Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 2007
Known internationally for his contributions to soccer, Walt Chyzowych built the Wake Forest men's soccer program from nearly club-team status to perennial ACC championship contender.
The head coach of Wake Forest's first ACC championship team (1989), Chyzowych led the Deacons to four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances (1988-91). He coached the U.S. team into the 1980 Olympics, but the squad, like all American athletes, was unable to participate in the tournament because of a government-ordered boycott of the Moscow Games.
An All-American as a player at Temple, Chyzowych created and directed the coaching schools of the U.S. Soccer Federation, one of six organizations to honor him as a Hall of Famer. That list includes the National Soccer Coaches Association and the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.
The Walt Chyzowych Award, presented annually by the NSCAA, is named in his honor. the Wake Forest team MVP each year receives the Walt Chyzowych Award.
Chyzowych was born in 1937 in Sambir, a city 25 miles from the Polish border that is now part of the eastern Ukraine. The area was governed by Poland and the Soviet Union and occupied by the Nazis at various points in the 1930s and 40s. Chyzowych, then 10, emigrated to the United States with his family in 1947 and brought his developing love of soccer to Philadelphia.
He played professional soccer in its earliest stages in this country and became one of the game's formative coaches.
He died of a heart attack on Sept. 2, 1994, the day before the Demon Deacons opened their season.
Bob Gansler, who succeeded him as coach of the U.S. national team, called him "a man whose contributions has been of such consequence, yet so diverse and substantial, that the total quantification is elusive."
Chyzowych was inducted into the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame on Jan. 12, 2007. He was the first soccer player so honored.
