Ken Hi's Dick Tamburo excelled as major-college football player, coach, athletic director

It can be difficult for athletes to successfully make the transition from player to coach to athletic administrator, but New Kensington native Dick Tamburo stood out in all three endeavors.

Tamburo was an all-state lineman for the former New Kensington High School’s WPIAL championship football teams who went on to become an All-American lineman for a Michigan State national championship team before serving as an assistant coach and athletic director at major universities.

He died Monday in the Phoenix area at the age of 90.

Tamburo began his football climb as a key lineman for Ken High’s WPIAL championship teams of 1946 and 1947. He was an Associated Press second team all-state center in 1947 for the Red Raiders.

Tamburo was one of eight Ken Hi players who went on to Michigan State.

He earned All-American honors at center and linebacker for the undefeated 1952 national champs. He was named the team’s Most Valuable Player for the 1952 season.

Tamburo spent nine seasons as an assistant coach at Arizona State. He was on head coach Frank Kush’s staff for three Western Athletic Conference titles and three second-place finishes during one of the most successful eras in the program’s history. Overall, the Sun Devils went 66-23-1 while Tamburo was on staff under Kush, a Windber native.

He left Arizona State and went on to coach another four seasons at the University of Iowa.

After a stint as athletic director at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Tamburo returned to the Valley of the Sun to serve as Arizona State’s athletic director from 1980-85.

During his tenure in Tempe, the Sun Devils brought home the 1981 NCAA baseball championship and seventeen national championships overall.

Tamburo’s accomplishments were done with a no-nonsense, professional style, according to those who knew him.

New Kensington-based attorney David Regoli, Tamburo’s great nephew, said he got no special consideration when he was a student at Arizona State seeking a job in the athletic department.

“When I went out to Arizona State in the summer of ’83, coming from New Kensington and seeing your uncle in place on a 45,000-student campus was something,” Regoli said. “All he told the equipment manager was to take a look at this name. He was a no-nonsense type of guy. It was the same thing later when my brother, Johnny, was hired in the sports information office.”

Then-equipment manager Michael Chismar echoed the story.

“I was Dick’s first hire when I came out here in 1980 and got the equipment manager’s job as a 20-year-old,” Chismar said. “All he said was to give this (David’s) name a look. Dick played by the rules and he was big on protocol, even if he felt you were the person he was looking for.”

Loyalty was important to Tamburo.

“When baseball players were caught taking anti-depressants, the university president wanted coach Jim Brock, the winningest coach in NCAA history fired,” Regoli said. “My uncle said he wouldn’t do it, and the president told him then he was fired. My uncle went down for that. He was very well-liked and well-respected.”

Tamburo went on to head the University of Missouri athletic department from 1988-1992. He returned to the Phoenix area permanently when he retired.

“I’d still see him a couple of times a year at fundraisers and at football camp; he was a great leader and a hard worker,” said Chismar, who remains at Tempe as Arizona State’s senior associate athletic director for operations and facilities.

Tamburo was inducted into the Alle-Kiski Valley Sports Hall of Fame in 1980 and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006.

A visitation will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, March 6 at the Lakeshore Mortuary in Mesa, Ariz. A memorial will be held at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, March 7 at Gethsemane Church in Tempe, Ariz.