May 14, 2026 By Rob Burchianti 10 min read

Jason Tyska made a huge impact in one team sport and one individual sport during his athletic career.

The 1989 Connellsville graduate excelled enough in baseball and golf to earn a spot in the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2026. He was a star player on Connellsville’s 1989 WPIAL and PIAA championship baseball team and went on to have a successful golf career in college at Penn State and as an amateur and a professional. He’s already in the Hall of Fame as part of that Falcons team, but now will also go in as an individual.

Tyska will be inducted on June 19 in a ceremony at Pleasant Valley Golf Club.

“I was definitely thrilled to find out,” Tyska said of being pegged for induction on Hall of Fame co-founder George Von Benko’s Sports Line Talk Show on WMBS Radio on Saturday. “I had been on the ballot the last couple years and honestly didn’t know if I was ever going to make it in. I was fortunate enough to be inducted with my team, the 1989 Connellsville baseball team.”

Tyska will join two of his former Connellsville coaches in the Hall of Fame in the late Tom Sankovich in baseball and the late Hal Weightman in golf.

Sankovich, who died on April 30 at the age of 85, was the head coach of the Falcons district and state champion baseball team and Tyska looked back on his time with his former mentor with fondness.

“Coach Sank was an incredible human being,” Tyska said. “He was a great coach, extremely knowledgeable, tough, and prepared you for success by having some of the most grueling and disciplined practices that have ever been created. I owe a lot of my success in not just baseball, in golf, to the discipline that he taught us. He will be missed.”

Tyska was a key player on the 1989 baseball team, posting a 10-0 record with a 2.13 ERA with half of his victories coming in the postseason. He also served as the Falcons’ DH when he wasn’t pitching and batted .359 with five home runs and 30 RBIs.

“It was very exciting,” Tyska said when looking back on the 1989 baseball season. “Coach was very good at getting everybody involved and I only won five games in the regular season, I think we went 19-1. He really liked to make sure that everybody was prepared in case they were called upon. So we kind of spread the wealth some and I think that’s what made us a good team. We could rely on each other and it wasn’t just a couple that dominated play.

“Then I was fortunate enough to win five games in the postseason, and did some things back then that we’d never be allowed to do today. I pitched back-to-back days because there were a lot of rainouts. I was so invested. We won the (WPIAL) semifinal game and we had a lot of rainouts. Then the championship game (vs. Mount Pleasant) was the next day. I had pitched a two-hit shutout in the semis and didn’t throw many pitches.”

Tyska forced the issue with his coach about pitching again against the Vikings.

“Our starter in the championship game was not faring too well and I grabbed the backup catcher because I was DHing and said, ‘Come on, let’s go down and warmup.’ I kind of did it on my own and came down and said, ‘Coach, I’m ready.’ He put me in,” Tyska explained. “I didn’t pitch all that well.”

Tyska instead hit decided the game with his bat.

“I ended up hitting the walk-off home run to win the game (13-11),” Tyska said. “I guess it was meant to be.”

Tyska recalled the championship group of players.

“I was almost a year behind all of them,” Tyska said. “I have an August birthday. Growing up, the majority of my senior class all played together in Little League and I was a year behind. Not until we got to ninth grade did I become tied to them baseball-wise.

“We had a great group of guys, Mike Swink and Joey Bonidio, Buddy Leichliter and Bobby Shaffer; that was kind of our core group of seniors. We had a great time.”

When it came to golf, Tyska was a natural.

“My father was a pretty good athlete but he was never a golfer. My grandfather played golf,” Tyska said. “He used to take me when I was 11-12 years old and I would play with him and his brother and actually my dentist. So there was a 12-year-old playing out there with three 60-plus-year-olds out at Norvelt. It just came really naturally to me.

“Once you have success in anything, then obviously you become invested in it. I played a lot with him growing up. I didn’t start playing any real competitive golf other than high school until I was about 16 or 17. I never took a formal lesson from anyone. That’s probably why I didn’t achieve my true potential in golf until right after college because I was kind of behind in the development process. I had a lot of ability but I needed refinement I didn’t necessarily get without professional eyes looking at me.”

Weightman, better known as coach of the Connellsville boys basketball team, had a major impact on Tyska as his golf mentor in high school.

“He was a tremendous coach,” Tyska said. “He gave me the opportunity as a seventh grader to be the team manager. So I had access to Pleasant Valley and I would go to matches and I would play with the extra players. My eighth grade year I was foolish enough to think I could play football and I tried that out for one year. Then came back and played golf my ninth through 12 year.

“Hal was a great human being. He taught me a lot about golf and patience and was really, really good at giving you the confidence to succeed. He was a great influence on my choosing to play golf in college instead of baseball.”

Tyska’s best postseason of high school golf came when he was a sophomore in 1987 and won a WPIAL silver medal.

“I remember that was at Churchill and it was really the first big golf tournament I probably played in,” Tyska said. “I had just turned 15. I remember just being so thrilled that I had qualified to go to states. Back then the top 10 from the WPIAL would automatically go into states and I ended up in a playoff with one other player for second place. I didn’t even know that it was really that important to win the playoff, I was so ecstatic. My dad had made a slight wager for me that if I had made it to states he would get me a new set of golf clubs. They were Ping ‘i’s, too. It was no small feat for my dad to save up the money to get me those golf clubs so I was real appreciative of that.

“That’s what I was so excited about. I think I chipped in on the third playoff hole and won second place. My next two years I made it to states but I didn’t medal.”

When it came to college, Tyska weighed between playing baseball or golf and wound up choosing Penn State for the latter, although he seriously considered one other offer.

“Allegheny up in Meadville, Norm Sundstrom was the athletic director at the time and he was also the golf coach. I was actually considering going there and trying to play both sports,” Tyska said. “That would’ve been really difficult looking back on it.”

He was pleased with his choice of Penn State.

“It was a great experience. As soon as I went up there for a visit I knew that’s where I was going to go,” Tyska said. “Mary Kennedy-Zierke was my coach there up until my senior year. I started my last tournament as a freshman fall semester, I cracked the starting lineup and I stayed in the lineup the rest of my career.

“I wouldn’t say I had an incredibly successful career there. I did win our home tournament one year. My senior year I made All-Big Ten second team. But I didn’t really start achieving too much nationally or even statewide until after my senior year at Penn State. That’s when I had a really big summer. I actually won the Tri-State Amateur championship, the State Amateur championship and the West Penn Amateur championship.”

A few years later, Tyska won the 1998 Frank B. Fuhrer Jr. Invitational.

“Back then it was called the Pittsburgh Open,” Tyska pointed out. “I remember very clearly winning that at Montour. The same summer I beat Bob Ford in the Tri-State Match Play championship in the finals. Bob was a tremendous guy.”

A year later, Tyska played in the U.S. Open.

Tyska recapped his post-collegiate golf career.

“I turned professional in 1993,” Tyska said. “Pleasant Valley was really kind of integral to my success in golf. They offered a summer membership for anybody that was playing college golf that myself and Paul Konieczny and Dan Konieczny and several others took advantage of. We had access to the golf course in the summer.

“Then when I had the big summer of 1993, members pooled some money together and helped launch my professional career. I moved to Orlando in that winter and began competing on the mini-tours for a number of years.”

Tyska qualified for and finished 53rd in the U.S. Open in 1999.

“That was the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 that Payne Stewart won then tragically died later that summer,” Tyska recalled.

Tyska was surprised to see his name on a list of the top-ranked golfers of all time from Pennsylvania at No. 74 and as the only golfer from Fayette County

“I had no idea there was such a list,” Tyska said. “I saw that in my bio and I thought is that for real? Then I looked it up myself. I’m thrilled to be on that list. There’s a lot of tremendous talent out of Pennsylvania and to be considered on that list is quite an honor.”

Not surprisingly, Tyska plans to play in the annual Hall of Fame golf outing which takes place before the luncheon/social when he will be inducted.

‘I was planning on playing the event but now it has a little bit more meaning to me,” said Tyska, who voiced gratitude for being chosen as a member of the Hall of Fame’s 17th class.

“It’s a tremendous honor,” Tyska said.

To purchase tickets for the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame luncheon/social or to register for the annual golf outing, both of which will take place on June 19 at Pleasant Valley Golf Club, contact Katie Propes by phone (724-460-9231) or email (katie.propes@bldr.com).