Jul 5, 2009 7 min read

When you think of a fullback in football you imagine a hard running, bruising blocker. If that was a definition in a dictionary then Larry Krutko’s picture should be right by that definition. Krutko, at 6-foot-1, 170 pounds, was a powerful running back and all-around athlete on some outstanding Cumberland Township, now Carmichaels, teams in the early 1950’s. Krutko lettered in football, basketball, baseball and track.

He burst on to the football scene in 1951 as a freshman when he was inserted into the lineup in the fourth game of the year. The Mikes finished with a 4-4-1 record.

“My freshman year we were playing Rostraver, and Ed Bandish was a running back. I’m not sure of the circumstances, but I was inserted for Bandish and I was in the lineup from that point on.”

Krutko was a two-way player at running back and linebacker/defensive tackle. He starred as a sophomore on the 1952 Cumberland squad that posted an 11-0 mark and captured the WPIAL Class B championship.

“We had a bunch of good guys on that team,” Krutko said. “Jerry Urda and Jim Haught later went on to play with me at West Virginia. Tom Colbert played at Waynesburg and John Jazwa went on to play at Morris Harvey. We had some very good players.”

Krutko set a Greene County scoring record with 99 points during the regular season and 28 in the playoffs for 127 total. He garnered All-County and All-WPIAL honors.

Some of the highlights in 1952 included a win over Jefferson, the defending WPIAL co-champion with Wilmerding. The Rockets had played 19 games in a row without a loss when the Mikes went into Jefferson and beat the Rockets 20-0 before 6,000 fans.

At the end of the 1952 regular season, Cumberland and Zelienople were tied with 130 Gardner Points. The WPIAL ordered a playoff between the two schools and the Mikes were dominant with a 40-14 victory. Krutko picked up 177 yards on 20 carries with three touchdowns. He also ran for four extra points. Cumberland racked up 340 total rushing yards.

“They ran me pretty hard,” Krutko said. “We didn’t have a lot of finesse, we played power football.”

After having the title game postponed for a week because of rain, Cumberland Twp. collided with the Wilmerding Wildcats at Charleroi. The game was a seesaw affair, governed by field position until Krutko scored the first touchdown.

Wilmerding answered quickly with a game-tying score. Neither team made the extra point. At the beginning of the second half, Tom Colbert raced 24 yards, helped by Jimmy Haught’s key block, for the Mikes’ game-winning touchdown. Cumberland Twp. withstood some late Wilmerding scoring threats and held on for a 12-6 win and the WPIAL Class B title.

“It was a hard fought game,” Krutko recalled. “They had a very good team. It was the toughest high school game I ever played in. It was a very chippy game.”

With the majority of the lettermen back from the preceding year, the 1953 Mikes put together another undefeated team. This year they finished 9-0. The biggest problem Cumberland faced that year was that no one wanted to schedule them. The Gardner Point system had been altered so that a team had to play a minimum of five schools in its class. One hundred Gardner points were given for a win. Additionally, 10 points were given for each win and five points for each game the victim would win or tie. Five for a final result would then divide the total points. In 1953, the Mikes were seven Gardner Points out of the playoffs.

“We were undefeated, but we didn’t get into the playoffs because we didn’t have enough Gardner Points.” Krutko said. “We were very disappointed that we didn’t get a chance to defend our championship.”

Krutko once again garnered All-County honors and was selected honorable mention All-WPIAL. He was also selected as the Most Valuable Player in Greene County and to the U.S. High School Football Team Honorable Mention.

Looking back, Krutko has a lot of respect for the late Al Cree, his coach at Cumberland Twp.

“Coach Cree was a very highly respected and successful coach,” Krutko offered. “He had a number of winning seasons. I thought he was a very fair coach, he was a motivator and he insisted on good fundamentals. He was a solid coach.”

Because of a technicality, Krutko wasn’t able to play football in his senior year, 1954.

“My birthday is June 27,” Krutko reported. “The cutoff day was August 18 or 19 and I missed the cutoff by a month and a half. I would have been ineligible to play at Cumberland and I needed one credit to be eligible scholastically for college. I went to University High in Morgantown during the summer and picked up that credit to graduate from University High. The following fall I enrolled as a freshman at West Virginia University.”

At WVU, Krutko lettered in 1955, 1956 and 1957 and was on teams that posted records of 8-2, 6-4 and 7-2-1. His career totals for the Mountaineers included 1,407 yards rushing and 12 touchdowns. He also was on the receiving end of 14 passes for a total of 130 yards. His career bests were two 120-yard rushing efforts during the 1956 campaign in games against Penn State and VMI. He had bulked up to a powerful 210 pounds in college.

When he arrived at West Virginia, he had a chance to play with some pretty good players that included Sam Huff, Bruce Bosley, Joe Marconi, Fred Wyant and Bobby Moss.

He played for legendary coach Art Lewis.

“Coach Art “Pappy” Lewis was quite a character,” Krutko said. “He was a very likeable fellow. He was adequate as a coach. I think he was a better recruiter than he was a coach.”

Krutko played in the Senior Bowl game, the Blue-Gray game and the College All-Star game when he graduated from West Virginia and was drafted in the second round of the 1958 NFL Draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Krutko played three seasons for the Steelers and rushed for 331 yards on 96 carries and scored four touchdowns. He also caught four passes for 108 yards.

The Steelers were 7-4-1 in Krutko’s rookie year 1958. They went 6-5-1 in 1959 and posted a 5-6-1 record in 1960. Krutko got to play under another coaching legend in Buddy Parker.

“Parker liked veteran players,” Krutko explained. “I wouldn’t say that he didn’t give me a fair shake. I wasn’t as successful as I hoped I would be. I got to play with Bobby Layne. He was a real competitor. We were competitive and the reputation was that we would play you tough. Ernie Stautner was probably my favorite Steeler teammate. He was an outstanding player. Parker was the smartest football coach that I’d ever been around. He had a problem handling people, but he was pretty sharp.”

Krutko suffered a torn Achilles tendon in practice and it spelled the end of his career and he just wasn’t able to comeback from that injury.

“I tried to comeback, but I knew I couldn’t run. It was a one legged run and I was done,” Krutko stated.

He went into student teaching and sold World Book Encyclopedias before entering the wholesale candy business with his father-in-law Michael J. Bell in 1962. He remains in that business to this day as owner of Bell’s Wholesale.

Krutko, 74, has been married for 52-years to his wife Elizabeth and they have four grownup children in Larry Joe, Mary Lisa, John Michael and Andrew Steven.

“We never left the area,” Krutko said. “I’ve been in Greene County all my life and I even bought a burial plot here. So I guess I’m going to stay here. We very fortunate and we have been blessed.”

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.