Chuck Sponsky had a role in the coaching success of Carolina Panther Head Coach Matt Rhule

Carolina Panthers Head Coach Matt Rhule

… you never know how much influence you may have over others

Five years ago, former Bishop Carroll and Forest Hills football coach Chuck Sponsky stood in professional football venue and basked in the glory of his young nephew. 

Matt Rhule had just pulled off a stunning upset of his alma mater, Penn State, as Temple overwhelmed James Franklin’s team, 27-10, in a game that was not as close as the score indicated. 

I had never understood the relationship between Sponsky and Rhule, but after Chuck passed away earlier this year, I went exploring and found an interesting story. 

The Temple win over the Nittany Lions

According to a piece written by the Altoona Mirror’s Neil Rudel, the joy of the Temple win was appreciated by the Sponskys,

While the Penn State camp was commiserating last week, it was hard not to feel good for Temple coach Matt Rhule.

Rhule can coach the rest of his life and not have a better day – coming back from 10-0 and totally outcoaching the Nittany Lions, his hometown team as a State College native who was also an ex-PSU reserve.

Underneath Lincoln Financial Field, Rhule’s family deservedly basked in the moment.

For those who don’t know, Rhule is part of the coaching tree of former Forest Hills and Bishop Carroll coach Chuck Sponsky, who was on hand and wearing an ear-to-ear grin along with his son, Craig, who guided Carroll to prominence and is now coaching in Florida.

Sponsky’s wife, Carole, and Rhule’s mother, Gloria, are sisters.

Neil Rudel, “Like Franklin, Paterno struggled early too,” Lock Haven Express, September 12, 2015

That relationship finally explained how Chuck and Matt were uncle and nephew, but the ties went deeper than just that. 

A Philadelphia Inquirer story helped explain the relationship

Rhule spent many of his formative years in New York City, but during the summers, he was able to venture out to Western Pa. to visit with his uncle and aunt and their two children,

On Roosevelt Island, there was grass to play on, Gloria Rhule said, but the games didn't require grass, "sometimes on concrete or a brick courtyard or sliding down steps."

Not a traditional path toward big-time football, but Rhule also had access to that world and lived it in the summer. His uncle, Chuck Sponsky, was a successful high school coach in Western Pennsylvania, and Rhule would spend much of his summer in Sponsky's house. His cousin [Craig] was a little older and a good football player, going on to Towson State, later a coach.

"I can remember reading coaching books or football theory books when I was 8, 9, 10, 11 years old," Rhule said. "The single wing . . . I had like Bill Yeoman [former Houston Cougars coach] on the split-back veer."

Mike Jensen, “Coach Matt Rhule took unique path to 

Temple football job,” Inquirer, August 29, 2016

Family background

While his father was an ordained minister, he also became a coach, and so that was instilled in him at a young age — and reinforced by his uncle, 

The Rhule family took off from Kansas City, setting out for New York City with two young children, family mutt squeezed in, U-Haul behind. Dennis and Gloria Rhule don't want to sound too lofty, but they saw their next move as a calling. Dennis, graduated from the Nazarene Theological Seminary, was ready to begin work as an urban missionary, as an assistant pastor at a church just off Times Square. Gloria would work with at-risk women and children.

Their son remembers most of it, but Matt Rhule, now Temple's football coach, might not recall how before the Rhules reached the East Coast, a rainstorm proved the U-Haul's roof had a leak. The brood stopped in State College, Pa., at the house of Dennis' parents, staying until a mattress dried out. Along the way, they found out that the head pastor was leaving their new church.

"The Lamb's Church of the Nazarene," Matt Rhule said of his father's church on 44th Street in Manhattan. "That's back when Times Square was not Disney. It was rough."

Mike Jensen, Inquirer, August 29, 2016

And as a young boy, he was dreaming of success, as so many young boys do,

"I tell people, when he was five, he'd tell people, 'I'm going to Penn State, play football and become a coach," Dennis Rhule said. "I was like, 'That's nice.' I patted him on the head."

"My dad was a coach, and I wanted to be like my dad," Rhule said.

In addition to being a minister, Dennis Rhule coached all sorts of sports at Manhattan high schools. That's how the bills were paid, as a schoolteacher and coach. Dennis had played football and baseball at Lock Haven.

"By day, my dad would work with kids at this elite private school, and at night and on weekends he would go run the youth center and run midnight basketball until 2 in the morning in rough neighborhoods," Matt Rhule said. "My dad was never the head pastor of a church. That was never really his calling. That was my dad's ministry, being a coach."

Mike Jensen, Inquirer, August 29, 2016

Circuitous route to the NFL

The path that Rhule took to the Carolina Panthers may have been circuitous, but he knew where he was going. 

During his high school years, the family moved to State College, where his parents lived, and he played for two years on the high school team. He then matriculated at Penn State and played football as a walk-on and earned recognition as scholar-athlete, and then started his coaching career at a Div. III school in Reading, Albright College. 

From there he went to Buffalo, UCLA, and Western Carolina. Finally, in 2006, he was hired as a defensive line coach at Temple, and six years later, he became Temple’s head coach. 

That would be a great Horatio Alger story if it ended there, but it continued. 

Turned programs around in his career

The Owls were just 2-10 in his first season, then improved to 6-6, and then finished with a 10-4 record in 2015 and 10-3 in 2016 and captured conference honors. 

That earned him a coaching spot at Baylor, and after a 1-11 start to his career there, the Bears improved to 7-6 and then to 11-3 in 2019, which earned him a shot at a head coaching gig in the NFl. 

The Carolina Panthers are in a rebuilding mode and have shown some signs of progress this season. 

However, what must delight Chuck Sponsky right now is his role in helping a young boy on his quest to succeed as a coach in a game that both of them grew to love.