Former Ringgold AD, Zolak, dies
Scott Zolak lost his biggest fan Tuesday.
Paul Zolak, longtime athletic director at Ringgold High School, died Tuesday of inclusion body myositis, a muscle disease.
Scott Zolak spent an hour on his podcast “Zolak and Bertrand” talking about his father and what he meant to Scott.
“We’re down one listener today and one viewer,” Scott Zolak said through tears and a halting voice. “You guys know what he meant to me. The last time I was with him, I told him I wanted to stick around and he said, ‘You get your butt back to Boston. You have to get back to the show.'”
Scott Zolak said his father put up a long fight against the disease, which strikes men over age 50 the most.
Symptoms of inclusion body myositis progress more slowly than the other types of myositis with weakness increasing gradually, sometimes over years. For this reason it is not uncommon for patients to realize that they had been experiencing symptoms for many years before they were diagnosed.
“I don’t talk about it much,” Scott Zolak said. “We’re human.
“This is what we do. We talk about sports, and about life and I think we do a good job. No one was a bigger fan of what we did than him. It’s tough. It’s tough signing off and he’s not there. Man, he taught me everything.”
Paul Zolak was a 1965 graduate of Donora High School, where he was a standout on the football and baseball teams. His specialty was as a kicker and punter. He also played tight end.
Paul Zolak attended California University, where he was a kicker and backup quarterback to All-American Jeff Petrucci.
Paul didn’t know it yet but his son would follow a similar path, playing at Ringgold High School, then earning the starting quarterback job at the University of Maryland. He was drafted by the New England Patriots, where he mainly served as Drew Bledsoe’s backup.
After his retirement, he became a sportscaster and football analyst in the New England area.
Paul Zolak spent the next 37 years at Ringgold, then later at Bethel Park High School. He was an assistant football coach at Ringgold but his main job was as athletic director.
“He was the epitome of a great athletic director,” said Joe Ravasio, who coached Ringgold football for seven seasons. “Every day was special. … Those were difficult times being any coach at Ringgold because of the school board. I was blessed Paul was there. He made it a wonderful working environment.”
This was a particularly bad couple days for Ravasio as his former assistant coach Jon Larson died Wednesday.
“Paul was always thinking about what he could do to make a student-athlete’s day better,” Ravasio said. “Every sport was important to him.”
Scott Frederick coached cross country and track at Ringgold and he said he had the utmost respect for Zolak.
“There were two significant things Paul did as AD,” Frederick said. “He brought the communities together by creating an alumni wall with pictures of our great athletes. It was his idea and there was a lot of pride there. He was also instrumental in putting the trophy case in front of the school. Because of that, people could relate to that, especially the pictures.”
“I can say this about Paul: He cared about the kids.”