Sosnak played at Beth Joint and Saint Vincent
Joe Sosnak was typical of many of the athletes who came out of Western Pennsylvania, hard working and eager to embrace the opportunities that presented themselves through sports.
Sosnak was a standout football, basketball and baseball player at Beth Joint (now Beth-Center) in the late 1950s.
“I was a three-year player in football, basketball and baseball at Beth Joint,” Sosnak recalls. “I played both JV and varsity basketball my sophomore year.”
Sosnak was a part of some outstanding Bulldog cage squads. In 1955-56 the Bulldogs went 13-9 and 6-6 in Section 18 play. In 1956-57 Beth Joint posted a record of 16-7 and were 10-2 in section play.
In Sosnak’s senior season in 1957-58, the Bulldogs had a great season with a record of 23-2, with a 12-0 Section 18 mark. The lone loss in the regular season was in exhibition play, when they fell in double overtime at Charleroi 75-73. In the WPIAL playoffs the Bulldogs downed Snowden, 58-46, and McDonald, 68-51. They lost to Wampum in the WPIAL final, 69-57.
“We played together for four years,” Sosnak said. “We played for Coach Smodic and we were building toward that big season. Wampum was an outstanding team with the Allen brothers and they also had guard Ron Galbraith who went on the play at Westminster. Wampum was quick, we were bigger, but they were quick and it was a good game until the last three or four minutes.”
Sosnak put up some good numbers for the Bulldogs, he tallied 324 points as a junior and scored 289 points in his senior season. Sosnak’s top scoring game in high school was a 25 point effort his junior season in a 66-64 win over West Newton.
In football, Sosnak was an end on Beth Joint teams that went 7-1-1 in 1955, 1-8 in 1956 and 6-2-1 in 1957.
“One of the highlights of my football career was playing against Robert ‘Red’ Worrell of Centerville,” Sosnak explained. “We lived basically in the same town, Vestaburg and Centerville. Part of Vestaburg went to Beth Joint and part went to Centerville, so we saw each other constantly. We went to the park and played basketball and football against each other. We played Charleroi and they had Myron Pottios.
“I was very happy with my high school athletic career,” Sosnak opined. “I had great coaches. Jack Smodic was not only a coach, but he took a personal interest in you. I was going to play football at California State, but being a young guy I said I’m burned out and I don’t want to go to college.
“It was Jack Smodic who in July came to me and said do you want to play basketball and I said, yes. He went through the process of getting me a scholarship to St. Vincent and from there it was history. He really shaped my future.”
The 6-5, 185-pound Sosnak wound up playing four years for coach Dodo Canterna at St. Vincent College.
“I played a lot my freshman year,” Sosnak recalled. “I was sixth man and getting into every game. Going to St. Vincent turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me because I met wife there.”
The Bearcats posted records of 7-14, 7-14, 7-13 and 8-13 during Sosnak’s career at St. Vincent.
“I played in every game except one game while I was at St. Vincent,” Sosnak explained. “You think about those things, not at first, but later. I thought to myself why in the world did I miss that one game. That game was my sophomore year.
“We played a very competitive schedule against the likes of St. Francis (Pa.) and Duquesne when they had Willie Somerset and we played against the Stith brothers and St. Bonaventure. That game up there was probably one of the best games we played during my four years at St. Vincent.”
Sosnak tallied 492 points during his four-year career with the Bearcats.
“When I went to St. Vincent, we started out with five freshman,” Sosnak said. “When I graduated, Bob Belan and I were the two that were left. Mel Freeman from Uniontown was one of the other freshman who left.”
Sosnak has a great deal of respect for Canterna.
“I thought he was a good coach,” Sosnak opined. “I liked him as a person, we just celebrated our 50th reunion for our graduating class and he was going to California, but when he found out that Belan and I were going to be at the reunion, he delayed his trip and came to the reunion to see us and talk to us.”
After graduating from St. Vincent, Sosnak taught at South Plainfield (N.J.) Middle School for 35 years until his retirement in 1997. He also coached junior high and girls basketball for 15 years.
Sosnak, 72, resides in South Plainfield, N.J. with his wife of 50 years, Joan. They have three children and five grandchildren.