Mike Zmijanac had been retired as a high school football coach for only a few days when he was asked how he would like to be remembered. His answer was brief and without hesitation.
“As a really good teacher,” Zmijanac said.
But in reality, what made Zmijanac one of the most successful coaches in WPIAL football history was being a really good learner.
It was the early 1970s and Zmijanac was a junior-high basketball coach at Aliquippa. Don Yannessa, the second-year varsity football coach, had known Zmijanac for years and asked Zmijanac to be a junior-high football coach.
“I told Don, ‘I don’t know. I never played football,’” Zmijanac said. “He told me, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll teach you.’ I guess the rest is history.”
Zmijanac turned out to be a great student. For the next 48 falls, Zmijanac coached high school football, either as an assistant or head coach. But he coached his final game last week when he retired after two seasons at Seton LaSalle.
Look on the list of the winningest coaches in WPIAL history and Yannessa and Zmijanac are next to each other at 11th and 12th. How appropriate. Yannessa is known as a legendary coach whose success, style and personality made him unique. The same goes for Zmijanac, who also is one-of-a-kind in many ways.
WPIAL football should miss Zmijanac, and what happened his final three seasons at Ringgold and Seton LaSalle (3-23 record) shouldn’t take the shine off the silver-haired fox. As Mt. Lebanon coach Bob Palko said this week, “Nick Saban wouldn’t win at those places right now.”
The 70-something Zmijanac said “it was just time” to get out of football coaching for a few reasons, mostly because of his family. But he will always be remembered for what he did at Aliquippa, building a dynasty before he was ousted by the Aliquippa school board in a controversial move after the 2017 season. This is no knock to current Aliquippa coach Mike Warfield, because if Zmijanac had to go, Warfield was a great fit to take over. Warfield has done a tremendous job. But Zmijanac deserved better after what he did for Aliquippa as an assistant coach, head coach, basketball head coach and 39 years as a creative writing and American literature teacher.
And please stop with the malarkey that anyone can win at Aliquippa with the talent that is in the district. Zmijanac most certainly had plenty of talent, but in 40 years of covering WPIAL football, I have yet to meet a high school coach who wins consistently with a bunch of mediocre talent.
Besides, there is something to be said for knowing what to do with talent. And if anyone can win at Aliquippa, why was Zmijanac the first coach in WPIAL history to take a team to a championship game 10 consecutive seasons? The guy was 237-36 (.868 winning percentage) in 21 years at Aliquippa and is one of only eight coaches to win six WPIAL titles. And don’t forget he also was Aliquippa’s basketball coach for a while and has state championships in both football and basketball.
There is so much more than Xs and Os that goes into coaching high school, and especially at a place like Aliquippa. It’s not always an easy place to coach and it should never be overlooked how Zmijanac impacted many teenagers lives – in various ways.
“Anyone who knows me or knows me well, knows this is true: I’m more self-satisfied with my teaching experiences,” said Zmijanac, who had a 240-59 career record in 24 seasons. “I thought I was pretty good at that. I loved teaching. The thing about me coaching came by accident. I wasn’t a head coach until I was in my 50s.”
Zmijanac still takes the high road about what happened at Aliquippa.
“The single greatest thing that ever happened to me was growing up in Aliquippa,” Zmijanac said. “As far as I’m concerned, nothing happened there. They chose not to renew my contract and did what they thought was best. But as far as holding a grudge or being crazy with anger, that’s silly. How can anyone, with the teaching and coaching career I had there, be upset with the people who lived there or who I worked with?”
Zmijanac was an old-school coach who believed in discipline, doing things a certain way without showboating. And if you didn’t like him or agree? Tough. When he coached basketball, his players once wore warmup T-shirts that read, “Shut Up And Play.”
Zmijanac’s style, attitude and beliefs are what made him unique. And oh, the Mike Zmijanac stories. Everyone in Aliquippa seems to have one. I dealt with Zmijanac as a reporter for 35 years and most certainly have a few unforgettable stories. One of the most memorable is from Zmijanac’s days as a basketball coach when he directed his team to play a “box-and-one” defense – on an official.
He’s not proud of the story, but does crack a little smile when reminded of it. Let’s just say Zmijanac had a reputation at times for “working” the officials. He wasn’t overly enthralled at an official in one Aliquippa basketball game, so he called a timeout and told one of his players to follow the official all over the court in a pseudo “box-and-one.” After a brief period, the official caught on, wasn’t happy and approached Zmijanac, who replied, “My dad always told me if there is one guy who is killing you, just play a box-and-one on him. And you’re killing us.”
Zmijanac was promptly slapped with a technical foul.
Zmijanac also had a unique way with the media at times. I will always remember years ago after the WPIAL basketball pairings were announced at a hotel in Green Tree, I approached Zmijanac and wanted to know the status of Josh Lay, a star player who had missed a few games for unknown reasons. When asked if Lay would play in the playoffs, Zmijanac answered, “It’s none of your (expletive) business.”
I replied, “No, it is my business. It’s what I do. It’s my job to at least ask.”
Zmijanac replied, “Fine, you can ask, but it’s still none of your (expletive) business.”
Today, we laugh about that time. But Zmijanac had many memorable lines. In 2003, after Darrelle Revis had one of the best performances in PIAA championship game history, Zmijanac stood on the Hersheypark Stadium field and said he felt like Ron Turcotte, horse jockey who rode Secretariat to a Triple Crown decades earlier. A dozen years later, Zmijanac stood on the same field, but after a loss in a PIAA championship. When his Turcotte comment was brought up, Zmijanac said, “I feel like Barbaro this time. That’s the horse they shot.”
Zmijanac knew all season that this would be his last, but he didn’t let it out until last weekend, “because I didn’t want a farewell tour.”
He won’t get sentimental reminiscing about his coaching days, because that’s just not him. He thanked his many players and made a point to thank his wife, Michelle, his children and gave a “special shoutout’ to Sherman McBride, a former Aliquippa player who was Zmijanac’s longtime assistant at Aliquippa and also was an assistant at Seton LaSalle.
“I think I’ve been around him since he was in eighth grade, and that tells you something,” Zmijanac said. “I certainly appreciate all the guys who have been with me ever since starting with Yannessa. There’s just too many to mention.”
He is looking forward to retirement from football.
“I don’t know if I’m going to miss anything,” Zmijanac said, “because it’s not like it was my whole life.”
But it was a great coaching life.
Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mwhiteburgh
First Published: October 29, 2020, 10:30 a.m.
