.

He didn't want to embarrass the other

He's not that kind of a coach or that type of individual.

If you won the football game. that was good enough for him.
Fortunately. there are still football coaches like that around who
don't want to.

It's a matter of professional pride and they can

understand what it's like to be on the other side of the fence
like he was in that first game.

He didn't want to embarrass

the other school like he had been embarrassed the first game.
Because there is more involved in winning games.
be some sportsmanship involved here. too.

There has to

That's one of the

reasons they call it sport.
B:

I've been really impressed by the coaches we've interviewed, by
their compassion. by their feelings for their players. more than
just winning.

They're wonderful role models.

Bob told us about

a player he kept on the team, a young fellow who had leukemia but
he was in remission. and he played for a year.
to win isn't going to let that happen.
we've heard reinforce that.

A coach who's out

So many incidents that

Is that something you're aware of

with good coaching?
S:

I remember the player.

I can't remember his name, but he did have

a player in that category.

Even if he went out and played only

one or two minutes. the coaches were proud of his contribution

( 12)

S:

and they would forever pat him on the back and say. nice job, you
did just what we wanted. and things like that.

The players that

needed extra help and verbal support. they usually got it.
don't know of any case where they would pick on someone.

I
If an

athlete or a player was loafing and not doing his job. naturally
that's the coaches'job to get him straightened out somehow. some
way.

More often than not it was a pat on the back .

I think they

realized and most good coaches realize that you can really accomplish more by doing it that way.
R:

His style of discipline was kind of not exactly laid back.
rules were very. very clear.

His

Like swearing. he did not tolerate

any kind of swearing at all nor did any of the coaches swear.
which is one example of his style.

He expected the same of

himself as he expected of the players in terms of behavior and
all that stuff.
S:

I think that's true.

One of the reasons the program was so

successful was that he did have an excellent staff.

I'm talking

about high class individuals who knew how to go out and recruit
players. and as you say. they didn't swear themselves.
presented themselves in high manner.

They

That was my observation.

I didn't watch all the practices because at that time. being a
one man sport staff. it was difficult to be in a lot of places
at one time.

So when I would come down I would merely come

down for the football game and maybe leave shortly after.

( 13)

S:

One of the biggest supporters that Bob DiSpirito had during his
football stay here was Dr. Watrel.
college.

He was President of the

Dr. Watrel played football himself for Syracuse.

was a linebacker.

He

So he knew what it was all about to get a

football program going and always supported the staff. and would
ask Bob if there was anything he could do to help.
the program.

He supported

I know there were some differences of opinion down

the line sometimes. but that's another story.
new press box.

He started that

Opened that new press box that they have.

The

facilities at Slippery Rock in the early years. the best way I
can describe them were on a scale of one to ten. maybe a two.
I don't know how many times I would come down and cover football
games and the old tentlike structure that they had for a press box
was wide open. The wind would blow through. the snow. the rain
and it would be difficult to write on paper when it's wet. you
know. but you had to do it somehow.
guess. ruffle my feathers.

Occasionally I would. I

Some of these other colleges would

come in with the radio people. and naturally all the electrical
equipment and what have you has to be protected.
and what have you. somebody could get hurt.
up most of the space.

They'd short out

So they would take

And with the field microphone also in

there. there was very little room for the press.

The thing that

bothered me about the radio people was that they would come with
three. four.

five people strong. this engineer. that engineer.

( 14)

S:

this guy.

And here I am covering for equal media. in my opinion.

better than radio in the sense in the early days they didn't have
the radio coverage for the Butler area. It was all the press.
Grantland Rice and all the other boys down the line.
they would take most of the space.

I would have to look over

somebody's shoulder to see the game and write.
coming down one time for practice.
director.

So

I remember

Bob Storer was the athletic

He had been the football coach.

Bob Storer was

another excellent figure in the history of Slippery Rock football,
and sports. and becoming the athletic director.

He was

practically a one man staff. In those days. that's the way it was.
It was no different.

It's not a matter of complaint.

way it was in the old days.
coaching.

He had maybe two or three guys

Somebody from the press.

have trainers.

That's the

A one man staff.

You'd be your own trainer.

you had a doctor at the game.

You didn't

You were lucky if

These are things that evolved down

through the years that they found out were necessary to be a
part of the whole picture.

I came down to practice one day. and

Bob came over and he put his hands over my eyes and said, guess
who?

So I said, Bob, I think you have this backwards.

stand behind you and watch practice.

Let me

I don't feel at home here

at Slippery Rock unless I'm standing. looking over someone's
shoulder watching the game or practice or what have you.
Bob took it good naturedly.

That's part of the game too.

So
You

( 15)

S:

can't afford to lose your temper.

But slowly everything came into

being now. I think Slippery Rock has won its battle.

It stands

right there with the best.
R:

As a sports writer, did you consider yourself just a reporter
reporting the game or were you also a kind of a critic?

Is

that a fair question?
S:

That's a fair question because down through the years everybody's
looked toward the newspaper reporters to sort of keep either
city council or the football coach in line.

I came to the

Eagle in 1946 and after three or four years I started writing
a column.

In all my years, I only wrote one critical column

about a coach.

It was a local basketball coach.

to be a certain type of individual to be critical.

Now you have
I felt

that being a writer, being on the paper, I had the advantage
over the coaches in being critical.

I didn't think that that

was completely my job to be critical of what type of play a
coach might have called or whatever.

If something that a

coach did was not sportsmanlike, for example, like Woody
Hays at Ohio State when he coached there.

He struck a player.

That has no business in any kind of sport, football, basketball,
where a coach strikes a player, and if I became aware of that,
I would always use that in my column.

Although, thank

goodness, in my early years, like I say, the coaches were also
teachers.

They were proud to be able to teach these players to

( 16)

S:

do something.

Well. it's the same today.

I didn't see too

much of that so I didn't find it necessary to be critical.
If they called for a pass play when some loyal fan thought
maybe they should have run the football. I wouldn't second
guess the coaches.

Later on when you talk to the coaches you

find out very directly why they called the play.

There was

a reason for it. And as long as the reason was very logical
to me and as good a reason for running one play as the other.
I didn't see any reason to be picking on any football coach.
R:

So then in the process of a game you do a pregame piece about
the visiting team. about Slippery Rock, and about their
preparation, and then you do a postgame piece for Monday's
paper?

S:

Right.

R:

Was that an interview process or did you go in the locker room
at half time?

S:

Not at half time.
couple of minutes.
particulars.

After the game you would go in and spend a
Nowadays the writers are going for more

They interview more ball playeers than I did.

As I

said, being a one man staff, you didn't look for more work when
you didn't have to.

As it was. you did more work than you should

have being a one man staff and that was after 25 years. I think in
my 40 years of working. well 39 1/2. I covered personally and
wrote over 5,000 events.

I'm talking football and basketball

(17 )

S:

and some wrestling and banquets. almost everything. track.
Pregame write-up in those days.
a sports information director.

SlipperyRock did not have
Very few schools did.

Maybe

just a very large one had someone doing something particular
in that direction.

Making sure your radio people had some-

thing and newspapers had something.
was understaffed.

In those days everyone

Slippery Rock was understaffed.

So most

of the preseason stuff I did on my own. what I remembered from
the previous game. I would perhaps call the coach and get some
information or whoever was following it on the faculty level.
and then try to piece together a pregame piece.
Postgame was pretty normal. I guess.

One thing. fortunately for

me. was that Slippery Rock had coaches that knew what the
interview was all about.

They liked to talk.

They like to give

credit to their players which is natural. So that part came
easy, particularly after a victory when you wanted to give
someone credit for winning a game.

When you lost a football

game. when they played badly. they would still talk about it.
Particularly Bob DiSpirito.

I marveled that he was able to

control his feelings after a game. when I know that he was
probably unhappy with losing.
have won.

Maybe losing a game that he should

Someone maybe made a bad mistake. including himself

or one of the coaches in the stands about picking a player.
But he always talked to me. talked to other reporters, and

(18)
S:

to me. that's when you find out where you separate the men from
the boys and Bob was always a man.
knew how to handle it.

He accepted defeat and

Because if he didn't. you know. his

players would see that. and they wouldn't be able to accept
defeat.

You have to get them ready for the next game which

is all part of the scene.

Bob was a gentleman in that

direction.
R:

Were you at Ithaca when they had the Bowl game?

S:

I was at Ithaca.
was at Cornell.

I always heard about how beautiful the campus
I'm a Penn Stater.

I finished at Penn State

in 1942. and I always thought we had a beautiful campus at
Penn State and we did, butdown through the years we used to
always hear that you haven't seen a college campus until you've
seen Cornell.

I always wondered about that because I was always

proud of what Penn State looked like.
place.

Cornell was a beautiful

At that particular time when Slippery Rock

played at Ithaca it was cold. and I thought they would have a
modern press box at Cornell.

I sat outdoors.

The seats were

outdoors and I don't know
anything
of
that was indoors. perhaps maybe
the P. A. system or maybe the radio. but the reporters all sat
and I froze.

When I stood up after the game was over. my legs

were frozen from the knees down.

I had to sort of stand there

and get the blood circulating back in there. The
of snow.

They had cleared it.

There must have

field was clear

( 19)

S:

been six to eight foot of snow on the sidelines. That's how
high it was.

It was a dreadful day for football.

players could stand it and play. I
did it.

How the

just don't know how they

It reminded me of the day when the Dallas Cowboys and

the Green Bay Packers played and it was 15 degrees below zero
up in Green Bay.
day.

It just wasn't human.

I felt that way that

I thought. boy. I couldn't wait for the game to be over.

It was just simply that cold.

But that's part of the sport and

I always marvel at the players. how they could take it.
didn't seem to bother them.

It

The coaches would walk around and

get involved in the heat of the battle and then take a jacket
off and everybody is freezing and they're n o t .
it's too hot.

Itoo
t's
hot.

That was one of
the great football games.

I was

also at the Knute Rockne Bowl when they played in Atlantic
City.

R:

The year before wasn't it?

S:

It was about that time.

That was a fine football game.

My boss

at the Eagle had volunteered his airplane because the game was
played Friday night.

How do you get to Atlantic City?

Well. one

thing. how do you get back with all their pictures back to Butler?
So the boss volunteered his airplane.
right after the game.

We flew down and flew back

In fact. John Carpenter. who is the sports

information director. he flew down along with Don DiSpirito who
was the public relations director at that time.

It was a good

(20)

S:

trip over, and a good trip back.
weekend.

It was really a worthwhile

It was a long weekend, but a nice one.

R:

So your relationship with Bob was always on an even keel?

S:

Oh, yes.

R:

Nothing difficult about him?

S:

No. Never.

We get along real well.

I'd like to say this, that if

all the relationships, all the coaches, were as good as they were
with Bob, it would have made my job easier.

Bob was entirely

cooperative, and like I say, I appreciated him mostly the way he
would approach a game after losing, particularly a difficult game.
You have to understand that all week long he prepared for this
thing.

The players.

The coa c hes.

Then you go out and you lose.

Some people consider you a failure.

Some coaches take it to heart

and they throw things in the locker room and things like that.
But Bob always had a lot of class.
easier.
B:

Always did.

Made my job

I always appreciated that.

Maybe we should have started earlier asking you something about
your background, before we worked up to where we are now.
Were you an athlete, too?

S:

Well, I was a partial athlete.

I was pretty much average in

everything I wanted to play them all.

Football I wasn't allowed

to play. My father had to sig n for it, and he would never let me
play. Yet I played sandlot fo o tball, which is more difficult
because you didn't have the protection that you had in organized
football .

(21 )

S:

The basketball I played was in the service.
basketball team.

We had a service

In the midwest we played a lot of colleges.

Teachers colleges in Nebraska and Kansas and that area in there.
I can remember one game we played, and we didn't realize it that
was a parochial school, a school for students who wanted to become
ministers. One of the players on our team swore, and the coach who
brought our team together, he was a physical

ed. instructor. He

stopped the game and he said, sorry, no swearing.
all learning to be priests and we're
had a good time.
nia.

I played softball

not swearing tonight.

But we

on the west coast in Califor-

I played against Hammer Field when Hammer Field won two

national championships.
times.

These guys are

That's fast pitch. We played them three

We beat them once which I

the time you say you won one out
when the other team was Hammer
softball players.

thought was real good.

of three, that's poor, but not
They had a lot of great

Field.

Some of these camps would get these athletes,

and once they got them they wouldn't
keep them and build

Basically,

I was a

took up journalism, and came
in the service, but the

move them on.

all these teams.

the players and good for the morale
team play.

Most of

They would

They felt it was good for

of the troops to watch a good

writer.

I went to Penn State and

close to doing some journalistic work

one officer who was in my corner got

transferred the one day that
finished up on the drill field

I had a chance to do something, so I

( 22)

S:

and finally I went to school. I went to cryptographic and coding
school. Chanute Field.
the upper echelon

That's what I did overseas.

being

crytographic technician

I was in

a

the things I learned in camp

that year was
everything had to be quiet.
Everything was hush. hush.
All these big wheels were walking around like they were walking
on glass.

They were tiptoeing around headquarters.

two weeks later we found out why.
bomb on Hiroshima.

Then about

That's when they dropped the

This B-39 came out of t h e

Ma
so r
iti a n n a

was important to have everything very secretive. As an ordinary
G. I. knew nothing about it.

This is my opinion about the atomic

bomb. but it did shorten the war. and saved a lot of lives on
this side. That's the only way I can look at because I had
a lot of friends who were killed in the service. and that's
the only way you can look at it.

I know they lost a lot of

lives. too. but that's the way it goes.
R:

War isn't for everybody.

S:

No.

R:

In your experience with athletics. coaches and people who are
fans are always talking about character building and then the
other side of that is injuries and things that happen. Do you
see athleti c s as a very positive force in our culture for kids?

S:

Definitely.

I've always felt it was the greatest thing for

young men to participate in sports regardless of what kind.

✓

( 23)

S:

It kept them busy.
reach.

It kept them tired.

Early goals that perhaps

It gave them goals to

they might not have had

in early life, if they wanted to become a pitcher or they wanted
to become a basketball star or whatever,
regardless

of the sport.

It provided them with a goal and I thi n k if you can give young
people goals to achieve, then after they achieve them you applaud
them, I think that carries in their character throughout.
at the ,Eagle we ran a lot of Little League games.
We didn't turn anybody down.

I know

All of them.

We had something like 50, 60, 70

Little Leagues in the county.

At first when Little League started

in Butler we used to give them box scores, complete box scores for
Little League games.

Then every community started to have a

Little League. Well, obviously, you couldn't give everybody the
same thing.

Then the priorities got less and less as far as box

scores were concerned.

We gave them the score by innings and the

players who had the good games.

Down through the years I've had

adult men come by and say, hi, Mike, how are you doing?
ber your write-ups when I was in Little League.

I remem -

Most of these

players really could not reach the stage of being varsity high
school or varsity college, so their idea of athletics was Little
League.

Little League football, Little League baseball.

They

could play it because no one was ever turned down that I ever
knew of playing Little League baseball.

They could play.

The

father may have been the coach, but, whatever, they played and

( 24)

S:

participated, had a uniform, and everybody cheered them when
they did something real good.

It was good.

It filled a part of

their life that carried throughout the years, what they did in
Little League.

Every year I know these stories will get better

and better what he did when he was nine or ten years old.

Tell

his children or grandchildren, but he remembers something. Then
when his grandson plays Little League ball, he's the first one
there to cheer him, help him out.
R:

I know of some recent cases where youngsters would play Little
League ball, they would play clear through elementary school and
middle school and then get into high school and they were really
good athletes and then they would suffer a kind of a burnout, and
just quit.

Does that say that there's too much of a good thing or

they played organized ball or started too early and played too
long? They got interested in girls maybe.
S:

Right.

There is a certain burnout that they have, and I've

noticed it, and it only happens in families where the parents
are too aggressive in trying to get their children to do
something.

When they get a little older, they don't want

to be pushed into something they don't want to do.

For example,

in Butler they've had the program up and down the scale.

Little

League, and pre-little league and T-ball and what have you, and
then they go to prep ball and pony ball.

When you go to prep

League, naturally they're able to drive cars and what have you.
But there is also a burnout there that there is too much.

In the

( 2 5)

S:

early years of Little League baseball, I remember going to a
playoff game.

The game evolved into an argument between the

umpires and the parents, particularly the fathers.
than the umpires.

They knew more

Nobody wanted to umpire so they would ask some-

body to umpire. Then about the second inning they would ridicule
":J,6U/.
him, call him names, and challenge their ancestry and So
what
they
havegot
you.

into a pretty bad argument.

This is a playoff game. There were

two fields where they could play Little League ball.

The young

boys took their balls and bats and went over to the other field
and had a pickup game of their own, these two teams, and they
were playing on their own.
to this to the parents.

So finally I directed

I said, look, you

like children, whether something is wrong
these people to umpire
major league umpire.

their attention

people here are arguing
or right.

and then you ridicule them.

You want
If you want a

go get one, and then you can pay them.

These

people are doing their best, and you're accusing them of playing
favorites.
there.

This is for the kids.

Take a look at the field over

There's not one adult over there.

ball and having the time of their lives.
was never finished.

Never finished.

together over what they wanted to do.

They're playing baseThat particular playoff

They just could not get
I think that's terrible.

There is a need for Little League baseball, but the right kind of
Little League baseball.

( 26)

R:

Every kid's got to play.

S:

Every kid has to play.

R:

And winning has to be played down. because those are incompatible
goals.

In the years with Bob DiSpirito. you saw a lot of high

school players. of course.

Did you ever recommend to Bob players

he ought to think about for scholarships?
S:

Not really. because they were able to keep track of the high
school players.

It was their job to recruit.

is read the newspapers.

Who was scoring.

What they would do

Who was doing well.

What coach was saying. well. my linebacker played a great game if
they were in need of a linebacker.
go watch them play.

The word gets around.

They don't take my recommendation.

will go and watch these high school players play.

They
They

Then if they

are interested in what they can do on a football field. they'll
contact that particular coach and find out what he is doing in
the classroom.

Today it's the other way in reverse.

If they

have an idea that somebody is a good football player. they'll
check the classroom first before they will ever waste their time
on driving 50 miles here or 50 miles there to see someone play
when they know his grades are low and he's not going to go to
college in the first place. or if he does. he's only going to stay
there one year.
years.

They want their recruits to stay there four

To go the whole way for the benefits when they are juniors

and seniors. because they're learning when they are freshmen and
sophomores.

( 27)

S:

Unless they're such exceptions that they can play when they
are freshmen and sophomores.
Bob Brown play?

If they would say, have you seen

If I say yes, because Butler would play the

larger high schools where they have better recruiting, or
larger groups of kids to pick from,
seen him play.

I would say, yes, I've

Can he do this or do that?

tion I could give them.

Whatever recommenda-

I tried to analyze them and give them

some kind of a grading that would help them perhaps.
they used it or not I really don't know.
come to Butler and watch Butler play.

Whether

I know that Bob would

Not always to watch

Butler play but if Butler was playing Mount Lebanon and there
were one or two players on Mount Lebanon that he might be
interested in, he would come up and watch them play and then
do his own work.

He would know what he was looking for much

more than anybody else.
B:

Mike, were there ever any complaints or pressures on you for
the things that you wrote?

S:

If I said that working at the Eagle for 39 1/2 years that I
didn't receive letters of discredit, I would be lying.

I would

receive one on an average of maybe, actually not too many when
I talk to the other writers, maybe three or four letters a year,
where they would ridicule my write - ups and then sign it, a loyal
Butler High fan,
their names.

loyal Slippery Rock fan.

I'd read what they say.

They wouldn't give me

Then when I retired seven

( 28)

S:

years ago, I saved perhaps about 40 or 50 letters. Most of them
are positive, but even some of the negative ones I would save
because they were unusual, and they were the ones at that particular time had gotten me angry and peeved.
you can do about it.

But there's nothing

It goes with the territory.

Like now it's

election year, a national election year, and Bush and Clinton are
calling each other names and what have you.
is part of the game.

They know that this

You have to learn how to accept it.

I've

had parents call up, and they want to know this and they want
to know that.

I've had parents come up to the office and sit down

and want to know why I did something.

I always invited them to

come down because, like the football coaches or any coach, I
always had a reason for what I did.
guessing.

I didn't do any second

I had a reason for why I did something a certain way at

that particular time, and if they didn't agree with me, well, that
would be their problem.

But I did have what I would consider

logical and reasonable opinions on why I did something.

But you

have to learn how to accept that and don't take it to bed with you
at night. That's one thing, that when I went to bed at
night I never lost any sleep over what I wrote or why I wrote it.
My conscience was always clear that I did the best I could under
the circumstances or whatever.
on the players.

Like I say, I wasn't too picky

I didn't see any reason for me that I should

ridicule a 15 year old boy for making a mistake on the football

( 29)

S:

field where he had a split second to make a decision.
never do that.

I could

If the man was a professional making a million

dollars a year and he made some stupid mistake, it's my job to
point out that he played like an amateur or coached like an
amateur or whatever.

I won't use those words but the idea is

that if you get paid a million dollars, you're
better than a 15 year old high school boy.
them.

I couldn't face them the next day.

15 year old.
R:

expected to do much

I could never pick on
I couldn't do that to a

I could never.

What about officials officiating?

Were you critical of that

from time to time?
S:

Really, no.

I got to know a lot of the officials down through
at their good

the years, and I knew that whatever
conscience directed them to do something.

They would go and

take lessons and courses and what have you and read up on
the rule books.

The only time perhaps that I might be critical

of an official is if he decided a certain decision on a
certain rule and he was incorrect.

I would point out that he

made the decision because of this rule but he misinterpreted
the rule and merely state that that was a fact but I wouldn't
ridicule him for that.

Everybody makes mistakes.

A policeman

could stop you on Main

Street and arrest you for some

particular law that you broke and that law is not even on the
book, and then you have to have the opportunity to be peeved

(30)
S:

about that or complain, but if he misinterpreted a rule or
wasn't a sport himself, officials have to be sports too.
sportsmen.

If they do something out of the way, then you have

to mention this.
R:

During the regular season, did you go on the road with the
Slippery Rock team generally or had you been up all night
Friday night?

S:

Well. I did cover quite a few Slippery Rock away games.
all of them, naturally.

Not

If they had a big game going on at

IUP or Edinboro or Clarion. I went up to Clarion a few years.
They used to. play Clarion late in the season. so it was always
an important game for one team or the other.

I would go there.

In the early years. like I say when I was a one man staff. it
was difficult for me to do a lot of this because there were
high schools playing Saturday afternoon games. and high schools
then didn't have lights. It would have been better for me. looking
at it selfishly in getting a story. and today it would have been
better for me to cover a high school game at home because I knew
even if I didn't cover Slippery Rock College. that someone there
would handle it for the school and do a pretty good job of it.
They would do probably as good a job as if we had a stringer
going out.

In those days we didn't have stringers, we had me.

So

I would depend on someone from the college to cover some of these
away games.

( 31)

R:

Can you say anything about the NCAA?
over the years.

S:

The problems they have had

Has it been bothersome to sports writers?

I really never bother myself too much with the NCAA because
covering one college I never got involved in all the rules that
were necessary to be touched upon.
This has nothing to do with the NCAA,

ut I remember in the early

years when teams, colleges, used to play, I remember one year when
Penn State was going to a playoff game down in Louisiana.

Penn

State had two, three black ball players, and the teams in the
south refused to play, refused to accept Penn State or the
players.

I thought that was the most negative years of sports.

It would happen in major league baseball and all these sports
that this went on.

Now it's pretty much wide open, which I give

credit to partly to NCAA, the coaching.
and being human and being right.

The idea of growing up

Those years were wrong.

Those

things were all wrong.
B:

Did you get to know some of the other coaches besides Bob Dispirito?

S:

I got to know some of the basketball coaches and Bob Barlett,
of course, coaching basketball now.

I remember when he played

here at The Rock, and when he started his career at Moniteau
High School.

Bob is talented in his work, and like Bob he

knew how to talk
he got more ink

to the press which is one of the reasons that
than the other coaches because when he would

(32)

S:

call up with his games from Moniteau. he was well prepared with
what he had to report about the game and about the players.
Bob was always good for a lot of quotes. probably more quotes than
I needed.

Believe me. I would rather have that side of the coin

than to talk to some coach who would absolutely say nothing. and
you try to drag something out of him.
that way.

He was very good at it.

But Bob was cooperative

He was a very good coach

because he could talk to the players and he helped to build the
program there at Moniteau and got it better.

He went to Butler

Community College over Westminster. and wherever Bob coached
he had good results simply because he knew basketball.
how to coach.

He knew people.

He knew

Just one of the good people in

sports.
Bill Lennox. your athletic director. I got to know him when he
was in Butler.

He coached in Butler.

Came here and coached and

now the athletic director. and a man of high principles and
belongs in the field.

Belongs in the operation of athletics

where he can do what he does best.

These are fine people that

you have down here.
Bob Storer was another one.

He used to come to Butler in the

early days when I was there. and he used to watch an independent
team by the name of the Butler Cubs play.
organized after World War

The Butler Cubs were

II.
were a numberSo
of many other wer

communities and they had a football league that was sponsored by

(33)

S:

the Pittsburgh Sun-Tele. the old Pittsburgh Sun-Tele.
used to enjoy that.

He

Red Uram. who was his quarterback. came

and played for the Cubs. and Jim Gazetos who used to play here
as a freshman and then he got hurt. then he became an assistant
for Bob Storer.

These are all people who have something to do

with the program here and doing things right at Slippery Rock.

Of course. John Carpenter.

I met John years ago when he used to

work for the Ellwood City Ledger.

He was doing sports.

We got

to know each other. and John and I see pretty much eye to eye on
how the sports program should be run and conducted.
tremendous at his job.

John is

Like I say. when you have a sports

information director like John you don't have to worry about
whether you're going to come down and cover a game because you
know that John is going to handle it the right way.

These are

people that make sports programs successful and bring a name
to the college, school. or Slippery Rock out in the front.
John's won awards for the work that he does.

John Carpenter,

very good.
B:

Give us a composite picture of what you think of a wonderful
coach.

S:

What qualities should he have?

Any sport.

I think a good coach should learn something about every player
that he has.

Not only what he can do on the field. but what

his interests are in life.

What he's doing in the classroom. His

( 34)
S:

grades.
are.

Not only what his grades are, but what his interests

Whether he is interested in mathematics or becoming a

pilot.

I think if he learns to understand the ambitions that

the young player has. he can probably direct him a lot better.
You should always give these young people all the encouragement
you can.
mistakes.

Down play any mistakes they might make.

I mean honest

If they're out doing drugs or drinking. then you have

to discipline them. and if they still want him on the team they've
got to give him a set of rules

he has to go by.

learn to know the parents if they can.
college.

They should

It is more difficult in

It may be difficult to understand what kind of problems

he may be facing in college because i t ' s

like

night and

day from high school to college in what they expect of you.

I've

told this to a lot of high school coaches about their players.

If

you have an athlete in high school. you also have to make sure
that he has some fun.

It's a fun time in life so it should be

a fun time in athletics also.

Because when they go to college.

expectations are entirely different.

Maybe they are on a

scholarship or what have you, and it's a little more difficult.
They're going to have their fun in college, but a different kind.
They're young men.

They're going to be adults almost, particu-

larly by the time they're seniors. But when they are 14, 15 or 16
years old, if that coach can't see that these children, you might
as well say. with muscles on them. want to have a little bit of
fun.

( 35)

S:

Because they act like children.

You look at some of these

football players that are 240 pounds and have these helmets
on and you can't see their face. but the minute they take those
helmets off, particularly in high school you realize that this
is a 15 year old boy that is out there playing football.

He

may have a lot of size and all. but he is still 15 years old,
and he looks 15 years old when you look at his face.

Probably

not even shaving yet. and would cry at a drop of a hat because
he's still a young teenager if his feelings are hurt.

It's

a responsibility that really is awesome because they form their
lives.

A lot of these athletes that come out of school. they

mirror their coaches.

I talk to some coaches who are really

brutal and I'll say. well. gee. why do you do it that way?
They'll say. well. when I was in high school. my coach did
this. he did that. and he says. it didn't hurt me.

So I have

to explain to them that obviously it did hurt you because you
wouldn't be doing what you are doing to these young people out
in the field now.
being.

Everybody wants to win. but I think you have to win a

certain way.
R:

That's not a way you treat another human

I think you have to win a certain way.

I remember the McKeesport coach that they had the film on five
years ago or seven or eight years ago. beating on those kids.
Just really outrageous.

Had one of them been your son or

( 36)

R:

my son, well, I wouldn't allow my son to play under those
conditions.

S:

That's true.

R:

I saw that in the Y.M.C.A.

You see that at kind of all levels

where there are some mentalities that have no business being
around kids.
S:

That's true.

R:

But they are fairly rare. I suspect.

S:

I think maybe some of the more difficult problems that they
have in coaching now were not there in the early years now
because you've got girls in sports now more than ever.

Now

you do have a lot of women coaches, but you also have a lot
of men coaches, and for a man to coach a woman, I think his
philosophy can't be entirely like it is when he coaches a
man.

It has to be just a little different.

I remember when

they first got girls playing sports in high school.

In those

first couple of years, the girls weren't really that
serious about athletics.

They would go out and they would play

and earn a letter, but they were girls and they did a lot of
giggling.

They were just different than boys.

They would

giggle, and they would talk about boys like boys talk about
girls. but they really weren't that serious about playing.
they made a mistake out on the floor or on the field,
mostly basketball, it didn't bother them that much because

If

( 37)

S:

to them basketball was just a stopover thing.
activity more than really a game.

But in recent years. they have

the same intensity that the boys have.
they practice and they work hard.
boys do.

It was a student

They want to win. and

They do everything that the

Their coaches. as a result. have to see they do the

same things. but still you have to treat them a little different.
I don't think you can be as brutal with the girl. I don't mean
to beat up on them. but you can't talk to them the same way that
you can talk to maybe a football player who's knocking the other
guy down.

In football. the players learn to become meaner.

As

they all grow in a sport. if you're not knocked down. that means
that you have to knock the other guy down.
the game.

That's just part of

I remember a young man who played football at Butler

High School.
everything.

A very good athlete.

Big. big size.

He had

But he was too nice of a player. too nice of a kid.

So the coaches wanted him tough.

They would pick on him.

So

finally by the time he got to be a senior. he was not only big but
he was tough.

That carried over into basketball.

basketball games he played he was thrown out.

The first game

he played he was thrown out in the first quarter.
game the second quarter.

First three

The second

The third game the third quarter. so

he got progressively better. But the basketball coach finally had
to put him down and talk to him to explain to him that there was
a difference between football and basketball.

There were just a

(38)

S:

few different rules and you just didn't knock people down in
basketball like you did in football. He straightened out and
became an excellent basketball player. but you have to talk with
these people.

You have to know what you're doing. and you have

to help them any way you can.

Sometimes you really have to yell

at them. but sometimes a pat on the back.
R:

And nothing is automatic.

S:

Nothing is automatic.

R:

Now Bob had a discipline committee on his football teams.

They

had a representative of freshmen. sophomoref juniors and seniors,

)

'

and then Bob. and then anytime a player was in so much trouble
that he risked being kicked off the team. this committee went
into action. and the players made the recommendation.

Bob had

the final say. of course. but he had a kind of a democratic
process. at least a partially democratic process that he believed
in. because the players could speak more effectively to a teammate
than sometimes the coach could.
S:

I think so.
coach's.

That seemed like a healthy thing.

I think the player's outlook is different than a

As the saying goes. they know where he's coming from ,

so to speak.

Your teammate. if he's upset and not pl a ying a s

well. It could be a bad grade.

It could be a girlfriend or the

fact that a coach has changed him from one position to another.
Most of these athletes like to play a certain position. and when a
coach decides that someone else is better. and puts him there. but

(39)

S:

the original player has enough talent to be playing someplace. so
he puts him in another position. that's not always acceptable.
The player may not say anything. but maybe the way he plays.
the way he responds to other discipline may be different.
Regardless of who plays the sport, they want to be recognized
for being pretty good at this sport.
for their success.

They want to be recognized

Just like someone who goes to college and

goes extra years and gets his master's and Ph.D.
that the school gives the student.
him letters and all that.

It's recognition

But the player. they give

That's why I guess they have these all-star team

Most of the

allstar
ar teams. I don't know if they

really accomplish the original purpose because once you say that
player A is better than player B you're separating the two. and
sometimes you don't agree.

There are obvious choices like we

talked about before like Doak Walker.
Walker was an All-American.

Everyone agreed Doak

He was in a class by himself so

there was no argument there. But maybe one or two players on
that team contributed to a really healthy season. to the success.

t./"

and didn't receive the recognition

from the coach. from the

press. all-star teams or what have you, and then it's a
different situation.

It's a different problem.

Everybody has

a fertile mind and when they consider themselves. everybody
is positive.

They think of themselves as being really good.

About the only area probably where you're brought down to earth

(40)

S:

is maybe going out to play golf.

You can tell anybody in the

world you're a good golfer and then you go out and play and
the good Lord decides that one.
R:

Probably more frustration out on the golf course.

S:

More frustration.

You want to know a man's personality or a

person's personality just go out on the golf course with him and
see how quickly they adjust to the bad moments.
bad moments in golf.

Everybody has

If they don't. they don't play.

I do.

R:

It's a game.

Merely a game.

S:

It's a game.

B:

I thought that was supposed to do away with your frustrations?

S:

Sometimes not.

I don't know where professional sports is going

because it's so expensive now to own a team, to run a team. to
pay the ball players, and pay television is just around the
corner. How they're going to do that I don't know. But I think
that they are going to lose a lot of good fans.

I think

professional sports are going to lose a lot of fans. and they
in turn are going to turn to amateur sports like college. high
school.
R:

They are going to be more a part of it.

I'm told that it is impossible to get a ticket to a Steelers
game.

That the same families have
controlled the seats for

twenty-five years.

Kansas City has the same problem and they

have a bigger stadium but they are a sellout for the entire
year.

So a kid can't go to see the Chiefs or the Steelers.

( 41)

S:

The thing that I don't understand and maybe it's beyond me. but
most of these professional teams. like New Orleans plays in the
Dome in New Orleans and it seats around 70,000 and for years this
has been a sellout whether all the people are there or not. but
every seat is bought.

You wonder. These are millionaires that

own these teams and you recognize their ability

to be good

businessmen. otherwise they wouldn't be millionaires.

And yet

before the season even starts they are losing money even
every seat is sold .

though

Now there is something wrong someplace

you have that going on.

And then somebody comes out

and demands five or six million dollars like that
in Louisiana and went to the Miami basketball

of college

young player did

team.

O'Neal?

Shaquile O'Neal.
R:

He got 20 million dollars for six years?

S:

I don't understand that.

R:

He's not broke anymore.

S:

I

R:

The economics of it is just baffling.

just don't understand when it's gone to that level.
Like the Pirates.

It

has something to do with television markets and all kinds of
stuff.
S:

Yes. that's right.

You can argue like Barry Bonds who's

considering the Pirates.
to do.

got 32

I don't really know what he's going

They just signed Cal Ripken yesterday.

million dollars for six years.

when

I think he

Now Cal Ripken was one

( 42)

s:

of the big free agents.

Now where does that put Bonds?

was one of the big people also.

He

Is he going to be satisfied

with six million dollars when Ryne Sandberg got seven million
dollars a year?

I don't know.

There's a mental outlook there

that you have to try to understand.
R:

Which is a problem we don't have.

S:

Which is a problem we don't have and it's hard to understand
why they do some of the things that they do.

But if you were

in another man's shoes, then what would you do?
that most people would do the same thing.

I would say

They have a limited

number of years in which they can do this, and that's the way
it goes.
R:

The brass ring's there, you grab it.

S:

It's like this McGuire from Oakland.
of home runs.

Now he's had a lot

He's having a great season, his best season ever.

He got hurt the other day, and now

he's on the disabled list.

He's also a free agent.

But suppose his injury

was such that he

could never play again.

So you can see where they are coming

from.

They want to be protected.

them.

In most cases, you can't blame the coach for what he

So I guess you can't blame

does and in most cases you can't blame the player.

In most c ases,

they all have pretty good reasons.
R:

Well, it's kind of the American dream to be a part of a free
market economy.

You sell your wares.

If you happen to b e a

( 43)

R:

magnificent baseball player and someone wants to pay you three
million dollars a year. that's lovely.
us, but it sure is happening.
clearly about all that.

Doesn't happen to many of

I've never seen anyone write very

I've seen them write emotionally about

all that so I guess there is a lot of foolishness, but it's not
foolishness to the guy who's signing the contract nor to his
agent.
S:

No. when you get ten percent of millions of dollars that's another
story too.

B:

The fans support it too.

S:

They do.

They go to see these players.

The fans support it although I think I've heard more

times in recent years about a parent, a father. who may have two
boys and wants to take his wife and his two boys or a boy and girl

v.

or whatever. his children. to a ball game.

Then he tells me he

spent a hundred dollars on his family to go see one baseball game.
Now I find that hard to understand because when I grew up you paid
a dollar in the bleachers and hot dogs were a quarter and every
time you went to see a ball game. it was always a double header
because you got your money's worth.

Now they play very few double

headers unless it is absolutely necessary and their prices are out
of this world.

I told a young man who is going to college now in

his senior year. and he told me what he is paying for a room
with three other roommates, and I said when I went to school I was
paying three dollars a week. this was in the early 1940's, and

(44)

S:

that' s fifty years ago, but I said you weren't making as much
either.

So it is all relative.

I guess everything is just

relative.
B:

It's not the same money it was.

R:

When you ran into a coach like DiSpirito, do you compare him with
other coaches that you've known, or do you think of him as one
of the best you have seen?
Well, definitely I think Bob is one of the best I have run across
because as I say he has been

It's
handling
all facets of the job.

a job because somebody hires you and they pay you for it, but here
you have to have a certain love for the sport whatever it might
be.

Basketball or football.

call of duty.

And you do many things beyond the

I think the average person in America doesn't

realize it, but what they get, outside of a handful, most of them
get less than minimum wage for all the hours and time that they
put in there.

All of these citizens and the town all look at what

we're paying our coach.

He's getting four or five thousand and

he's making all this money as a teacher, but they don't realize
all the time that it takes during the season and coaches like Bob
and Art Bernardi in the off season.

Just because the season's

over doesn't mean they stop working or doing things.

I know of

cases where they've gone even to basketball games, a football
coach has gone to a basketball game, to see an athlete that
plays both sports.

To see what he does in basketball.

To see

( 4 5)

S:

how he moves around because it's important to him and his
own judgement, of course, is better than somebody else's.

I

mean he respects it more, I should say.

These are all things

that are a part of the job that you do.

They go to banquets

and they talk and most of the time it's for free.
get anything.

A free meal.

They don't

Most of the time it is chicken, but

it's all part of the whole thing, and they enjoy going out and
meeting the players.
R:

It's the way the game is played.

I had a lot of his football players in class over the years. and
some of them I knew very well, and have seen them since.
Tilko for instance.

Dennis is an old, old friend.

who was a guard alongside
\,,,of'

Tilco.

Dennis

Tom Yaksic

Their admiration for him is

really sort of spectacular.
S:

Yes. I think there was a mutual admiration society between Bob and
Denny.

Bob appreciated Denny because he had a great intensity.

don't know too many football players who sort of were gung ho
about their sport.

They just loved it, loved it, and still do.

Bob appreciated what Denny brought to his team.

Not only his

ability, but his intensity and he fired up the other players and
the team.

And I think Denny appreciated what Bob did for him.

It was good for both of them.

Denny still comes down here on

Alumni Day and watches the team play.
coach is Coach Bob.

For him, of course. the

He's already at the age where he's
twenty years

beyond his college, but those things happen.

It's like I came

I

( 46)

S:

down years ago for Alumni Day when I was working on a full time
basis.

They have a special

of one of the football

award they have on Alumni Day in honor

players.

I really can't remember his name

now. but the player presenting the award that day was Jim
McElaney.

The gentleman who usually did it wasn't attending.

He couldn't make it so he asked Jim McElhaney to present it.
Jim was a great star at Slippery Rock in the early 1960's.

He

played all the championship teams. but here he was 15 years later
and he's presenting this thing and they mentioned his name and
just a ripple of applause and this is only 15 years after he
played.

They didn't remember him.

kids were three. four years old.

How could they?

following Slippery Rock football.
getting ready to go to school.

Well. 15 years ago these
They weren't

They were playing and probably

But these things you carry through

your life like Denny and Bob that have this feeling for each
othere. They respect each other. and that is what you get out of
the games.

You get more than just wins and losses.

know people.

You get to

Sometimes you get to know them under adverse condi-

tions and your team, is losing and the odds are against you and
then somebody stands up and does something real good that you
remember all your living days.

These are the things you carry on.

Not the wins and losses sometimes.

Sometimes they won't even

agree 20 years down the road what the score of the game was and
who they play

( 4 7)

s:

but they'll remember the incidents.

These are the great things

that sports give to people.
R:

More so at the amateur level than when it becomes business.

S:

I think so.

At one time professional sports, particularly

baseball before they brought the free agents in, you would
be on a team for 15 to 20 years and you got to know some of them.
You would be friends for life.

But now you might play for three

or four different teams before your career is over.

Play

two and three years here and play two or three years there.
Almost any time you turn the television set on there's a
pitcher throwing to a batter and the announcer will say. they
were teammates somewhere else three years ago.
know each other.

They should

He should know the pitcher. particularly if

the guy is a catcher.
respect each other.

But they know each other. and they
They have fond memories. but I think

it's deeper when you go a whole career with somebody like
that.

I think, for example, some of these coaches who are

in the pros, hey have a player who is retiring and later on
maybe a few years down the line you will see him as a coach
helping him coach because they know he knows the sport.
like the way he does things.

They

I know of some players who were

pretty good as players. and you would think they might have
been picked as coaches later on, but their living habits are
not such that you would want them to coach the players that you

(48)

S:

have.

So they lose all that when they leave the field.

It's

what you do off the field that's important, too, in any sport.
In college, what you do in the classroom.

You can be a football

hero, but if you don't treat your other people the right way
you are going to be some kind of snob to them.
R:

When I first came here in 1971, I was so impressed that the
coaches were all a part of the faculty.

They were all in

classrooms teaching, and I had never seen that before.
It gave them a kind of solidarity with the other faculty which
was a very, very healthy thing because they weren't set apart
from us.

S:

They were a part of us, and it was different.

I think you have it a lot of places and it is good.

Of course,

in high school, in scholastic sports you're losing that, and it's
all a matter of economics.

Someone coaches for two or three

years, he's coaching football and the young man gets married and
he has a family, so he wants to devote his extra time to his
family or to other areas where he might make more money, but he
still stays on as a teacher.

He's on the faculty.

can only keep so many people on the faculty.

But you

If you have 75

or 125, you can't keep adding a coach and then have him fall off
and then remain a member of the faculty.

So they developed this

new rule where someone in the community could coach these high
school teams, and that started in the Catholic schools, parochial
schools.

Down in North Hills, the girls basketball coach is the

(49)

S:

chief of police for 20 or 25 years.

There wasn't anybody on the

faculty.

Of course, they are screened pretty well, but that

changes.

It does lose some of the in depth stuff because while

he's out in the community doing his job at Armco or police work,
the kids are in class. But if he's a teacher, he sees them in
both ways as a student and as an athlete.

That's a great

advantage there for both the student and the teacher.

So I'm

sorry it had to develop in that way, but then you also have
to recognize the fact that if they keep hiring all these
coaches and they stay on the faculty, your taxes are going to
go up sky high.

So there is another factor you have to consider.

R:

Well, I want to thank you for doing the interview with us.

S:

Thank you very much for inviting me.
you somehow.

I hope that it will help