California University of Pennsylvania Athletics

Dr. Andrew Machusko was a power-hitting four-year starting outfielder for the Vulcan baseball team from 1956 through 1959.

Playing in considerably shorter seasons than the modern era, Machusko, who once hit three home runs in one game, had a .516 career batting average and .956 slugging percentage. His collegiate coach was the late Andy Sepsi, a 1996 Mon Valley Hall of Fame selection.

Machusko cracked the Vulcans’ starting lineup as a freshman batting seventh. After hitting a pair of home runs that day in a doubleheader and then another round-tripped the next game, he was then installed as Cal’s cleanup hitter and never missed a game in four years. As a freshman, he helped the Vulcans compile an 8-5 overall record and hit well over .500 his first three seasons.

During his senior year, Machusko batted a team-best .485 and helped the Vulcans to their third winning season in four years. Also a member of the school’s astronomy club, Machusko finished his stellar collegiate baseball career with 20 multiple-hit games.

He is the first Vulcan baseball player from his era to receive the university’s highest athletic honor, and this noteworthy achievement is a special one for Machusko nearly 50 years after his playing career.

“It means a lot to me and my children,” Machusko said. “They never saw me play obviously, but every now and then, they would run into somebody who would say your dad was a great ballplayer and so forth. This kind of validates it I guess, and I am happy for them and myself, because it is certainly a big honor.”

Sepsi, who was also a biology professor and assistant football coach at Cal, was one of just four head coaches the consistently successful Cal baseball team has had since 1950. Cal U Hall of Famer Mitch Bailey was an assistant coach under Sepsi and became Cal’s head baseball coach following Machusko’s senior season.

“He was easy to play for and more or less a fair person who just let us play,” said Machusko about Sepsi. “There really was not a whole lot of strategy involved in the games we played back then; it was just hit and run and bunts, but we played hard.”

Several of Machusko’s teammates at Cal included Stan “Nunny” Milchovich, Don “Doc” Franks and Joe Sarra. During his college days, Machusko was the only Fayette County player invited to compete in an all-star game at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field sponsored by an extensive newspaper chain.

Playing back in the 1950s was considerably different than today’s technology driven era according to Machusko.

“It was so long ago that it’s kind of tough to remember many specifics,” Machusko said. “We never went south like they do now, so weather would cause some rainouts and then it would be boom, boom, boom, with a bunch of games and then school was out. We just made the most of it.”

Originally from Hiller, Pa., Machusko is a 1955 graduate of Brownsville High School. He became a starter on the Falcon baseball team midway through his junior season and had the only RBI in a 1-0 season finale victory that gave Brownsville the section title. During his senior year, Machusko helped Brownsville advance to the WPIAL quarterfinals in 1955 and batted higher than .400 each of his last two seasons. His high school coach was Cal U emeritus professor Charlie Slick.

Machusko also played with the Fredericktown team of the American Legion and helped that squad win two section titles. He also was a perennial all-star selection in the highly popular and competitive Fayette County League from 1955 through 1964. Teams he played for included Allison, LaBelle, Luzerne, Coolspring and Brownsville. Known for his prodigious home runs, speed and acrobatic defensive play, Machusko had a.464 career batting average and .801 slugging percentage and was a key member of Fayette championships teams with Luzerne, Coolspring, and Brownsville.

He received his bachelor’s degree from Cal U in secondary education/mathematics in 1959 and then went on to earn his master’s degree and Ph.D. both in mathematics from the University of Georgia. He began his teaching career as a math instructor at Georgia while completing his education and from there taught two years at the University of Tennessee. Machusko then returned to the area went on to enjoy a distinguished 33-year teaching career in Cal U’s mathematics and computer science department before retiring in 2003. Upon retirement, he was granted emeriti faculty status. Two current Cal U mathematics and computer science faculty members, Franks and George Novak, were strong advocates of Machusko’s most-deserved Hall of Fame induction.

“It was really a great job, and I enjoyed lecturing and explaining how to solve problems to the students,” Machusko said. “I didn’t particularly like grading the tests, especially when the classes got bigger, because I would grade them line-by-line so they could see where they made their mistakes. There were no multiple choice questions and stuff like that. But, we had a great department and got along pretty well.”

Though he has been retired for three years, Machusko is well aware of and impressed with the many recent physical changes on the campus.

“My last few years I taught in the Eberly building, and it was very nice,” said Machusko. “Over the summer, my sister-in-law came in to visit, and we took a ride down and looked around. The campus is really something to see with all of the new buildings. It’s just unbelievable.”

Machusko still resides in Brownsville with his wife, Janice, a 1962 Cal U graduate. The couple is the parents of two grown children who are also Cal U alumni, Maureen ´89 and Sean ´93.