This is the fifth in a series of articles profiling the 2021 inductees into the Knoch High School Sports Hall of Fame

JEFFERSON TWP — Larry Kunselman knew how to find and develop high school football players. He had the perfect system in place for such a thing.

“I was a junior high physical education teacher and Bill Purvis taught phys ed at the high school,” the retired Knoch head coach said. “That was an easy way to find athletes.

“It was just a consistent flow, year after year. It flowed marvelously, to tell the truth.”

It flowed to the tune of a 56-28-2 record — including five WPIAL playoff appearances and a berth in the district championship game — in eight years. Kunselman was head coach of the Knights from 1981-88.

Now he's going into the Knoch High School Sports Hall of Fame. Kunselman will be one of seven inductees during a Sept. 3 ceremony that will take place at Knoch's home football game against Freeport.

“I'm truly honored by this,” Kunselman said of his induction. “I was surrounded by excellent people on the staff and we had great athletes.

“We were able to put everything together and had a nice run there.”

The Knights reeled off seven consecutive winning seasons from 1981 through 1987. Three of those teams advanced to the WPIAL semifinals.

The 1981 team reached the district finals, dropping a 12-7 decision to Beaver.

Kunselman pointed out three assistant coaches — line coach Ken Elliott, defensive coordinator Denny Atkinson and quarterback-wide receiver coach Bob Erdeljac — who worked with him for a number of years. Kunselman ran the offense along with being head coach.

Two others in the 2021 HOF induction class — Mike Crouch and John Ivory — played for him.

“You won't find two better representatives of high school football than those two,” Kunselman said.

Mike King, who went on to serve as Knoch head coach and, like Kunselman, guided the Knights to a WPIAL championship game, also played for him.

“He's a life-changing guy,” King said of Kunselman. “You won't find a person anywhere who has a bad thing to say about Larry Kunselnman.

“He always treated his players with dignity, respect and love. Of the hundreds of players who played for him, we all feel the same way about him.”

That feeling was mutual.

“I have so much respect for Mike King,” Kunselman said. “He was an intense player and was the same way as a coach.

“He invited me to come back to coaching as an assistant on his staff and I enjoyed doing that. As an assistant you don't have any other worries. You show up and coach your group. I was happy to do that.”

King said he learned from Kunselman as a fellow coach, just like he learned from him as a player.

“When you're a young guy coming into the coaching world, there's a learning curve there,” King said. “Some coaches don't make it through that curve because while you're learning, sometimes you lose a lot of football games.

“As a young guy trying to win games, I had to step back and think, how am I treating these kids? And I'd think of Coach, because he did it right.”

Kunselman left the Knoch head coaching post following the 1988 season.

“My last year there, I just got a bit burned out,” he admitted. “The job consumed me. I didn't do a good job of delegating to my assistants. I took on too much and I was just worn out.

“Looking back, I should have taken a leave of absence. A year off and I would have been good.”

Kunselman wound up his head coaching career at Kiski Area, where he guided the Cavaliers for six years. He joined King's staff as an assistant after that.

Also a member of the Armstrong County Sports Hall of Fame — being inducted in 2008 — Kunselman is a 1960 Kittanning High School graduate and was a lineman there for coach Dave Ullom.

“I weighed about 150 pounds,” he said, laughing. “A lineman can only do so much with that.”

But Kunselman wound up being a three-year starter, team captain and became an all-state player.

He went on to play under coach Chuck Godlasky at Slippery Rock University from 1960-64.

“It was there I began to get the yearning to coach,” Kunselman said. “Coach Godlasky had a tremendous impact on my life.”

Kunselman was an assistant football coach at Mt. Lebanon, then Chartiers Valley from 1965 through 1980. Knoch was his first head coaching position.