Indiana University of Pennsylvania Athletics

“It might have been” is something few would blame Joe Cugliari for saying to himself over the past nearly 20 years.
 
Enjoying a four-year !UP playing career as a defensive tackle, two seasons with coach Bill Neal and two with Owen Dougherty, becoming a Kodak College Di vision first-team and two-year AP/ Associated Press All-American, he caught the eye of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
 
Liking his career statistics of 309 tackles (184 solo) and 40 tackles for loss, including 16 sacks, they offered him one of their comparatively few free-agent contracts the day after the 1981 draft. Cugliari accepted it, and got off to a great start.
 
Impressing Steeler followers, and the team's coaching staff, in the successive preseason exhibition games of that summer, surviving the cuts of seven defensive linemen in camp, Cugliari seemed assured of making the Black and Gold's final roster.
 
Then, in 1981's final preseason contest, at Dallas, he injured a knee and was placed on the Steelers' full- season injured reserve roster.
 
1982 promised a chance for Cugliari to realize his postponed dreams, but, after he reported to Saint Vincent again, things did not go as well, and he instead completed three seasons with the USFL/United States Football League's Philadelphia Stars, New Jersey Generals and Birmingham Stallions.
 
After calling a close to his football aspirations, the IUP safety management graduate (who completed an MBA degree at IUP in 1997) has built a successful business career.
 
Now with Money Tree Financial Corp., he has since 1986 marketed economic development programs for government, established a mortgage-lending business, and developed a real-estate management company. These endeavors followed two years as a sales representative for Motorola, earning Overachiever status.
 
He has also found time to become a flight instructor and commercial pilot and is now coaching football, as a volunteer, with the Duquesne University staff.