'What's up, Junk?' For longtime Pitt coach, recruiter Bob Junko, it's time to retire

For Bob Junko, the best moments of his 54 years as a football coach and administrator weren’t the Missouri Valley Conference and ACC championships he helped bring to Tulsa and Pitt, respectively.

They weren’t his role in recruiting future Pro Football Hall of Famers Steve Largent (to Tulsa) and Jason Taylor (to Akron) and four-time All-Pro cornerback Darrelle Revis (to Pitt).

In 1967, he was named honorable mention All-American as a linebacker at Tulsa, but even that is further down his bucket list.

He’s proud of all of it, but the best of times materialized every day when Pitt players walked by his office in the team’s practice facility, smiled and said, “What’s up, Junk?”

“He loved that,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said.

“Love that guy,” senior center Owen Drexel said. “Heartbeat of this team.”

Friday was bittersweet for Pitt players, coaches and staff. After practice — the third of spring drills and one of the thousands in his career — Junko retired after 30 years at Pitt in two separate time frames.

He has held many titles since graduating from Trinity High School in 1964 and earning a master’s in educational administration at Tulsa. He has been defensive coordinator at Tulsa (where he started his coaching career in 1968 as a graduate assistant), TCU, Pitt, Northwestern, Akron and Kent State.

He is retiring from Pitt as director of player development and high school relations, a position he has held since 2013. He also has been assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator at Pitt. When recruits and their families visited Pitt, Junko was among the first to greet them.

“He’s impacted every one of our players,” Narduzzi said. “Everybody’s who’s here coach Junko has touched.”

Junko, 75, served under nine Pitt head coaches, starting with Foge Fazio from 1982-85. He was ready to work for Johnny Majors in 1997, but Walt Harris replaced Majors and hired Junko as his defensive tackles coach. He has been on the staffs of every Pitt coach since then.

Previously this century, Pitt All-American tight end Dorin Dickerson remembered Junko’s persistent efforts to get his name on a letter of intent.

“Throughout the two years he recruited me in high school (West Allegheny), I probably saw him 15-20 times,” Dickerson said. “Every time I saw him, he gave me his business card.”

“It’s time, I think,” Junko said Friday while greeting friends in his office and trying to answer the multitude of text messages that hit his phone minutes after Narduzzi broke the news after practice.

Why now, with Junko still enjoying good health?

“Judy (his wife) would never ask me to do it,” he said.

But the couple has three sons — Jay, Jeff and Mike, the head coach at Upper St. Clair — and eight grandchildren, including Pitt players Caleb and Josh. Like anyone, he would like to spend more time with family.

“We are on great footing here,” he said. “Coaching staff is just amazing. Coach Narduzzi does a fantastic job. Going out winning the ACC, that all played into it.”

Perhaps Junko’s secret to durability and longevity in a difficult profession was his approach to coaching.

“It wasn’t work,” he said. “It was a passion I really enjoyed. I couldn’t help being loud-mouth coach. I was enjoying it, and I wanted everyone else to enjoy it.”

He said it has been rewarding to see his young players become men.

“Some of them have gone into coaching. Some of them are doctors. Some of them are lawyers,” he said.

He has recruited and coached NFL stars such as Hall of Famers Largent, Taylor and Chris Doleman, plus Larry Fitzgerald, Aaron Donald and Revis. Junko wasn’t much of a basketball player — football and wrestling were his sports at Trinity — but he followed the athletically gifted Revis to many of his games.

“He’d go up for a shot and stay there,” Junko said.

“The players were the most important,” he added. “The ones who were great ones and the ones who were down the road but kept fighting and accomplished a lot on limited ability. Very proud of those guys.

“Sometimes, people coach for the money, notoriety,” Dickerson said,” to move up and become a head coach one day. Junk truly coached because he loved the game, he loved his players and he loved Pitt.

“I don’t think of Pitt without thinking of Bob Junko.”