Down River

By John Lipez

(Editor’s Note: Down River and all of us at The Record/therecord-online extend our condolences to the family of local coaching legend Don Malinak who passed away last week at the age of 90. This week’s Down River is a reprint of a July 2022 column written at the time of the revered coach’s 90th birthday).

Belated Birthday Greeting to the Coach
Down River was tied up with Little League streaming duties last Saturday and couldn’t make it to the 90th birthday bash in Flemington for the venerable Don Malinak, retired Lock Haven High School football coach from half a century ago.

Coach Malinak led Lock Haven High School football through one of its several great eras over a century or so. There was the mythical national title team in the mid-1920s and the “Purple Pride” crew under Mike Packer in the 1990s. But in between, from about 1959 through the next couple decades, LHHS football flourished; a time when the Bobcats fearsome reputation alone earned them six points going into most games. And Don Malinak, as head coach, was most responsible for that run of success.

His great coaching record was duly noted last Saturday, his exploits detailed in media/social media coverage afterwards. So how about a look at some behind the scenes recollections from Down River, who has been on that scene since the coach arrived in Lock Haven?

Coach Malinak hit Lock Haven in 1957 (pretty sure the dates here are accurate, pulled pretty much from memory). He showed up just a handful of years out of Penn State where he was a captain and an outstanding two-way end for coach Rip Engle. I believe there was a stint in the Army and then Malinak got his first coaching position heading Captain Jack High School in Mount Union.

Malinak spent a couple years at Captain Jack (now simply called Mount Union High School) and was lured away to Lock Haven (I believe my late father, Harris Lipez, active in community and scholastic athletic affairs at the time, was among those who did the luring). Malinak brought with him a young Bernie Myers out of Uniontown, PA, by way of Lock Haven State Teachers College and together they built the foundation of a football program respected across central Pennsylvania for a long time. (the late Myers, you may or may not recall, was the father of Betsy Dickey who has served so well as a principal at multiple Keystone Central outlets).

Down River first came in contact with Malinak while sitting in one of his health classes in the Lock Haven Junior High School circa 1957. His was a commanding presence even then; you paid attention, you had better.

Public school teachers/coaches did not make a ton of money in those days, so the coach spent a first summer or two in town umpiring baseball games at the Lock Haven Junior League field, now Taggart Field, to make a few extra bucks (and likely to scout for prospective high school football players). A quick umpiring anecdote on coach Malinak’s sometimes (oftentimes?) cutting demeanor:

A Down River junior high classmate, Alfred “Budd” Nihart was the first baseman for one of the junior league teams. At one of those contests, with Malinak behind the plate, Nihart attempted to field a high popup; sadly it came down and caught him on his nose before it hit his glove. It prompted a significant flow of blood. Umpire Malinak, always one to take charge in these situations, came up to Budd, grabbed hold of his bleeding nose and made a diagnosis: “Yep, it’s broken” or words to that effect.

At the high school, as a phys-ed teacher, always in his nifty Penn State warmups, Malinak strode the locker-room and the gym floor with calm assurance; this was his domain and, boys and girls, don’t ever challenge that. On occasion a few of the guys did and they made acquaintance with the end of his always present switch.

Crab ball, I believe it was called, let’s recall that. Gym class participants had to get down, butt-down, and scramble around on all fours, kicking a volleyball to I’m not sure where. But the game served as a way for student participants to gang up on fellow students, get ‘em in a corner and keep kicking. The coach, it is remembered, seemed to take some pleasure in that and no one was ever seriously hurt, to the best of Down River’s knowledge.

(Yes, I know, these things can’t be done in this day and age and there are those among us who say society is the worse because crab ball is no longer played; but this column is not the place to debate that one right now).

And for those among us who happened to be at a Lock Haven at Philipsburg-Osceola wrestling match when two of Don’s sons were upper-weight standouts on the Bobcat squad, this: Both teams were exceptionally strong and the Philipsburg gym was always loud and boisterous. The Mounties came close to edging the Bobcats that year and one or both of the young Malinak boys lost on stalling calls awarded their opponents by referee Milford Pittman. Coach Malinak wasn’t real happy about that and followed the mammoth referee into the gym lobby after the match, expressing his displeasure. In the overall scheme of life, it wasn’t that big a deal, but the coach could get a little bit angry.

There are lots of stories to be told and you can bet many were at the Red Eye last Saturday. And while these stories may come across as strident when you read them, those who played football for coach Malinak, while they feared him, they greatly respected him as he helped guide them through their teenage years. Last weekend many, many of them came out to thank Don Malinak, to pay their respects to the man who did all he could, in his own way, to make them better members of society as they approached adulthood. Yes, there were a lot more wins than losses on the field of play, but coach Malinak’s greatest success story was what he did for so many; Saturday they said thank you.