John YonKondy

Category
1995
About This Inductee

John YonKondy was a football innovator with an outstanding football coaching career record. John is regarded as an astute coach who really put Swoyersville High School on the map. A product of the public school system of his community; he played varsity football as an end in 1929, 1930, 1931, and as a center on the basketball team under this year’s inductee, Edward A. Brominski. YonKondy matriculated at Susquehanna University where he was a four-letter man in football, base-ball, basketball, and track. He graduated in 1936 with a BA, major in math and a minor in physics and English. He came to Swoyersville as a mathematics teacher and set up one of the best math programs any-where in Wyoming Valley. He will tell you many of his football player’s later received scholarships because the scouts said they had an excellent academic background. A big break came for him in 1936 because Edward A. Brominski had received a paying assistant coach job at Berwick and the Swoyersville assistant coach job (at no salary) was given to YonKondy. In 1942 and 1943, YonKondy answered the call of Uncle Sam and served with the U.S. Air Force meteorology group. After a medical discharge from the service in 1943, YonKondy resumed his assistant coaching job until 1945. That year he was promoted to head coach of Swoyersville High when Lou Palermo left to take the Coughlin High School job. YonKondy, a skilled mathematician, immediately embarked on his own program of installing a razzle-dazzle T-formation which many coaches said would not work with young high school boys. The Swoyersville team won the Luzerne County Conference championship in 1945 and 1946 with YonKondy at the helm. His teams also won Northern Division championships in 1950, 1951, and 1956. His career record was 149-43-6. Swoyersville also won in the Wyoming Valley Conference in 1956. To Coach YonKondy’s credit, a total of thirty-six boys made the All-Scholastic team in nineteen (19) years. John is married to the former Anna Puchalsky and resides at 357 Shoemaker Street, Swoyersville. They have three children, JoAnn, Jon, and Susan.