50 years of St. Francis football: The emphasis for Art Martynuska was to encourage young men to earn degrees while also learning teamwork, discipline, and a work ethic -- and it worked

Photo of St. Francis coaching staff, circa 1978

Kneeling: (L) Hugh Conrad and Jerry Roberts

Standing: George Klayko, Father Jonas McCarthy, and Art Martynuska, head coach

When a priest from St. Francis College approached Art Martynuska about becoming its head football coach in 1969, I asked him, “Art, do you know what it is going to take to start a college football program from scratch? Are you crazy?”

His answer, after laughing, “Yes — and yes.”

One thing that Art also demonstrated during that time was love, not just for St. Francis football, but to the players who participated in the program.

The sledding was not easy in the early years primarily because the school did directly finance the program. However, while Art may have thought he was crazy to start a football program from scratch, tonight, as the school that now calls itself a university celebrates 50 years of football, he would recall something other than how many games he won or lost.

Instead, he would be thrilled with the players who went through his program during his 12 years as head coach and what they became in life.

In the early years, and until the past decade or so, none of the players received any scholarship money. Instead, they were eventually NCAA Div. III, which allows no athletic scholarships.

Success

In the latter years of his life, Art would talk about the success of his players after football. He would talk about how they earned their degrees, often advance ones, and how they translated that into life, whether as a businessman, a teacher, an accountant, a scientist, a college professor, a priest, a community leader, or even an admiral.

Yes, an admiral.

And, one of the people involved in the early years as first a manager then a club director became a top college athletic administrator. Ron Bertovich became the Commissioner of the Atlantic-10 Conference as well as of a number of smaller conferences.

Art would talk about the work ethic and discipline and the values learned through the game of football at St. Francis.

So, when Art looks down on the celebration this weekend, he will see so many student-athletes who have worked hard to achieve great things in life.

That is what college is supposed to center on anyway, education, and football is supposed to center of teaching the values of hard work and discipline and teamwork that help in the quest in life.

So, that is lesson number 1 about St. Francis football.