Hall of Fame
When many athletes finish their college careers playing the sports that they love, their competitive days are over. However, if an athlete chooses to play a sport such as tennis, his competitive days don’t have to end when his school days do. Earl Karasack, a member of the third class of California University of Pennsylvania’s Athletic Hall of Fame, continues to play tennis today, even though a hip injury in 1992 ended his competitive career.
“Tennis is a lifelong sport. Once you are out of college, if you played football, you either go to the pros or it is over. I was fortunate that I played tennis because it is a lifetime sport. I continue that in running tennis camps, teaching and playing. I would still be playing competitively now if I didn’t burn my hip out,” Karasack said.
Karasack began playing tennis in junior high for a simple reason - he lived next to the tennis courts in town.
“As a kid, I always played baseball. I thought that baseball was kind of boring. I played left field and in a ball game I might have caught four or five flies. So it was real boring. Then my brother gave me an old tennis racket, and I said, ‘Hey this is really neat. It is nonstop action.’ I think I was about in seventh grade. From then on, that was it. I lived on the tennis court. I spent all of my time there,” he explained.
At Latrobe High School, Karasack played for the tennis team all four years. In both 1948 and 1949, Latrobe won the WPIAL team championship, and he held a junior ranking in the state during his senior year in 1949. Krasack wasn’t yet sure what career path he was going to take. He had taken the vocational course while at Latrobe. If it wasn’t for tennis, he would probably be a tool dye maker, he said.
“At the beginning of my senior year in high school, if someone would have asked me if I was going to go to college, I would have laughed. I said there’s no way. Then, everything change,” Karasack said. “I decided to go to college at California basically so I could continue to play, for all the wrong reasons. My motivation wasn’t graduating and getting a job teaching, which I enjoyed. I just wanted to continue playing.”
Karasack lettered in tennis for four years while at Cal. He had a record of 33 straight wins and helped the 1950 squad to six wins and only one loss. During Karasack’s California career, he only had two singles losses, the first of which didn’t come until he was at the end of his junior year and playing against Washington & Jefferson.
“When I first went to California, I really didn’t know much about the team. They had a lot of guys there during my freshman year who were pretty good players. We had 24-straight wins. California wasn’t really known to be a tennis college until my freshman year,” Karasack said.
“That year, we were undefeated and Duquesne, which was a real tennis power in Pennsylvania, came and played California for the first time. They were loaded with people. I knew two of the guys on the team who were state champions and runners-up. And we beat them. That was picked up by the local and Pittsburgh papers, and they made a big deal about it. After we had beaten them and we were undefeated, we got a lot of press and it made it more interesting,” he continued.
Karasack didn’t play many games during his senior year at California because he was living at home and student teaching in Greensburg. Coach Keller, who was also the drivers’ education teacher, would pick him up for the important matches and then take him back to Greensburg when those matches were over. He said that he played in only about four matches.
After graduating from California in 1953 with an industrial arts teaching degree, Karasack was drafted into the army and worked as a radar technician. While stationed at Fort Bliss, the center for the Fifth army area, he played in a base tennis tournament and won it. He then had the choice to either stay in Fort Bliss as a part of the special services, where he would just play tennis, or go with his group to California to set up a radar installation. He decided to go with the group to California, and after his army service ended, he went back to his hometown of Latrobe and took a job teaching. Karasack also obtained a master’s of education degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1957 under the Army’s GI Bill.
When Karasack began working at his high school alma mater, he taught mechanical drawing in the morning and junior high wood shop in the afternoon. He later moved on to the position of curriculum coordinator for the practical arts. With that job, he was in charge of the industrial arts and home economics courses throughout the Latrobe school district. He taught three classes during the day, and the rest of his time was devoted to supervising throughout the school district.
“When I first came back to Latrobe, it was strange because I was teaching with people that I had as teachers. It was great teaching at Latrobe. I was there for two years, and then I replaced the tennis coach who I had in high school. During the same time, I worked in the summers as a tennis teaching pro at Saint Vincent College. I also gave private lessons,” Karasack said.
Karasack coached the Latrobe High School tennis team from 1958 to 1974. During those years, he compiled an incredible record of 125 wins and 26 losses. He led the squad to one WPIAL team championship, nine WPIAL section championships and one county championship.
In 1970, Karasack was name the WPIAL coach of the year. While he was coaching the high school team, Karasack continued to play in and win local tournaments and United States Tennis Association matches.
“I played for USTA Middle States, Allegheny Mountain Division. What you do is play for rankings, so I played in sanctioned tournaments for a ranking. There are age divisions, so you play in your age division and I did that for years. Right before my hip went out on me, I was playing in the 65 group. That is what I ended up ranked as,” Karasack said.
Finding out that he was to be inducted into the Hall of Fame prompted Karasack to dig through newspaper clippings of his playing career.
He spent an afternoon going through a scrap book that his mother had kept. He said that going through the book and remembering his time at California made for a very pleasant afternoon. He also said that he was very surprised to find out that he had been inducted and that it was nice to be remembered by the school that he liked so much.
“The luckiest thing that I ever did was pick up a racket because I got to go to college. I never thought that I would because I couldn’t afford it. I am really fortunate that I played tennis. It is how I managed to get to California, and it provided with what I loved to do with my life - teach. And, of course, my fondest memory of California is that I met my wife Betty there,” Karasack said.
Earl Karasack was an outstanding men's tennis player at Cal from 1950 through 1953. Karasack's domination helped Cal establish itself as a perennial tennis success. At one stretch, Karasack won 33 consecutive matches before finally losing a match at the end of his junior season.
A four-year letterman, Karasack led the 1950 squad to a 9-1 dual-meet record and lost only two singles matches during his entire four-year career. Karasack lettered all four years and helped the Vulcans win 24 straight matches. A true student and teacher of tennis, Karasack later returned to his scholastic alma matter and coached Latrobe High School from 1958 through 1974, compiling an impressive 125-26 career record with one WPIAL and nine section titles. He was the 1970 WPIAL Coach of the Year and helped Latrobe to WPIAL titles in 1948 and 1949.
Karasack is originally from Latrobe. After graduating from Cal, Karasack served in the Army and won the Fort Bliss singles championship. He earned his master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh and was a teacher in the Latrobe School district until he retired in 1989.
Karasack and his wife Betty, still reside in Latrobe and have one son, Craig.
