Legendary Braddock football coach Chuck Klausing dies at age 92

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, February 15, 2018 | 7:45 PM

Chuck Klausing, the legendary football coach who led Braddock to six consecutive WPIAL titles, with a 56-game unbeaten streak from 1954-59, died at age 92 on Thursday night in Indiana, Pa.

He also coached at IUP and Carnegie Mellon and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1998. It was one of eight halls of fame to honor him.

His college coaching record was 123-26-2, including a trip to the 1968 Boardwalk Bowl with IUP.

After playing center at Penn State and Slippery Rock in the 1940s, Klausing coached at Pitcairn High School (1948-53) before moving on to Braddock (1954-59).

He then spent time as an assistant coach at Rutgers and Army before taking over as head coach at IUP (1964-69).

After five seasons as a West Virginia assistant coach, he led Carnegie Mellon from 1976-85.

He was an assistant coach at Pitt in 1986 and then coached at Kiski Prep from 1987-93.

Two books have chronicled Klausing's outstanding coaching career, “Never Lost a Game (Time Ran Out)” was published in 1997 by Bob Fulton.

In 2014, Gregory Nichols wrote “Striking Gridiron” detailing the 1959 football season when Braddock had the most difficult of its six WPIAL championship drives with the backdrop of the four-month United Steelworkers strike, dragging down the town's economy that had already experienced a downturn with many families moving out to the suburban boom towns of Monroeville and Churchill.

Braddock's success was also part of a four-page spread in Sports Illustrated on Nov. 2, 1959, when the Tigers were seeking to better the nation's longest winning streak of 53 games at the time.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by the Bowser-Minich Funeral Home, 500 Ben Franklin Road South, Indiana. Viewing will be 2-8 p.m. Sunday. Other arrangements, such as the time of Monday's Funeral Mass, will be determined Friday.