BY MIKE MASTOVICH
In Johnstown, George Azar will always be linked to his winning field goal kick in the Trojans’ 3-0 victory over Clairton during the 1958 WPIAL championship game at Pitt Stadium.
That lasting memory Azar and his teammates created is only part of an athletic career that took him to the college ranks as a player and a coach, and to the NFL as a top executive. That resume also has placed Azar into four halls of fame.
His latest induction was Saturday, as Azar was among 12 members of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2009 honored during a banquet at the Crowne Plaza in Reading.
“I live in New Jersey, but my state and everything I believe in is in Pennsylvania,” said Azar, 68, a resident of Cherry Hill, N.J., near Philadelphia, during a Wednesday telephone interview. “When you’re recognized by your home state, that’s at the top of the ladder.”
Azar previously had been inducted into the Delaware Valley Sports Hall of Fame, which made him eligible for induction into the state hall.
The Cambria County Sports Hall of Fame (1998) and AAABA Hall of Fame (2004) each had inducted Azar locally.
“Growing up in Johnstown, I was very fortunate,” Azar said.
“What I had there was great coaches in football, in baseball, in wrestling, and great teammates, a number of whom could go into these halls of fame. Everybody just pushed each other to make themselves a little bit better. But you were always striving to do your best as a team. Growing up in that area, sports was of paramount interest to everyone. To be successful made the whole town proud. They looked up to the athletes and they felt good when anybody succeeded.”
The 1958 Trojans were undefeated and won the WPIAL crown in front of a huge crowd at Pitt Stadium. Azar was an all-state lineman and placekicker, whose only field goal of the season translated into three of the biggest points in Johnstown’s football history.
That winter, Azar was a leader on the Trojans wrestling team. He won the 185-pound state title in 1959. His baseball career included league titles and individual success.
“All of us were very, very close,” Azar said of his high school teammates. “We communicate with each other quite often, probably weekly for a great many of us. The football team was undefeated. The wrestling team was undefeated. Our baseball team won the Tri-County championship for years and years under Blacklie Mihalic. Being involved with the Junior League and the AAABA, Johnstown was really a hotbed of great athletics. Look at the people who came out of there like (Pete) Vuckovich, (Thomas) Yewcic, (Jeff) Hostetler, (Dave) Roman, (Pete) Duranko and (Jack) Ham.”
Azar’s 19 home runs during the 1960 season set a Johnstown Junior League record that stood until Keith Williams shattered the mark in the then-aluminum-bat league in 1990.
At Michigan State, Azar was a three-year starter at guard and linebacker on the football team and a catcher on the baseball team from 1960-62.
He was head coach at Lafayette College from 1965-69 and served as an assistant at the University of Pennsylvania for 10 years. Azar served two years as a volunteer with the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles before being named in 1984 as a special assistant to Eagles President Harry Gamble. Azar spent 10 years with the Eagles before stepping down in April 1995 shortly after Jeffrey Lurie purchased the team and Gamble departed to take a position in the NFL office in New York.
“It was tremendous working in the NFL,” Azar said. “I was always out on the field every day and down in the locker room every day. You’re talking about the elite of the elite of the players.
“They do things that when you sit in the stands and see them they all look about the same. When you get down close and you’re with them, you realize how big some of these guys are and what they can do. They are just amazing athletes. They can do things that a common, ordinary person could never even hope to do. That includes me.
“An example of that was Reggie White. When we had him, Reggie was 285 pounds and he ran a 4.65 40 for us two different times,” Azar added. “He was as strong as you could ever imagine, and he had just a great personality.”
His former Johnstown teammates Jerry Davitch and Ed Adamchik as well as his brother Jim Azar, of Johnstown, were among a gathering of friends and family who attended Saturday’s banquet in support of George Azar.
The hall of famer joined a select group of Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Famers with ties to Johnstown and the surrounding region. Vuckovich (2008, baseball) and Duranko (2006, football) were recent inductees. Others with local or regional ties in the state hall are Tom Vargo (1995, football), Steve Petro (1980, football), William T. “Skip” Hughes (1973, basketball), Maurice Stokes (1967, basketball), Johnny Weissmuller (1967, swimming) and Arnold Palmer (1963, golf).
