Indiana University of Pennsylvania Athletics

The story of Johnny Kostas as a World War II era student-athlete at what was then Indiana State Teachers College is the stuff movies are made of. The plotlines, character and setting go like this.

Take a young man raised in the Depression in a Western Pennsylvania bridge-building town, Ambridge, who despite weighing only 135 pounds had become an all-state end in football.

Send him in 1941 to what was then the country, Indiana. Pennsylvania, to major in geography, social studies, and general science and to play football for the legendary George P. Miller.

The stage set, Kostas became one of two freshmen to start that year. (The other was longtime Homer-Center coach and Indiana postmaster Buff Fanella, who nominated Kostas for today's honor).

He also wrestled and took up boxing. Two years later, Kostas was called to U. S. Marine Corps service in World War II, and it would be I947 before he returned to ISTC to complete his degree awarded in '49.

While in the Marines, at Cherry Point North Carolina, he coached the base team to the national AAU championship, something no other military-service team had done in the sport before or since. He posted a 38-3-1 welterweight record himself.

After returning to campus, he again took to the football field, wrestling mats and boxing ring (although the sport was not resumed as a team sport). It was in the latter that Kostas achieved a distinction matched by no other Indian, ever.

The distinction came in 1948 when he was tabbed by the CAA to box in its national tournament at the University of Wisconsin.

Despite not having fought a college bout that year, Kostas was acclaimed by writers covering the tourney for his showing against the Pacific Coast champ.

Later, through the 1980s, Kostas managed and trained numerous boxers who excelled in Golden Glove and AAU boxing, including two international champions and 1993 IUP grad Leland Hardy, who won a Pennsylvania Golden Gloves title and a Madison Square Garden "Fight of the Year."

Sports editor of The Indiana Countian and football coach at Homer-Center High soon after graduating from IUP, Kostas followed sales-manager posts with ALCOA by owning and managing Indiana’s still-missed Capitol Restaurant on Philadelphia Street until 1974.

Married to Patti, Kostas has two sons. Dr. Michael and Nicholas, who both reside in Georgia, and three stepdaughters, Debbie Norman, Jodie Armstrong and Dori Sirrozotti.