• HS Baseball 4/24: Gladstone 7, Manistique 1, Gm 1
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  • HS Softball 4/24: Negaunee 22, Kingsford 3, Gm 1
  • HS Softball 4/24: Negaunee 14, Kingsford 5, Gm 2
  • HS Softball 4/24: Ishpeming 10, Menominee 1, Gm 1
  • HS Baseball 4/24: Kingsford 9, Escanaba 1
  • HS Softball 4/24: Menominee 12, Ishpemng 2, Gm 2
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Thursday April 25, 2024
Former Eskymo Coach Jerry Cvengros Dead At 80

ESCANABA---Jerry Cvengros, who coached the Escanaba High School football team to its only state championship in 1981, died Monday night in East Lansing.

He was 80 years old. Cvengros also served as EHS athletic director and as the high school principal during his 30 years in Escanaba. He also worked for the Michigan High School Athletic Association as an associate director for 13 years before retiring.

Escanaba Athlethic Director Dave Wilson called it a sad day for the Eskymo family.

"Coach Cvengros was an icon,"  Wilson said in a phone interview Tuesday evening from Florida. "He was just a great man. He got to know the kids, each and every athlete. I remember being in high school and he would go out of his way to say hello to me as I walked in the hallway with my friends. Just a very personable human being."

Cvengros was a 1951 graduate of Ironwood High School and went on to study and play football at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He earned his bachelor’s degree in secondary education and teaching from the University of Wisconsin-Superior and a master’s from Northern Michigan University.

 

He taught English, history and physical education at Escanaba High School and also coached basketball and track and field. He became the school’s athletic director in 1970, added the duties of activities director in 1975, and became principal in 1983.

Cvengros is still best-known in the Escanaba community for his football teams that took the Class A runner-up trophy in 1979, and the state championship in 1981. His record as varsity football coach was 161-42-3, from 1962 to 1984.

Cvengros left Escanaba in 1988 and moved downstate, but was always an Eskymo.

"I still had the opportunity to see Coach Cvengros twice a year," Wilson said. "He would come to one football game a year. He was here last summer when his son Steve was honored by the Quarterback Club as being an outstanding Eskymo football player."

Cvengros became an Associate Director for the Michigan High School Athletic Association in 1988, and worked in that role until 2002.
 

MHSAA Executive Director Jack Roberts mourned the loss of Cvengros.

“During his lifetime, Jerry Cvengros impacted every area of interscholastic athletics as a coach, athletic director, principal and then associate director of the MHSAA," Roberts said. “He was the perfect combination of fairness, toughness and diplomacy."

"(He was able) to draw on a vast knowledge of MHSAA rules and an understanding of educational athletics fostered by his various experiences," Roberts continued. "Jerry was known and respected statewide for his dedication, and his contributions have had a lasting impact.”

Cvengros is survived by his wife and children Michael, Steven and David, and seven grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his daughter Lee Ann (Cvengros) Swasey in May 2013. A visitation will take place beginning at 10 a.m. Monday, April 7, at St. Martha Parish in Okemos, with a funeral Mass to follow at 11 a.m.

"Very sad," Wilson said. "If you get a chance to talk to his former players, they absolutely loved him and adored him."







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