Dieruff High School’s football tradition always was branded with the image of having blue-collar, rough and tough, physical players who loved to win in the trenches.
But in 1979 when the Huskies had one of the greatest seasons in school history, winning the East Penn Conference title with a 10-0-1 record, the team’s star running back was as physical as any of the team’s linemen.
His name was Dave Kurisco, who would just as soon run over defensive players as he would run around them.
Kurisco put up staggering numbers.
He rushed for 3,830 yards in his career, including 1,982 yards as a senior in that special 1979 season when he had 22 touchdowns and six two-point conversions for 144 points.
At the time, he had the second-highest single-season rushing total in District 11 history behind only Stroudsburg legend Artie Owens, who ran for 2,061 yards in 1971.
But it was more than Kurisco’s running ability that made him special. It was his toughness and team-first attitude.
Lots of memories about Dieruff’s legendary No. 20 came rushing back in recent days after Kurisco died last week at the age of 64.
The Dieruff football team went undefeated in 1979. Dieruff players and captains Rich Gimbor, Dave Kurisco, and Rich Sniscak, and Coach Bruce Trotter celebrate with city championship trophy at a banquet. (Morning Call File Photo).
“I had the good fortune of playing alongside Dave for four years, starting in ninth grade at Harrison-Morton and then for three years at Dieruff,” said Rich Sniscak, the former Allen and Parkland football coach and District 11 Hall of Famer who was Dieruff’s quarterback in 1979. “In that four-year period, we lost a total of three games. Dave was the primary reason for this success as he established himself as a premier running back in the Lehigh Valley and state.”
Tyrone Reed, another member of the 1979 team and the brother of Pro Football Hall of Famer Andre Reed, had to deal with Kurisco at practice and remembers trying to tackle him.
“That guy had the ability to run around you, over you and through you and I pitied any defensive back that tried to tackle him,” Reed said. “In practices, I played both ways as did Rich Sniscak and Rich Gimbor. I had the opportunity to try to tackle him, and it didn’t scare me, but I knew I was going to be in for a battle.”
Reed said that even though Kurisco got a lot of attention and headlines, he was as humble as any team member.
“As far as him as a person, he was genuine, he was a good guy,” Reed said. “He was one of us. He was down-to-earth, a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back if you asked him. We hung up our entire high school career and it’s heartbreaking to see him leave this earth. We’re going to miss him.”
Dieruff’s 1979 championship football team (left to right) had a reunion and celebrated the team’s undefeated season. Team members included Rich Sniscak, Ron Carl, Bruce Trotter, Dave Kurisco, Tyrone Reed and Rich Gimbor.(Illustration by Cesar Laure and Craig Larimer The Morning Call)
Gimbor, who also played with Kurisco at Ferrum College near Roanoke, Virginia, before Gimbor moved on to Marshall University, was also a close friend. In fact, he joined Sniscak and Reed in visiting their longtime buddy a few days before his death.
“We were friends all through junior high and high school, and we were undefeated at Harrison-Morton and then we started together in 10th grade at Dieruff and he was just so explosive,” Gimbor said. “I had never seen a running back like him, even at Ferrum or Marshall. He had short legs, but big thighs. He didn’t cut or turn, he would just run you over. If he got out in the open, no one was catching him because he was so fast.
“At Dieruff I was the fullback, and he would follow me up the middle and my back would always burn and it was because of his spikes always going up my back. He was low to the ground, and he just was tough to bring down.”
After graduating, Kurisco suffered a detached retina while participating in a practice for the Pennsylvania team in the Big 33 Classic.
“That set him back quite a bit because he didn’t play a lot in his first year at Ferrum, and then he played in his second year,” Gimbor said. “I think he worried about the detached retina, and it affected him. While I saw glimpses of his greatness at Ferrum, he wasn’t where he should have been. Ferrum at the time, was a junior college, and it was the best place in the country to go and get a Division I scholarship. It just didn’t happen for Dave.”
But memories of Kurisco’s ability live on in the hearts and minds of his teammates and Dieruff alumni and fans, who would love to see the Huskies return to a place of prominence in local football.
Typically, Kurisco gave credit to others at a reunion honoring the team on the 25th anniversary of its special season in 2004.
“It was a whole team effort,” Kurisco said. “The line didn’t get the credit it deserved. Everything in the paper was about me, but I knew it wasn’t just me. You take a guy like [fullback] Rich Gimbor. In the locker room at the end of a game, I had my facemask marks all over the back of him. He made sure I got through the holes.”
In the fourth game of the 1979 season, Kurisco put himself in the EPC record books for points (38) and touchdowns (six) in a game when Dieruff routed Central Catholic and its talented quarterback Andy Baranek, 48-27. It was just one of many memorable moments in a special season and career.
“I had the good fortune to play with and coach many outstanding running backs and Dave was the best I played with or coached,” Sniscak said. “Dave was all-league, all-state and the MVP in the Big 33 Classic. He had more yards after contact than any back I ever played with or coached. Dieruff had its share of outstanding tailbacks through the years. … Mark Howard, Tony Jordan, Kevin Easterling and Tosh Riddick among them. In no way am I diminishing their talent or accomplishments, but Dave Kurisco was the best I have ever seen.
“The 1979 team is not unbeaten without him,” Sniscak added. “He was the best!”
Both Reed and Gimbor said that any Mount Rushmore of Dieruff football legends would have to include Kurisco.
“Besides being a great player, he was a good guy,” Gimbor said. “One of the traditions we had was before every game we’d all go over to his house on the East Side and his mom would make dinner. We never wanted to miss it because we were superstitious and we didn’t lose a game when we went to his house for dinner. Also, his dad had a friend, Ripper Rich, who had the Beef Baron place off Catasauqua Road. The owner said to Dave that for every touchdown he scored, he’d get a Delmonico steak sandwich. Well, Dave scored a lot of touchdowns, so we went over there and ate pretty well.”
Funeral arrangements were private, but a special memorial mass and celebration of life is being planned.