Bill Priatko turns 94 in a couple of months. The way the awards keep coming in for the former Steeler, he may have as many of them as birthday candles to blow out on Oct. 16.
The latest came at the end of July during an annual lunch of distinguished Western Pennsylvania high school football coaches and select guests at Grandview Golf Club. Former Steelers GM Kevin Colbert and Thomas Jefferson coach Bill Cherpak, who won his 10th WPIAL Championship last season, presented him with the newly created Bill Priatko Award. The certificate reads:
Presented in honor of a distinguished commitment to the game of football marked by exemplary character and steadfast integrity, inspiring pride and uplifting the spirit and well-being of the community.
A tidier summation of Priatko you will not find. And his eyes were as moist as they are blue, as he received the eponymous award that he will give annually to a football coach moving forward.
“It stunned me,” Priatko said, “because something like that never entered my mind.”
Not that awards and accolades are anything new to Priatko. He is a member of three Halls of Fame, including the Western Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. He has represented the 1950s during several Steelers celebrations, most recently in 2023.
And that is just a short list, one that keeps growing. Within the last two years, Priatko has been inducted into the Air Force Honor Guard’s Order of Praetorians and joined his sons Dan and David, both West Point graduates, as a Norwin High School Distinguished Alumni.
Priatko taught at Norwin but did not attend that school; he was recognized as a Friend of Norwin by the Distinguished Alumni committee.
How fitting.
Priatko has so many friends that the ones he made through football alone could have their own wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Paul Brown and Chuck Noll. Bart Starr and Franco Harris.
And, of course, Dick LeBeau.
The former Steelers defensive coordinator is Priatko’s best friend, and the two still regularly talk on the phone. They roomed together in 1959 at the Cleveland Browns training camp, and those were different times.
Camp lasted nine weeks, the first three in pads every day, twice a day. Teams played six preseason games, something Priatko and most others loved. The reason: they were paid $50 a game.
“We thought we were millionaires,” Priatko said.
If millions are measured in relationships, Priatko is Bill Gates — with hands that still look strong enough to crush a mailbox.
That is why the annual lunch at Asti’s Italian Steakhouse, where he became an unwitting honoree, means so much to him.
It started more than a decade ago with Priatko and a couple of legendary high school coaches, Pete Antimarino and Chuck Klausing. It steadily grew, and the group now includes Cherpak, Eric Kasperowicz, Joe Hamilton, Mark Lyons, Dan Matsook, Gene Matsook, Jack McCurry, Pat Monroe, Tom Nola, George Novak, Jim Render, Mike Smijanac, George Smith, and Don Yanessa. Former WPIAL executive director Tim O’Malley is also in the group.
Many of them were at this year’s lunch, and these aren’t just names.
They are a Who’s Who of Western Pennsylvania high school coaches, past and present. They have won almost 70 WPIAL titles combined—a slew of state championships, too.
Franco Harris, so impressed by this gathering of greatness, once called Priatko to ask if he could attend. He ended up speaking twice at the event, including five months before he passed in 2022.
LeBeau has also spoken twice at it, including 2024. This year, he called to say hello, via cell speakerphone, and wish everyone well. Former Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel followed him as the guest speaker, spinning LeBeau and other stories for almost half an hour.
Keisel held court after lunch, one in which Priatko ordered a sandwich that isn’t just any sandwich.
Priatko’s Reuben is piled high with corned beef, and even its namesake’s prodigious appetite was no match for it.
LeBeau, whom Priatko ate lunch with every in-season Friday at the Steelers’ practice facility for years, would have been shocked.
Just as Priatko was when Colbert and Cherpak presented him with something that was so much more than a framed certificate.
“To have all these accolades and honors coming my way, it makes me wonder why are these coming my way as my path in life narrows?” Priatko said. “I’m just so grateful, and the best way to say it is God has been good to me.”
