Frank Piekarski: Nanticoke native 'developed into a star' at Penn
Piekarski made Walter Camp's All-America team in back-to-back seasons.
The 1904 University of Pennsylvania football team stands the test of time as one of the sport’s all-time dominant squads.
Penn won the national championship with a 12-0 record and 11 shutouts, including an 11-0 win at Harvard and 34-0 drubbing of Cornell. The star of each game? According to many, Frank Piekarski stole the show in both contests.
Born Aug. 17, 1879, in Nanticoke, Piekarski graduated from Wyoming Seminary before attending Penn.
Piekarski was a third-team All-American guard in 1903. It was a down year, at least by Penn’s standards, with the Quakers posting a 9-3 record and Piekarski being the team’s only player to attain All-America status.
The following year, Piekarski made first team and so did two of his teammates in quarterback Vince Stevenson and fullback Andy Smith.
So, about those two big games in the second half of the 1904 season …
Penn and Harvard were both undefeated when they met on Saturday, Oct. 29, 1904, in Cambridge, Mass. Touchdowns were worth four points each and Piekarski scored both Penn touchdowns in the 11-0 win. Three weeks later on Nov. 24, Penn clinched its undefeated season by routing Cornell, 34-0, and Piekarski’s hometown newspaper, the Wilkes-Barre Leader, sang the local star’s praises following the contest.
“NANTICOKE BOY PLAYED BRILLIANTLY,” read the headline.
“(Piekarski) improved with the team,” the newspaper reported. “From a fair player, he developed into a star, Penn’s best guard since (Truxtun) Hare. All this year, his blonde head has been a plume of victory and if he fights his way through life as well as he has on the football field, Old Penn will have cause to be proud of Lawyer Piekarski.”
Piekarski graduated from Penn’s law school. He was head coach for three winning seasons at Washington & Jefferson before enjoying a long, successful career as a judge in Pittsburgh.
When Piekarski, 71, died in 1951, one obituary additionally touted him as “an outstanding leader of the Polish community” in the Pittsburgh area.
Greater Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area All-American roll call
1894: Charles Gelbert, University of Pennsylvania (Hawley native, Scranton public schools)
1895: Alfred E. Bull, University of Pennsylvania (Wilkes-Barre native, Wyoming Seminary); Charles Gelbert, University of Pennsylvania (Hawley native, Scranton public schools)
1896: Charles Gelbert, University of Pennsylvania (Hawley native, Scranton public schools)
1903: Frank Piekarski, University of Pennsylvania (Nanticoke native, Wyoming Seminary)
1904: Frank Piekarski, University of Pennsylvania (Nanticoke native, Wyoming Seminary)