Indiana University of Pennsylvania Athletics

It is said that the measure of a man's life is not how long he lives but how fully. Few have lived their life more fully than Bob Prokay.  Unfortunately, his days were all too few, as he passed away at the age of 50, following a two-year battle with brain cancer.
Many at IUP recall Prokay well as the 1968 Boardwalk-Bowl and 1969 football teams' captain who became one of Coach Chuck Klausing's best offensive lineman after never having played football in high school.
To repeat that Prokay was selected to the 1969 AP/Associated Press All-Pennsylvania team, one that included both Division I and II players, that he was named to the Pittsburgh Press all-district team, or that he was voted to the Indians' All-Sixties team, would not begin to tell the story.
While on campus, for example, a company commander in the university's Vietnam-era U. S. Army ROTC, he earned its Distinguished Military Student award while completing a major in business management.
Following graduation, Prokay was assigned to Korea and then Germany, where he served in the Finance Corps and as administrator of a number of military hotels (while also playing Army football).
In 1974, he returned stateside to earn an MBA degree at the University of Utah and to work for Dupont as credit manager and analyst in its Wilmington, Delaware, central office.
Six years later he became assistant treasurer for Ryder Systems in Miami.  Then in 1991 joined the National Gypsum Company headquarters in Charlotte, ultimately becoming Vice President Finance and Treasurer and senior member of the company's Management Committee.
Still, this does not say nearly enough about Prokay the man, whose interests centered as much or more on his family and church as on his work.
One needs to read the 11-page biography written by daughter Karah at age 16, share the thoughts of his associates, see the pictures of him with family and friends in many settings, to begin to grasp his love for life.
Born one of eight children (the oldest of six boys) to steelworker Alex and registered nurse Mary in Duquesne, Prokay did play junior high football but suffered a knee injury and opted to become an all-star baseball catcher in high school. His coach on both teams was fellow 2002 Hall of Fame inductee Bob McFarland, Sr.
Married in 1971 to the former Kathleen Darkes, an IUP interior design graduate who is now proprietor of KDP Designs in Charlotte.  Prokay was the father of Kecia Newman, now 25, a University of North Carolina alumna, Ryan, a senior at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and Karah, now 19, a sophomore at the Boston Museum School of Fine A Its.
He served on vestries (boards) of three different Episcopal churches, was building-fund chair for one, and contributed stints as a Boy Scout troop leader and working for Habitat for Humanity in Miami.