Gorscak’s memories include Montana’s final game

The former Ringgold center stayed involved in football as a scout.

Mark Gorscak, who was Joe Montana’s center at Ringgold, looked back on what had to be one of the coldest games in the history of that school — the playoff contest against Mt. Lebanon in 1973. He missed playing in the game after breaking his collar bone the week before.

“It was colder than bejesus and there were a couple recruiters and college coaches there,” Gorscak recalled. “I think one was from Notre Dame. Coach Chuck Abramski, God bless his soul, made me give my gloves to one of the coaches. I froze my butt off.”

The game, held in Monessen, turned out to be the final game of Montana’s illustrious high school career, which ended in a frigid and bitterly disappointing 20-0 defeat. Bigger things were in store for both Montana and Gorscak, who wound up working for the Pittsburgh Steelers for many gratifying years.

Naturally, he’s been asked many times if he had foreseen the enormous success of Montana.

“No. I was busy thinking about classes and girls instead of ‘Is Joe going to be great?’” Gorscak said. “You knew he was talented—he was a helluva athlete, no doubt about that. I watched all the basketball games because the hoop team was really good, too.”

Gorscak spoke of the Rams’ gridiron success.

“I think it was a testament to the head coach,” he said. “He was a players’ coach. I don’t think he was well liked by the school board, but he was well liked by us. He was a tough, crusty guy. He shaped me and made me who I am today. I loved Chuck.”

Gorscak even made a long trip in order to pay his respects at Abramski’s funeral.

“People like that, you make those funerals,” he said. “He meant a lot to me.”

Gorscak returned to the idea of nobody being able to determine for sure if a young player would bloom into stardom by sharing one of his rules of scouting. When dealing with colleges’ graduate assistants who gave help to scouts, “be respectful, be a good guest because some of those GAs grow up to be head coaches.”

“I was at Weber State and Mike Price was the head coach and our defensive coordinator was Mike Zimmer — he’s now with the Dallas Cowboys,” Gorscak said. “That staff was phenomenal. A guy that I worked with as a GA was Bobby Petrino. You don’t know who you’re going to meet, so be respectful.

“One of my first visits as a scout was to Washington State and my old college coach, Mike Price, was there. And Ryan Leaf was coming out, so I had to watch tape in a small room above the volleyball court with three GAs. One guy did video, a pain in the butt job then. And they had an offensive and a defensive GA.

“My first thought was, ‘Ah, maybe these guys are rum dums,’ but afterwords you start thinking, well, the video guy, Brian Lowe, crushed it and coached, and created DVSports. Half of the NFL and half of the colleges and almost all your replays on professional sports use DVSports. So he’s a multi-millionaire — from Mt. Lebanon.

“The other two GA’s were James Franklin — he did pretty good— and Kevin Sumlin, who had moments of greatness at a lot of places, like coaching Johnny Manziel. You just don’t know what the experiences you have in life might mean later on.”

As a high-profile scout, people naturally (and frequently) ask Gorscak who was the best player he ever scouted, and he has a stock answer.

“They ask who I found for the Steelers, and I say it’s always about the team, it’s not about me,” he said. “I preface that by saying if I’m going to claim somebody, I have to claim all my screw-ups, too. I gave Tom Brady a ‘free agent’ grade — and 31 other teams are coming out of the woodwork now saying, ‘I gave him a ‘first round’ grade.’ Get the heck out of here! After the fact, they want to be involved in the glory. I say, ‘Show me the report.’” Gorscak rated Brady so low

because “he wasn’t playing that much when I was at his school. He came on at the end of the year — in his last couple of games, and he had a helluva Rose Bowl. And he was only a sixth-rounder.

“As everyone could tell by his Combine picture that you see online all the time, he looked like he had a bad golf body. He had a shallow chest. You just don’t know who’s going to become somebody.”

Gorscak now resides in Mt. Washington, the community Johnny Unitas grew up in.

“He lived on the back side. I live in Duquesne Heights,” Gorscak said. “I’m still working. Right now I’m working for the Senior Bowl All-Star Game. I’m doing some public speaking for college teams and I still do the NFL Combine. A lot of things I post on Twitter are life lessons, too.”

He welcomes people to follow his Twitter account.

He concluded by saying how blessed he feels.

“God shined his spotlight on me so many times,” Gorscak said. “He needs to shine it on other people now. I’ve been very fortunate.”