Zawacki had some big footsteps to follow at UHS
Jerry Zawacki had some big footsteps to follow in his high school football career at Uniontown High School, since his older brother Chuck was one of the best athletes to play for the Red Raiders.
“It was difficult, it really was,” Zawacki recalled. “All I got was are you going to be as good as Chuck? He was a high school All-American. He was great in basketball, he ran the hurdles in track, he was a great athlete. But, he was a good role model for me.”
The younger Zawacki, two years his brother’s junior, managed to carve his own niche with the Red Raiders. Jerry Zawacki was a part of some talented Uniontown teams that fashioned records of 8-2 in 1954, 4-5-1 in 1955 and 8-2 in 1956.
Zawacki played for the legendary Bill Power at Uniontown and learned a lot that he would later use when he became a coach.
“I became a coach and I got to talk to Bill Power quite often,” Zawacki said. “I remember when he lived in Jupiter, Fla., and my wife and I would visit. I used to to pick his brain about when he came to Uniontown from Point Marion and how he wanted to run his program and it was just amazing. He said the first thing he told his coaches was he didn’t want them to be too tough on the kids because most of them came from a tough life at that particular time and struggled with poverty, and I was a part of that. I saw my dad, a coal miner, die from “black lung” disease.
“I learned so much from coach Power, the kids just loved him, he looked after people, he was always positive. He was ahead of his time with the use of film. He was a great organizer and coach.”
Zawacki had to work his way into the starting lineup with the Raiders.
“We had great athletes like Sandy Stephens and Bill Munsey,” Zawacki stated. “To be a sophomore and to go to training camp was very prestigious, and I happened to be one of them. I was cannon fodder and I got beat up on. I didn’t get much playing time as a sophomore. My junior year I started at offensive tackle, and defensive tackle my junior and senior seasons.”
The 5-foot-10, 210-pound Zawacki was named second team All-Fayette County as a senior and played in the Fayette-Washington County All-Star football game.
Zawacki also participated in track at Uniontown.
Zawacki sifted through some college football offers when he graduated from Uniontown in 1957.
“Coach Power had a lot of contacts and one was Frank Kush, who was Arizona State,” Zawacki said. “I was at ASU my freshman year. I left and went to Palo Verde Junior College in Blythe, California. I played there and got my Associates degree and then went to Ohio University. Bill Hess was the coach at Ohio U and he was a longtime assistant at Ohio State. My brother Chuck, who played at Ohio State, set that up.”
Zawacki played two season for the Bobcats on teams that went 7-2 in 1959 and 10-0 in 1960.
“In October 2012 they put our whole 1960 team into the Kermit Blosser Ohio Athletics Hall of Fame,” Zawacki stated. “We won the MAC championship and the National College Division Championship. I played tackle for the Bobcats. We had a talented team and we were the first undefeated team.”
Zawacki was planning on getting into teaching and coaching, but first went into the Army.
“I volunteered in 1961,” Zawacki offered. “Why? Because my oldest brother was in World War II and he came home in his Air Force uniform. From that time on I wanted to go to war. I was in Army for two years and I was an MP.”
Zawacki went to Cleveland in 1964 after his stint in the service and did his student teaching. He came back to Uniontown in 1966 and took a teaching and assistant coaching job at Uniontown High School. He left in 1970 and his first head coaching position was at Cameron County.
“You know what is ironic,” Zawacki said. “I always wanted to be a head coach once I started at Uniontown and I saw an ad and interviewed. Ironically, they were also called the Red Raiders.”
During his tenure from 1970-75, the Red Raiders went 37-16 with a pair of 8-1 seasons and had only one losing campaign, his first.
He then became the head coach at Bradford. Zawacki coached for 15 years in Bradford. His teams at Bradford struggled, but in a stretch from 1986-88 went 20-12 with the last of those squads going 8-2, the second loss coming in the PIAA playoffs.
Zawacki pointed out, “Football is a team sport and all you hear about from high school to college to the NFL is ‘locker room.’ What that means is that you’re joining a group where you have to come together. We won’t tolerate people who are arrogant or don’t care about the team.
“I only had three rules: 1. Be on time, 2. Do your best, 3. Don’t do anything to embarrass yourself, your family, your school or your team. In other words, do the right thing. And to this day, a lot of my players remember that.”
Zawacki served four years as principal at Ridgway after leaving Bradford, before he and his wife Ann moved to Florida.
He taught for years as an adjunct professor at then-Daytona Beach Community College before they relocated to their current home in Georgia where Zawacki ended his teaching career last fall, following a stint at the Gainesville campus of the University of North Georgia.
Zawacki, 75, and his wife of 47 years Ann reside in Winder, Ga. They have three sons.
Looking back Zawacki said he had a good ride.
“I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world,” he said. “I still love it. I’ve been in the education business for 47 years and have loved it. But my favorite part was coaching football.”