Zsiros starred for Uniontown’s Power
Back in the day Fayette County was a regular stop on the college football recruiting trail and county athletes dotted college football rosters from coast to coast.
One of those players was former Uniontown High School gridder Bernie Zsiros. He was a two-year starter for coach Bill Power on the defensive and offensive lines for the Red Raiders in the late 1950’s.
“1957 was my first year of football and I was a JV player,” Zsiros recalled. “In 1958 I started as a defensive end and played strictly defense. I played offensive tackle because of a need at that position, so I played both ways as a senior.”
In Zsiro’s junior season in 1958, the Red Raiders posted a record of 7-1-1 and the went 6-3 in 1959.
“We lost to German in the first game in 1958, 12-6,” Zsiros said. “They had Bill Rutland and Sam Sims and they were very talented. We tied Mt. Lebanon, 13-13.
“We were hit hard by graduation in 1959. We lost Joe Hrezo, Bob Ostrosky and Bill Munsey to name a few and they all went on to play college football. We had some great athletes during that period. We had mixture of athletes, all the patches like Buffington and Keister. The athletes from the city and the east end. We all got along very well.”
Despite the 6-3 record his senior season, Zsiros anchored a rock ribbed Red Raider defense. One of the highlights of that season was limiting Charleroi’s bruising All-State running back Mickey Bitsko to his lowest rushing total of the season. The Raiders held him to 24 yards in a 26-14 loss to the Cougars.
By today’s standards Zsiros was small for a lineman.
“I think I was 180 pounds, Zsiros said. “Compared to today’s players I was small. The teams weren’t big back then, I think the biggest guy I played against was Bernie Solomon from Brownsville, and he weighed like 250 or 260.”
Zsiros has high praise for his old mentor, Bill Power.
“Coach Power was a tremendous coach,” Zsiros opined. “He was smart and he great teams almost every year. I really liked him, he was always fair to me, I thought the world of him.
“He had great assistant coaches. He had Max Zane, Al Broadhag and Leon Kaltenbach joined the staff my senior year. We also had John Kruper, who was a very good coach.”
Zsiros garnered some honors his senior season. He was All Western Conference and was named to the All-Fayette County team. He also was honorable mention Big 33.
“It meant a lot then,” Zsiros stated. “I was proud of what I accomplished, you think back now and you were happy with what you did. I was excited about it.”
Zsiros wound heading out west to play his college football at Arizona State.
“I had about 13 scholarship offers,” Zsiros explained. “I was recruited by Frank Kush, who was from western Pennsylvania and he was the head coach at Arizona State. I met him one time in town and we had a conversation and it wasn’t long after that he contacted me and came to my house. He recruited a lot of players from western Pennsylvania.”
Zsiros played freshman ball at ASU in 1960.
“They didn’t have a great freshman program,” Zsiros said. “As best I can recall we played three or four games, we played against Arizona and played some junior colleges.”
Zsiros after a solid freshman season was in line for playing time as a sophomore and then things went sideways.
“There was some confusion and some problems,” Zsiros said. “Eight of us after the spring game were at a party and we got busted. Coach Kush was mad and called me in. He said you can still have your scholarship if your grades are okay. When I came home he never called me, he said he would call and let me know. He never called and a woman kept calling my house wanting to take me back to school. I said I wasn’t going back unless I had a scholarship. He never called and I don’t know if he felt I should have called him and I guess my scholarship was there and I never went back.
“Thinking back on it I should have made the phone call. Ernie Panik played some baseball out there, he came back and said where were you? We wondered where you were, you still had your scholarship. That’s the way it happened.”
Zsiros got on with his life’s work. He worked in New Jersey for awhile, then went to Ohio and worked for General Motors for 15 years. He came back in 1978 and worked for Volkswagen for 10 and a half years. He then worked for Cooper Power systems in Cannonsburg. He worked for Allegheny Ludlum for 17 years and retired in 2007.
Zsiros, 73, resides in New Salem with his wife of 47 years, Judith. They have one daughter, Jamie.
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Monday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.