Ed Kostelnik set a goal and stuck to it
When he was attending Connellsville High School in the mid 1950’s, Ed Kostelnik had a plan. “I had set my goal early,” Kostelnik reported. “I decided I would like to do something more than just stay in Fayette County and work in the mines. I set my goals kind of high early.
“My parents were hard working people and my Dad was a certified welder, so they couldn’t afford to send me to college. I decided, to do this, I had to do well academically and athletically as well and combine the two and go from there. It worked out well because I did do well academically and was valedictorian of my class.”
Kostelnik was a three-sport standout for the Cokers who earned eight letters during his high school career. He was a three-year letterman in football and track and earned two letters in basketball.
The Cokers put out some competitive football squads during his three varsity seasons. Connellsville had a 7-3 mark during Kostelnik’s sophomore season in 1953, which also marked the end of Ted Miller’s four-year run as head coach. Dan Galbraith took over the reins of the Cokers in 1954 and guided the team to a 4-6 record. Kostelnik’s senior campaign in 1955 was a successful one, as the Cokers finished with a 7-2-1 record.
“I thought my high school years were very, very enjoyable,” Kostelnik opined. “But when it all came to an end, I was ready to move forward. I’m not really one who plays on memories and nostalgia. I don’t have any memorabilia. It was just a passing phase in life, but high school was great.”
One of Kostelnik’s highlights involves a 14-13 upset of defending WPIAL champion Clairton in 1955.
“The first game of my senior year we played Clairton,” Kostelnik recalled. “They were the defending WPIAL champs. They came up to our stadium, and we were an underdog. We won the game, 14-13, and that made headlines in the Pittsburgh papers the next day.
“They had some fantastic athletes on that team, Al Westwood who played for Pitt, and they had two real good halfbacks. That was a real highlight. The game got down to the very end and we were down, 13-7. It was within the last two minutes of the game that we got on a drive and got down near the goal line, and our quarterback Ray Burkey called a pass play to me.
“I was being pinched by the Clairton defenders all game long because of my previous year when I had some success. I checked off from my end position and called an off-tackle slant right off my side, and I cross-blocked with the tackle next to me.
“Jim Cunningham was the running back, and he scored. That tied the game at 13-13, and Jack Taylor put the extra point through. We won, 14-13. You talk about a highlight in your career that was one of the games. We did very well that season.”
Kostelnik and the other end for the Cokers, Henry Opperman, put up some decent pass receiving numbers with Ray Burkey at the controls.
“We had a balanced offense,” Kostelnik offered. “We ran the ball well. Cunningham was our fullback, and Eddie Stoudt was our one of our running halfbacks as well as Angelo Robertucci.
“My senior year I called the plays in the huddle. That was very odd, but Coach Galbraith made me his so-called quarterback from the standpoint of play calling on the field. That’s kind of a unique position to be in. It was interesting, and I enjoyed doing it. Burkey or Taylor, when they were in there, could check off if they saw something that wasn’t right. Opperman and I were a pretty good pair of bookends at end.”
Dunbar Township and Connellsville was always a heated rivalry, according to Kostelnik.
“My senior year we beat up on Dunbar pretty good, 28-0,” Kostelnik stated. “The year before when Donnie Soberdash was a hotshot for the Mules they beat us badly, 41-7; we shouldn’t have even showed up. It was always spirited because they were always one class smaller, but they had some good athletes on those teams.”
Kostelnik has fond memories of coach Dan Galbraith.
“He was a real mentor to me,” Kostelnik said. “He came in my junior year, and he brought in a whole new system. He was a real teacher. He coached basketball as well. I would have never played basketball if it weren’t for him.
“I played sandlot basketball, but he talked me into playing as a junior and a senior. I never took a great deal of pride in my basketball abilities. I went out and played and enjoyed him as a coach. He was a real mentor and a real fine coach.”
The two seasons that Kostelnik played hoops the Cokers went 7- 14 and 9-13.
On the track squad, Kostelnik was outstanding in the discus and the shotput. He even held the school record in the shotput for a while. In 1955 he set school record in shotput with a record-breaking throw of 48 feet, 5 1/2 inches, erasing the old mark of 47 feet, 8 inches set by Bill Percy in 1939.
Jim Cunningham eclipsed the record the following year.
On the gridiron Kostelnik garnered second team All-County honors as a junior and was first team All-County and All-WPIAL as a senior.
“The hardware was nice, but I don’t live on those laurels so to speak,” Kostelnik said. “It was nice to achieve those objectives, but life goes on and you go on from there.”
The 6-foot, 195-pound Kostelnik was pursued by 35 schools for football when he graduated from Connellsville in 1956. Harvard and Princeton were two of the schools that were high on his list.
“I guess Charlie Caldwell who was the head coach at Princeton was the biggest influence on my college choice,” Kostelnik explained. “Unfortunately, Caldwell died of cancer my sophomore year, and I never got to play under him. The hardest choice I had to make was turning down West Point. They put a pretty good rush on me.”
Kostelnik made an immediate impact on the Tigers’ freshman team as noted in this blurb from the Princeton student newspaper.
“Highly touted in high school, end Ed Kostelnik has developed into the best prospect on the freshman squad. The195-pounder from Connellsville, Pa., is second pick to a stone wall on defense, but only by a small margin. Kostelnik has earned a reputation as a tough customer on defense, while finding time to snag several passes in tight situations.”
“We were undefeated and Ivy League champs when I played on the freshman football team,” Kostelnik said. “I played offensive and defensive end throughout my college career. Our freshman team was absolutely incredible.”
With Dick Coleman taking over for the deceased Caldwell as coach, Princeton posted a record of 7-2 with a 6-1 Ivy League mark in 1957, Kostelnik’s sophomore year. The Tigers went 6-3 and 5-2 in league play in 1958 and slipped to 4-5 and 3-4 in the Ivy League when Kostelnik was a senior in 1959.
“One of the highlights of my college career was playing in the Ivy League championship game as a sophomore,” Kostelnik remembered. “We played in a snowstorm at Palmer Stadium against Dartmouth and beat them in a great ballgame rather handily, 34-14. There were 48,000 people at the game. Ivy League schools don’t even get close to that now.”
Kostelnik was named the winner of Poe Cup, signifying team MVP in 1959, along with Dan Saches and Frank Szbetezz.
When Kostelnik graduated in 1960 he passed on some feelers from pro football and joined Mobile Oil Company until 1968. He went to Houston and pursued some small business opportunities.
He then co-founded KW Industries in 1972 and manufactured the poles for lighting fixtures for shopping centers and athletic stadiums.
He was chief executive officers until 1993 and is still chairman of the board and principal stockholder.
Kostelnik, 72, has been married to his wife, Nicole, for 47 years. They reside in Comfort, Texas. They have three adult children: Ed Jr., Nicholas and Andre.
“I have no complaints,” Kostelnik said. Things turned out pretty well for me.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” columns appear in the Sunday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.