Remembering Henry DiVirgilio
Fayette County athletics lost a coaching legend with the passing of former Frazier High coach Henry DiVirgilio. He passed away on September 3 in Delmont, PA.
DiVirgilio held the Commodores head coaching position until he retired from coaching in 1984. He took one season off in 1978-79. He served as interim Superintendent of Schools until a replacement could be found. He was named Assistant High School Principal in 1959. In 1961, DiVirgilio was named the Junior High Principal, a position he held for eight years. In 1969 he was named the Junior/Senior High School Principal. He held that position until he retired in 1985.
DiVirgilio also coached baseball and football, but it was basketball where he left his mark at the school.
He retired with 457 wins in a 30-year career that included coaching the Commodores to the WPIAL Class B title in 1969 — the only WPIAL basketball title in the school’s history.
Some of his coaching rivals looked back at DiVirgilio with great respect.
“I respected him,” Former Geibel coach Ken Misiak said. “I was just a young coach when I first met Henry and I was impressed with the way he handled his teams. As I got older we got very competitive against each other and I probably respected him even more because we played the games on the floor and we respected each other as coaches and what we were trying to do and I always respected Henry for that.”
Former Mapletown coach Buddy Quertinmont also tangled with some of DiVirgilio’s Frazier squads.
“He beat me my first year at the Pitt Field house in the first round of the WPIAL playoffs,” Quertinmont recalled. “Henry was very involved in the game and he was into the game. I played against him as well when I was at Point Marion. He was a very good disciplinarian, he was well thought of.”
DiVirgilio’s coaching record included one WPIAL Title, a PIAA runner-up and a WPIAL runner-up. He won 11 section titles. In a Memory Lane column, DiVirgilio said he had some mentors who shaped his basketball coaching philosophy.
“The man who did a lot because I used to go to all of his coaching clinics was Ed McCluskey from Farrell,” DiVirgilio stated. “He was a real influence for me. He was great – I enjoyed him so much.”
DiVirgilio was remembered fondly by some of his former players.
“Coach DiVirgilio was responsible for everything that happened to me,” Steve Stolarik opined. “Not only did he get me to come out and play, but I remember my senior year and he mentioned to me a couple of times toward the end of the year that there were college scouts in the gym tonight watching you. One I remember in particular was a scout from Cornell coming and I had no ambitions or ideas of going on to college, we couldn’t afford that and I grew up in patch in Star Junction.
“I took a trip to Cornell and had a scholarship offer to go to Cornell, but it just wasn’t me the school was big with a lot of money. I hadn’t taken the SAT test because I hadn’t planned on going to college. Henry drove me down to Pittsburgh around Mt. Lebanon and they were giving the test. He told me to take the test and said I would do fine. He said you are going to go to college somewhere. Waynesburg was interested and he had connections with Buzz Ridl at Westminster and we took a drive up for a visit and I went up and felt much more comfortable at Westminster and it was a much better setting for me. Coach DiVirgilio was instrumental not only in coaching me and being the great coach that he was, but also personally with driving me to the SAT and driving me to Westminster. It was just a strong influence as a person that he had on my life. As a coach Henry was great, he just had the right balance of being calm and collected and confident. He just knew when to push the right button and get on us and get us motivated.”
“Coach DiVirgilio was like a grandfather figure,” Former star guard Joe Lafko said. “He was in his early sixties at that time and 1984 was his last year as Head Basketball Coach. One thing that stood out to me about Coach DiVirgilio is that he never really got excited and never raised his tone with us. He was critical at times and there were times when we needed to be reprimanded, but he was always very calm and he was in control.”
DiVirgilio orchestrated Frazier’s march to a WPIAL title in 1969.
“He had the intestinal fortitude to use as many as four black kids at a time and that didn’t go over too well back then. It just wasn’t popular in the town,” Former player Wes Ramsey told the Valley Independent. “Plus, he instituted the man-to-man defense and we would have never gotten out of the section if we played zone defense back then. We didn’t start anybody over six feet, and he took the same defense that Eddie McCluskey used at Farrell and brought it to Frazier.
“Finally, his training regimen really had us in shape. He made us do things in practice that, in the games, when other teams were dragging in the fourth quarter we were still going at it. He was one heck of a coach. He was an innovator.”
DiVirgilio was laid to rest on Saturday and his own words looking back at his storied career serve as a fitting epitaph.
“When kids say that I had a positive influence in their life that makes me feel good,” DiVirgilio stated. “That was worth a lot of money to me. I wouldn’t change anything. I made the right choice.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” columns appear in the Tuesday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.