Jun 1, 2025 By Rob Burchianti 6 min read

Mike Revak was a multi-sport star at Laurel Highlands who batted .363 during his senior baseball season and was good enough in basketball to make Washington & Jefferson’s team.

It was swinging a golf club that Revak was best at, however.

Revak eventually focused on that sport at W&J and became one of the Presidents’ greatest golfers. Amazingly he was a four-time conference MVP with the Presidents in golf and was good enough to be inducted in that college’s sports hall of fame last year.

He’ll enter another one this year as part of the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2025. Revak will be inducted on June 20 during the Hall of Fame luncheon at Pleasant Valley Golf Club in Connellsville.

“It’s an honor,” Revak said in discussing his impending induction with George Von Benko on the Hall of Fame co-founder’s Sports Line Talk Show on WMBS Radio recently, noting there are “good people and great athletes” he’ll be joining.

Revak is a 1994 Laurel Highlands graduate who was a co-captain on the baseball team under Tom Landman and a starter as a senior on the boys basketball team under Mark John while also playing golf under Jim Cunningham.

He still encourages high school athletes to play multiple sports, as both his sons – one in 10th grade and one in eighth grade at Laurel Highlands – do. “I’ve encouraged them to play everything they can. Playing with different coaches and different groups helps you build camaraderie as well. I had some great groups growing up.

“I had some great groups growing up. I started with St. Mary’s and had good coaching with Ron Morris and Dan Andria, then in high school with Mark John, Pete Stefancin and Tommy Landman and my golf coach was Jim Cunningham.”

Revak was a junior on Laurel Highlands 1993 team that went undefeated during the regular season and stepped into a starting role as a senior.

“We were good,” Revak said. “My junior year I was with Nick Bosnic and those guys. Mark played six seniors so I didn’t get much playing time my junior year. But my senior year we had Jimmy John, Jason Kurek, Billy Thomas, Mike Bosnic was just a freshman that year, and then Brian Chambers and Wes Edwards. I’m still buddies with a lot of those guys. I still see a lot of them to this day.”

Revak got some playing time as a junior in baseball under Landman.

“I played some my junior year with (Jack) Smarslak and those guys,” Revak recalled. “My senior year I was playing third base, Jason Bowers was on short, he almost ended up making the majors. Jason Kurek played second and then we had Billy Bendis pitching, we had some big names there.”

Revak was a senior captain on the golf team and had the Mustangs’ No. 1 scoring average.

“We had some good players, Dean Crawford, Josh Hensh, Danny Glover … Tommy Barnhart was there, when I was a senior he was a freshman, Mike Esposito.

“I just missed out on going for the state championship up at Penn State. I made it through Lincoln Hills and Quicksilver but I just missed it by two shots. The last couple holes if I would’ve realized where the cutline was I would’ve been fine but you don’t know when you’re out there on the course.”

Revak considered the near miss a blessing in disguise as he eventually wound up in college at Washington & Jefferson.

“I ended up meeting my wife at W&J, played one year of basketball and four years of golf in college,” Revak said. “I had a good career there.”

Good is understatement for Revak’s time as on the Presidents’ golf team.

In addition to his four PAC MVP honors, he was the first W&J golfer to win four individual conference championships while also leading W&J to four PAC team titles, was an NCAA Division III All-American and was chosen as W&J’s Male Athlete of the Year in 1998.

Revak played golf for the Presidents under coach Bill Duckett.

“Bill Duckett, great guy, he’s from New Jersey,” Revak said. “He was an OK golfer but he was more a psychiatrist-psychologist, really good with the brain, and the short game. He has a good family, still lives in Washington. He was also a football coach down there. He played football in college and he took the golf a little later. Our assistant was John Banaszak who actually played for the Steelers.

“I got a lot better after a year or two of college, a lot more experience, you get in the weight room, you get a little stronger.”

Revak played golf and basketball as a freshman for W&J.

“It was more golf but I still wanted to play basketball and at the Division III level that was a place you could do it,” Revak said. “I wouldn’t be able to play probably at the D-I or D-II level basketball.”

Revak played under Tom Reiter who was an assistant under legendary Purdue coach Gene Keady.

Revak has gone on to coach both sports in high school.

“I’ve done a lot of stuff coaching basketball,” he said. “I coached at 22 years at AG, ninth grade, and then the last four years I’ve been at Laurel Highlands because my son’s there. I’m not going to coach against him.

“John Unice is another name, I went to the basketball camps down there, he just passed away recently. That’s one of the reasons I went to W&J, I enjoyed his basketball camps. He wasn’t the head coach but the year I came in he was retiring. The whole Unice family is great as well.”

Revak will be entering his third year as Laurel Highlands’ boys golf coach this fall. He focuses heavily on the mental aspect of the game.

“That’s a major part of the game and that’s one of my strengths I feel like,” Revak said. “That’s what I’m trying to translate to these high school kids. That’s where I can help these kids improve a lot. A lot of kids can hit the ball far and are decent with their irons but the short game, the mental aspect, positioning and their techniques on the approach game is a big part of it.”

Revak, naturally, intends to participate in the highly popular annual Hall of Fame golf outing in a foursome with his father and two sons. The golf event begins at 8:30 a.m. on June 20 at Pleasant Valley Golf Club to be followed by the luncheon.

Golfers can register for the event and Hall of Fame luncheon tickets can be purchased by contacting Katie Propes by phone (724-415-2211) or email (kpropes@occluss.com).