Trip to Tarentum football game changed Paul Killian's life

Long before he became a doctor and a football star, Paul Killian was just a kid from West Tarentum looking for a way out.

Killian remembers the moment when he was a child and his father, Paul, took him to Tarentum’s Dreshar Stadium for a Friday night football matchup between Tarentum High School and rival Springdale. Killian’s father sat beside him that night and offered some words of wisdom.

“My dad asked if I wanted to go to college,” said Killian, 72, a 1964 Tarentum High grad. “I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘If you get good at football, they might pay you to go.’

“I was in seventh grade, and I said, ‘Oh, really?’ I played football, and, fortunately, the scholarships came.”

Killian, along with seven other area standouts, make up the 50th class of the Alle-Kiski Valley Sports Hall of Fame that will inducted May 18 at New Kensington’s Quality Inn.

“I’d walk to the game on Friday nights, and the firemen would stop and tell me, ‘Go get them tonight,’ ” Killian said. “It was just an era and a great time.”

After spending his sophomore season playing quarterback, the 6-foot, 195-pounder moved to running back and defensive back. He led the Tigers in rushing yards and interceptions during his junior and senior seasons. College coaches took notice.

“My junior year, Ernie Hefferle, an old coach at Tarentum, came up to me after one of my games and said, ‘You’re going to Pitt, aren’t you?’ ” Killian said. “That’s when I knew, and I had an inkling that things were gonna go well.”

Hefferle was an assistant coach at Pitt who later coached the New Orleans Saints in the early 1970s. Hefferle liked Killian not just for his play but because he was an honor student.

“Paul was pretty bright and a special person,” said classmate, teammate and life-long friend Tom Stabile. “I’ve always said that athletics was never a means to an end. But in this case, athletics was a means to an end.

“There was no way that Paul was gonna go to medical school, but he found a way and he found it through athletics.”

With offers from Miami, Purdue, Virginia and all three service academies, Killian decided on Pitt. He starred at defensive back and led the Panthers in tackles and interceptions his junior and senior seasons.

“It’s never a good thing when your defensive back leads the team in tackles,” Killian joked.

Killian also was a leader in the classroom as he made his journey through medical school. But just as important, Killian met his future wife, Bonnie.

“Pitt gave me my life, gave me my wife and my career with med school,” Killian said. “I spent eight years of my life in Oakland.”

After medical school, Killian served as an Army doctor. He was stationed at Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., from 1972-78. He retired a lieutenant colonel.

The guy whose job was to punish opposing wide receivers returned to the Alle-Kiski Valley as a rheumatologist and opened successful medical practices in Brackenridge and Monroeville.

“I came back, and even 30-years later, they’re still talking about the games with me,” Killian said. “They’re remembered.”

Killian and his wife have three boys who had success as football players at Fox Chapel. PJ went on to play at Virginia and spent time on the Cleveland Browns’ taxi squad in the 1990s. Todd played for Duquesne, and Chad played for Maryland and had a brief stint with the San Diego Chargers.

“I grew up in a time when we had all the small and individual towns playing each other in football, and it meant a lot to the people and the community,” Killian said.