2009 NCAA Division II Softball Tournament

Jan. 4, 2005

Robert W.Craig

The reason he didn’t participate in the sports he would come to coach, according to Mike Smith, another longtime friend of Craig’s, was that Craig lived in an orphanage and was not permitted to play football. Craig’s mother died in a car accident, and his father, a destitute coal miner, was unable to support Craig and his siblings. They were all put into the Pottsville orphanage, Smith said.

“In the orphanage, they were expected to go out in the field during the fall and harvest,” Smith said. “Bob was allowed to compete in gymnastics, and I think he competed in track and field, but not in football. Also, at that time, Pottsville did not have wrestling."

But Craig proved to be a gifted athlete in gymnastics on the high school level, winning the PIAA all-around state championship title in 1948, and again in 1949, Smith said.

It was through gymnastics that he came to LHU, though his stay here was not intentional. Craig was initially recruited by Gene Whetstone, a famous Penn State University coach who eventually coached on the Olympic level. School policy prohibited freshmen to live on campus in 1949, Smith said.

“In those days, freshmen didn’t report to the main campus in Penn State,” Smith said. “They were farmed out to state teachers colleges, so Bob was farmed out to Lock Haven."

At LHU, he roomed with Gus D’Agostino, a PIAA wrestling state champion from Grove City.

“They struck up such a relationship that Bob decided not to go to Penn State following his freshmen year,” Smith said.

While at Lock Haven, Craig branched out into five different sports. He participated in his high school staple – gymnastics – but also moved into football, wrestling, track and field and swimming and diving.

Though confirmation of the number of varsity letters has yet to be made, Smith asserts Craig picked up a total of 18 letters while at LHU.

“One of his exploits as a wrestler at Lock Haven was in 1953,” Smith said. “During a state teacher’s college conference meet, Bob defeated a Millersville wrestler, George Dougherty, who was going for his fourth title. He had won three titles in his conference and was going for his fourth and Bob beat him."

After graduating in 1953, Craig spent time in the Marines, and then went on to coach at Newport High School.

When Smith was in seventh grade at Newport High School, Craig would move to Cedar Cliff High School.

Eventually, Smith would wrestle against Craig’s team.

“As an opposing coach, he was always friendly with the opposing athletes,” Smith said. “They meant something to him as well as his own athletes, it seemed. He appreciated fine performances from either side."

Craig would eventually get to know Smith and follow career as Smith went off to Bloomsburg University.

Smith would not only keep in touch with his former wrestling program at Newport, but would look up Craig from time to time.

“I would go down and work out with Cedar Cliff the time I was home on vacation a day or two,” Smith said.

Smith eventually started D.J. Sportware in Newport, which supplies wrestling gear of all types across the nation and abroad. He also would continue to work with Craig, organizing a variety of tournaments, including international meets with the Soviet national high school wrestling team and with teams from Poland, Norway and Austria.

Smith said he came to know Craig as a compassionate coach and human being.

“Athletes were his life, you might say,” Smith said. “He watched out for them, not only in their athletics, but in their academics."

One example was with a famous NFL athlete, he said.

“Bob should be remembered for being an intense competitor, but he had a big heart when it came to student athletes,” Smith said. “Take, for example, Kyle Brady, who plays in the NFL for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He came up though the Cedar Cliff school system and Bob had him as a tight end in high school. He was from a broken family, and Bob, more or less became his surrogate father. To this day, Kyle Brady, who became an All-American and a first round draft choice of Penn State, will attribute any success he has to Bob Craig."

Smith said he, too, was touched by the coach.

“Every time I was in his presence, I learned something new,” he said.

Palovcsik, who said he recently spent some time around the coach, said he felt the same way.

“I’m certainly better off for having known him,” Palovcsik said. “He’s a great man. He’s a loss for Lock Haven University and he’s a loss for sports in the state of Pennsylvania,” Palovcsik said.

###LHU###