Matsko was 3-sport star for Dunbar Township
Submitted photo
The starting five for the 1964-65 Dunbar Township boys basketball team was (from left) Larry Mayros, Charlie Matsko, Ray Griffin, Ken Rosensteel and Ron Karpiak.
Submitted photo
Charlie Matsko was a three-sport star at Dunbar Township.
Back in the day, the Dunbar Township Mules had a reputation for turning out tough, hard-nosed football players. One of those players was tackle Chuck Matsko, or Charlie as many of his friends refer to him.
Matsko was a three-sport athlete at Dunbar where he earned three letters in football, three letters in basketball and four letters in track and field.
“When I was younger I played baseball,” Matsko recalled. “I played Little League in Dunbar Township and Pony League and Colt League in Connellsville. My first experience with football was in eighth grade. My coach when I was younger was Joe Correal, the varsity coaches were Ted Nypaver and Stan McLaughlin. I was running as a fullback when I was younger and a real good athlete who has passed away, Ron Karpiak was the quarterback.”
Dunbar had a tremendous football tradition.
“Everybody went both ways in those days,” Matsko said. “There was very little platooning back then. In high school my sophomore year I played center and then I moved to tackle as a junior and senior. On defense we played a 53 so I was a nose guard.”
Matsko was on Dunbar squads that went 4-4-1 in 1962, 5-4 in 1963 and 8-1 in 1964. The lone loss was to Class A North Union 27-20. The Mules were unbeaten against Class B competition, but didn’t qualify for the WPIAL playoffs because they didn’t have enough Gardner Points.
“The kids worked so hard, have sacrificed so much, it doesn’t seem right that they won’t get to play for the WPIAL title,” Mules late head coach Stan McLaughlin remarked at the time in the Herald-Standard.
“It was a big disappointment not getting to play in the playoffs,” Matsko said.
One of the factors that led to Dunbar not qualifying for the playoffs occurred before the season started. In the spring when Scottdale and East Huntingdon merged to former Southmoreland School District, it left the Mules with two open dates on their grid schedule.
McLaughlin and Dunbar officials tried to fill those dates with Arnold and Rankin, two of the other Class B contenders that season, but couldn’t reach agreements with them.
Matsko was a Fayette County All-County selection as a junior and a senior and played in the Fayette County Coaches Association All-Star game for the East squad after his senior season. The East and West battled to a 13-13 tie. He was also named to the Honor Role for the Big 33 football game.
The 6-foot, 200-pound Matsko played basketball for Dunbar under coach Don Crawford for two seasons and Tom Sankovich as a senior. The Mules were 4-18 overall and 3-11 in Section 17 in 1962-63, 5-17 and 2-12 in 1963-64 and 10-11 and 5-5 in 1964-65. Matsko tallied 369 career points for the Mules.
“I just went out for basketball and became starting forward as a sophomore,” Matsko said. “I enjoyed playing basketball.”
Matsko excelled in track and field. His events were the shot put, javelin and the discus. He set the school record in the shot put with a throw of 47.6 feet and he once held the discus mark with a throw of 127 and 4 inches.
“Ted Nypaver started the track program at Dunbar,” Matsko said. “Tom Rozzi later became the coach and he did a very good job. We were very competitive in track and field.”
When Matsko graduated from Dunbar in 1965 he wound up playing football at Tarkio College in Missouri.
“I didn’t have great grades, I took a trip to Tennessee and didn’t like the atmosphere,” Matsko said. “I visited WVU and Maryland. A guy named Frank Seldock was going to school at Tarkio and talked me into going there. I played defensive tackle and a little inside linebacker.”
Tarkio went 3-6 in 1965, but the coach wanted Matsko to wrestle. Matsko decided to transfer to Maryland. He got hurt at Maryland and that sidetracked him.
“I was working at Anchor Hocking after I came home and David Griffin talked to coach Al Jacks at Clarion and I went there. I redshirted in 1966 and then played three years for the Eagles.”
In 1967 Clarion was 8-2 losing to West Chester in the PSAC championship game. In 1968 the Eagles were 6-3 and in 1969 they went 8-2 and lost again to West Chester in the PSAC championship game. Matsko was second team All-PSAC at guard in 1968 and 1969.
“He gained some weight and he had athletic ability and quick feet,” Jacks said. “He was a gentleman and still is. I still talk with him all the time.”
Matsko graduated from Clarion in 1970 and then got a Masters Degree at Slippery Rock in 1974. He had a 36-year career in education, teaching special education. He was an assistant coach in football at Wilkensburg, Springdale and East Allegheny. He also had assistant football coaching stops at Norwin and West Mifflin.
Matsko became JV baseball coach at East Allegheny and later became the head baseball coach in 1984 and coached there for 10 seasons and had solid success, including a run to the WPIAL playoffs in his first season, the first WPIAL playoff baseball appearance in 20 years for the Wildcats.
“I put my nose to the grindstone and went to coaching clinics and talked a lot with Tom Sankovich, who had built a great program at Connellsville,” Matsko said. “I had some outstanding players, including a tremendous lefty pitcher, Bill Turkowski.”
Matsko retired from teaching in 2005.
“I enjoyed the coaching and also enjoyed the teaching,” Matsko said.
Matsko, 72, resides in North Huntingdon and Florida with his wife of 49 years Loretta. They have two children, Nichol and Christopher.
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.