Uniontown’s Dunn used athletics as springboard to education, career
Richard Dunn used athletics as a springboard to a college education and a career in academics. Dunn was a standout on the gridiron and the wrestling mat at Uniontown High School in the 1950s.
The 167-pound Dunn played for coach Bill Power’s Red Raiders. He was on teams that posted records of 9-1 in 1953, 8-2 in 1954 and 4-5-1 in 1955.
“I had forgotten how good the 1953 team was,” Dunn recalled. “The only loss was to Brownsville 14-7. We had tremendous players like Chuck Zawacki and I saw the start of Sandy Stephens’ great football career.”
Dunn played sparingly as a sophomore, but grew into a starting role.
“I gradually grew into a role on the team,” Dunn stated. “I played guard and linebacker. When I got to college I didn’t play at all my freshman year and played center in college.”
Dunn had a first hand view of the rise of Uniontown’s football fortunes under Power.
“Power was a tremendous coach,” Dunn offered. “He turned the program around when he came in from Point Marion and had a very good staff. He was a gentleman and it wasn’t all about athletics, you had to perform in the classroom as well. I had a good relationship with Coach Power and always enjoyed seeing him in later years.”
Dunn was also a stellar wrestler for the Red Raiders at 157 pounds.
“I was a fair wrestler in high school,” Dunn said. “It was wrestling that I really went to Allegheny College for because they were just starting a new conference at the time and I was really quite excited about the prospects. Max Zane was our wrestling coach at Uniontown until he became vice principal and then Charles Kalmanek, who was also the equipment manager for the football team, took over as wrestling coach. He was a great guy. Wrestling wasn’t very popular. It was a distant third behind basketball and football.
“Basketball was popular because Uniontown had great success, football became very popular after Coach Power came in. Uniontown athletics was the only game in town and we had great support from the community and a strong booster club.”
When Dunn graduated from Uniontown in 1956 he was looking for a school to continue his education in college.
“I looked at a number of schools coming out and I didn’t have very good SAT scores,” Dunn explained. “There was a fellow by the name of Dick Buerger who played football and basketball at Uniontown. He was going to Allegheny College and he was a very good friend of mine. I had been debating between Washington & Jefferson, Penn State and a few other places. I wasn’t real excited about any of them.
“It was March or April of my senior year and Buerger saw and told me they were starting a new conference at Allegheny and they are really anxious to get wrestling going. I went to visit Allegheny and I liked it so well that they took me as a late admit.”
Dunn wrestled for four years at Allegheny and had great success for the Gators. Dunn served as captain of the wrestling team his senior year and was Presidents’ Athletic Conference champion at 167 pounds in 1959 and at 177 pounds in 1960. In the 1958-59 seasons he was undefeated, and altogether Dunn lost only three wrestling matches in four seasons.
“I didn’t play football my freshman year because I wanted to concentrate on my studies and wrestling,” Dunn said. “I decided to play football my sophomore year, and by then I was able to get up to about 190 pounds for football and then I had to get down to 167 or 177 for wrestling and that was a pain.”
Dunn played under William Moore as a sophomore and he was also the wrestling coach, then John Chuckran came in and coached football and wrestling in Dunn’s junior and senior seasons. Allegheny posted records of 3-4-1 in 1957 and 1958. It was during Dunn’s senior campaign that the Gators sported the best record, 6-2, of his four years.
The squad scored 102 points to the opponents’ 54 for the season, downing teams from Washington & Jefferson, Bethany, Grove City, Dickinson, Case and Thiel and dropping two to Rochester and Wayne State.
“We were very proud of that squad,” Dunn stated.
Dunn served the Gators as co-captain his senior season and was named to the All-Methodist Team in 1958 and in 1959.
“First of all I’m not Methodist,” Dunn explained. “Allegheny College had very loose ties to the Methodist Church, there apparently was a national Methodist Church magazine. Press people at the various colleges submitted names, and the enterprising SID at Allegheny submitted my name for the college division. There was a college division and a university division. One of the things that I’ve always been proud of was that I made the team on the college division. The quarterback on the university division team was Don Meredith of SMU.”
It was also his junior and senior seasons that Dunn won the Francis W. Myford ’26 Memorial Award, which is presented to the Allegheny football player with the highest grade point average.
Dunn was inducted into the Allegheny Athletic Hall of Fame in 1981.
Following his graduation from Allegheny with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1960, Dunn received his master’s degree from Western Reserve University in 1961 and his doctorate in 1964 from the same institution.
From 1964 through 1967 Dunn was a member of the faculty at the United States Air Force Academy. From 1967 until he retired in 2007 Dunn taught English at the University of Washington, where he is now professor Emeritus. He has written nine books. While at Washington he served 10 years from 1992 to 2002 on the NCAA Infractions Board.
Dunn, 76, resides in Seattle with his wife of 54 years Virginia. They have two daughters and a son, and six grandchildren.
Dunn used to return to Uniontown on a regular basis until his mother passed away in 2003.
“Uniontown remains a big part of my life,” Dunn said. “It’s always there in my mind and I have very visual memories of my hometown.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in Monday editions of the 缅北禁地. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.