• Career Record: 197-111-4 (.638)
• 28 Years as SRU Head Coach
• 8 PSAC West Championships
• 6 NCAA Division II Playoff Berths
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Career Photo GalleryGeorge Mihalik announced in December that after devoting 44 years of his life to Slippery Rock University, he would retire from teaching and coaching on Jan. 15, 2016. Read the release and watch the press conference HERE.Slippery Rock University’s all-time leader in career wins, George Mihalik finished his 28th season as The Rock’s head coach in 2015 and now owns a sterling 197-111-4 career record and a .638 winning percentage.
Mihalik ranks second among active Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference head coaches in career wins and fourth on the conference’s all-time wins chart. He also ranks fourth among all active NCAA Division II head coaches in career wins.
Rock teams have won or shared eight PSAC Western Division championships (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015) under Mihalik’s leadership and made six trips to the NCAA playoffs, including consecutive trips from 1997-99 and again from 2013-15. The Rock have won the PSAC West and made an appearance in the league title game in four of the last five years, including three straight.
The 2015 season proved to be another highlight in a career full of highlights for Mihalik. The Rock won the PSAC Championship for the second year in a row, earned a trip to the NCAA playoffs for the third year in a row and had the chance to host two NCAA playoff games at home for the first time since 1998. Slippery Rock finished the 2015 season tied with the 1998 team for the best record in school history at 12-2 and made an appearance in the NCAA quarterfinals. Along the way The Rock went 7-0 at home, including 2-0 at home in the playoffs, and extended the nation's longest active home winning streak to 17 straight games.
Mihalik has received six PSAC West Coach of the Year awards from his peers, including the 2015 honor. He also received the division Coach of the Year honor three consecutive seasons from 1997-99 and again in 2013. Mihalik also earned the American Football Coaches Association’s regional Coach of the Year honor in 1997, 1998 and 2013.
In 1991, The Rock’s head coach received the Tri-State Intercollegiate Football Officials’ Association’s top-coach award and, in 2012, he was selected as the winner of the Eastern Collegiate Football Officials Association’s sportsmanship award.
The coaching awards are but a few of the prestigious honors that have been bestowed on Mihalik.
He has been inducted into five different halls of fame: SRU Athletic (1997), Butler Area Sports (2001), Cambria County Sports (2006), Pennsylvania Sports Western Chapter (2012) and Bishop Carroll High School (2012). Mihalik was a charter member of the Ebensburg high school’s Hall of Fame.
In typical Mihalik fashion, The Rock head coach shares the credit and honor.
“I have always maintained the coaching awards I have been fortunate enough to receive should be cut up and presented to the assistant coaches and players,” Mihalik says. “Throughout the years, I have had the good fortune of having excellent assistant coaches and players, and they deserve the credit.”
In recognition of his 40 years of service to the University and in conjunction with The Rock’s first 2011 home game (Sept. 8 vs. Cheyney), SRU officials renamed N. Kerr Thompson Stadium as “Mihalik-Thompson Stadium.”
The Rock rode the surge of excitement from that event to eight wins in their first nine games, the PSAC-Western Division championship and a berth in the PSAC Championship game.
The coaching legacy for Mihalik all began when SRU officials placed the operation of their football program in the hands of a relatively young, yet vastly experienced intern in 1988. One hundred and ninety-seven victories later, the decision to hire Mihalik has proven to be outstanding.
The 15th head coach in Rock football history, Mihalik inherited a program that had experienced back-to-back losing seasons.
A 5-3-2 record in his first season as head coach was a sign of things to come. Two seasons later, The Rock began a run of 12 successive winning seasons.
All told, Mihalik-coached Rock teams have had 22 winning seasons and one .500 campaign in his 28-year head coaching career.
A former standout quarterback for The Rock and member of the SRU program for 44 of the last 45 seasons, Mihalik served 11 seasons as quarterbacks coach and one season as associate head coach before he succeeded his former mentor, Bob DiSpirito as The Rock’s head coach at the end of the 1987 season.
Mihalik immediately set out on an ambitious mission: To re-establish The Rock as an elite member of the PSAC.
Consider the mission accomplished, as evidenced by the four consecutive PSAC Western Division championships The Rock claimed from 1997-2000 and the four more between 2011-15, the three consecutive trips to the NCAA Division II playoffs from 1997-99 and again from 2013-15 and the back-to-back league championships in 2014 and 2015.
While under the care of Mihalik, Rock squads have won 116 of 177 PSAC West contests with three ties for a .664 winning percentage.
SRU has also compiled a Rock-solid .725 winning percentage in home games (111-42) and an impressive .557 winning percentage (86-68-4) on the road.
In addition to the eight PSAC West titles claimed by Mihalik-coached Rock teams, the Green and White have earned four division runner-up honors and finished in third place nine times.
During its string of 12 successive winning seasons (1991-2003), The Rock won 95 of 132 games (.720).
The high-water mark of Mihalik’s tenure came in 1998, when The Rock advanced to the national semifinals.
The following season, Mihalik led SRU to a No. 2 ranking in the final regular-season national poll and an unprecedented third straight appearance in the NCAA Division II playoffs.
Equally, if not more impressive, is the fact the 62-year-old Mihalik is a member of an elite group of collegiate head coaches in the nation to own a doctorate degree and remains an active member of the school’s teaching faculty.
Mihalik earned an Ed. D. in Safety Management from West Virginia University in 1986. His bachelor’s and master’s degrees are from SRU in 1974 and 1976, respectively.
In addition to his coaching duties, Mihalik serves as a full professor in SRU’s Department of Safety Management within the College of Business.
Mihalik’s association with Rock football extends back to the fall of 1970, when he walked through the doors of what was then Slippery Rock State College as a freshman.
The only season Mihalik has not been a member of the Green and White since 1970 was 1976, when he served as graduate assistant at the University of Kentucky of the prestigious Southeastern Conference.
All told, Mihalik has played three seasons as SRU’s starting quarterback and coached for a combined total of 40 seasons. As a Rock player, Mihalik was a three-year letterwinner and quarterback of the 1972 and 1973 PSAC championship teams. In his final college game, Mihalik scored three touchdowns to lead SRU to a 28-14 win at West Chester in the State Championship Game. Until just two years ago he still held the career pass completion percentage record (59.9%).
While developing winning football teams, Mihalik has avoided the “win-at-all-costs” approach and instead focused on producing valuable members of society.
That approach is a by-product of his upbringing. The youngest of three sons of a western Pennsylvania coal miner and stay-at-home mom, Mihalik is proud of his blue-collar-work-ethic.
Mihalik’s upbringing was featured in “Gridiron & Steel,” a 2001 documentary about the connection between the Pittsburgh-based steel industry and football. He was born in Colver, Pa. and grew up in Ebensburg.
Mihalik and his wife Laura, who is also an SRU graduate, are the proud parents of two daughters: Jenny Lee Wright, a 2005 SRU graduate that is married to SRU graduate Teddy Wright, and Beth Ziegler, a former volleyball player at Washington & Jefferson that is married to Jamie Ziegler. George and Laura have two grandchildren, Tyler and Hannah, and two more on the way. The whole family can be spotted at every Rock football game.
Loyalty to SRU runs deep in the Mihalik family. Mihalik’s mother Helen was arguably the No. 1 Rock fan prior to her death in August 2012 at the age of 92. Coach’s late father, also named George, was a quieter, yet still button-popping-proud supporter of Rock football and his son’s success in life prior to his death in 1991.
The family tradition continues in full force today as Mihalik’s brothers, Denny and Bob, attend virtually every Rock game.
Mihalik also has a pair of good sounding boards in nephews Greg and Bobby Mihalik, both SRU graduates that followed in their uncle’s footsteps as head football coaches. Bobby is currently the head coach at Aurora High School, where he led his team to the 2008 Ohio Division III state championship. Greg is a former head coach at Hampton High School in Pennsylvania.
The short time in the year that Mihalik isn’t involved in coaching or teaching, he likes to hunt, fish and play golf. He and Laura reside in Slippery Rock and are proud to call The Rock their home.
