An IUP Football legend has passed away.
(Photo courtesy of IUP Football)
Longtime head coach Frank Cignetti, Sr. passed away recently at the age of 84. Cignetti played both football and basketball for IUP from 1956 to 1959 and was an NAIA All-American football end. After graduation, he started his coaching career in 1960 as an assistant head coach for Leechburg High School. He was promoted to head coach two years later, then began his college coaching career as an assistant head to Pitt and Princeton until 1970, when he was named an assistant coach at West Virginia. When head coach Bobby Bowden left the Mountaineers, Cignetti succeeded him, compiling a 17-27 record between 1976 and 1979.
Cignetti returned to IUP in 1982 to become the University’s Athletic Director, and he would became the head football coach in 1986. That would start a career of excellence in D-2 Football, with a record of 182-50-1 between 1986 and 2005. Cignetti led IUP to 13 appearances in the NCAA Division 2 Playoffs, and to appearances in the National Championship in 1990 and 1993.
The voice of the Crimson Hawks, Jack Benedict called many of the games in Cignetti’s career, but he says that outside the game, he was kind and knowledgeable.
In a statement, IUP President Dr. Michael Driscoll said that “Coach Cignetti meant so much to IUP and I know IUP meant so much to Coach Cignetti. He always strove to help the university any way he could and served as an outstanding ambassador for IUP and its student-athletes. The number of lives he impacted is too great to count, but it’s easily to be seen by those who played for him, coached with him, or worked alongside him.”
IUP Athletic Director Todd Garzarelli said his impact on the sports program was “profound,” adding “He made it his goal to make IUP Athletics one of the best in the country by giving its student-athletes a first-class experience that helped set them up for life after sports. Any tribute we have ever given him doesn’t match the impact he had on all IUP student-athletes, even the ones who came after his time at IUP ended.”
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