Slippery Rock University Athletics

Duane Kirklin was a three-sport athlete at The Rock. He earned four letters in both football and outdoor track and field and two letters in indoor track and field.

Kirklin was the SRU MVP in the 1963 state championship football game and shared the 1963 team MVP honor with the late Jim McElhaney, a 1989 inductee into the SRU Athletic Hall of Fame.

Following his graduation from SRU, Kirklin served as assistant football coach at Pittsburgh's Penn Hills High School before he joined the staff at Lincoln High School in Ellwood City.

The first black teacher in the Ellwood City Area School District, Kirklin was the founding coach of Lincoln's cross country and girls track and field programs. He also served as head coach of the men's track and field program and as assistant junior high school football coach.

A chemistry teacher at both Penn Hills and Lincoln, Kirklin left the teaching and coaching fields to work full-time as a chemist. He received two National Science Foundation awards to pursue his studies while still teaching. He later earned a National Research Council postdoctoral associateship, won a Department of Commerce Bronze Medal and received a U.S. Army Distinguished Service Award for Research on Biological & Chemical Weapons.

Kirklin served as a research and teaching assistant at Bowling Green State University and the University of Maryland. He finished his career as a research chemist for the National Institute of Standards & Technology (formerly the National Bureau of Standards), working there from 1977-2003.

A 1960 graduate of Lincoln High School, Kirklin earned a bachelor of science degree in education from SRU in 1964. He later added a master of arts degree in physical chemistry from Bowling Green State University in 1970 and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 1975.

Kirklin, who is married to his wife Ruby, retired in 2003.