(Butler, PA) Charles W. Dunaway created intercollegiate athletics programs at Butler County Community College.
Painted PIONEERS on what was a rubber floor of BC3’s Field House.
Selected coaches.
Filled vending machines with beverages for fans.
Scheduled games.
Squeezed a lawnmower and garden rake inside his Volkswagen Rabbit, then drove to BC3’s softball field.
“Chuck Dunaway,” former BC3 men’s and women’s basketball coach Dick Hartung said, “built the athletics programs at Butler County Community College. From the ground up.”
The Gibsonia resident after whom BC3 in 2015 established its new Charles W. Dunaway Pioneer Hall of Fame in the college’s Field House passed away Nov. 11, 2022, at 82.
Dunaway initiated BC3’s first intercollegiate competition played in a Beaver County school district gymnasium in 1968. The Pioneers have since won more than 90 conference, region and state championships, and BC3’s athletics programs have produced 31 All-Americans in seven sports.
“Success … all goes back to Chuck”
“You cannot say BC3 athletics without saying Chuck Dunaway, and you cannot say Chuck Dunaway without saying BC3 athletics,” said Dr. Nick Neupauer, president of BC3. “The success of our student-athletes all goes back to Chuck.”
Dunaway began at BC3 in August 1967 as an instructor of health and physical education.
Six months later he picked men’s basketball players from the BC3 intramural program he oversaw to compete against the Community College of Beaver County at the former Liberty School Gymnasium, Freedom, in what was BC3’s first intercollegiate game.
In addition to men’s basketball, he developed at BC3 baseball, cross-country, golf, men’s and women’s tennis, women’s basketball, women’s softball and women’s volleyball programs, served decades as the college’s director of athletics and was selected as a conference coach of the year seven times.
“Chuck was an outstanding mentor for so many coaches and athletes,” said Bill Miller, coach of BC3’s golf team and a former men’s basketball assistant coach. “He touched so many lives.”
“You cannot say BC3 athletics without saying Chuck Dunaway, and you cannot say Chuck Dunaway without saying BC3 athletics."
“Fought so hard for women’s athletics”
Dunaway also helped to found the Skyline Athletic Conference and the Pennsylvania Collegiate Athletic Association – organizations that brought structure to community college sports and provided guidance for emerging athletics programs in Pennsylvania.
“That was pretty amazing that he could think that far ahead with no idea of what this was going to become,” said Rob Snyder, BC3’s director of student life and athletics, and the college’s women’s volleyball head coach.
Establishing BC3’s athletics program and helping to found the conference and association in which the Pioneers would initially compete “are two astronomical contributions that (Dunaway) made,” said Dr. Kathy Wood, former BC3 assistant and head coach in four sports.
“And he was pro-women’s athletics before Title IX even existed. He just fought so hard for women’s athletics.”
“Wanting the college to succeed”
The Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference is the successor to the Skyline Athletic Conference.
BC3’s women’s volleyball program has won 18 WPCC championships and was ranked No. 1 nationally this fall.
The college’s women’s softball program has won six WPCC championships and its women’s basketball team, five.
Julia Fischer in 2017 became the first women’s golfer under coach Bill Miller. Two others have followed since.
Thirteen BC3 National Junior College Athletic Association All-Americans are women, including eight of the college’s past nine recipients of the prestigious postseason award.
“It was basically Chuck’s nature that he was looking out for the good of the cause, wanting the college to succeed,” said Mike Franko, a former BC3 cross-country runner and 2018 inductee into the Charles W. Dunaway Pioneer Hall of Fame. “BC3 started in 1965. Title IX hadn’t occurred yet. He was open to whatever might occur as far as advancing BC3.”
Dunaway coached BC3 baseball, cross-country, golf, men’s basketball and men’s and women’s tennis squads, was named conference coach of the year in golf in 1973, 1974 and in 1987, and in tennis in 1978, 1987, 1988 and 1989.
Dunaway was a professor and served as interim dean of students before he retired in 1999. In 2008 he was inducted into the NJCAA Region 20 Hall of Fame.
“He was a true Pioneer.”
“PIONEERS”
It was Dunaway who suggested to Snyder that Snyder become BC3’s women’s volleyball coach.
“He gave me my start in athletics,” said Snyder, whose program is 432-160 in 23 seasons. “I am super-appreciative of everything he has done for me in my life.”
As part of its 50th anniversary in 2015, BC3 created the Charles W. Dunaway Pioneer Hall of Fame to recognize individuals who have contributed significantly to the quality and success of Pioneer athletics.
Miller is coach of a BC3 golf program that has won 12 WPCC championships and finished fall seasons with records of 11-0 in 2021 and 12-0 in 2022.
Wood was an assistant coach of BC3 men’s and women’s basketball teams and head coach of its softball and volleyball teams.
Dunaway and Wood would also “literally run up, between classes, and rake the softball field and put the lawnmower in the back of his Volkswagen Rabbit,” Wood said. “And we did that for three or four years.”
Hartung coached BC3’s men’s basketball squad for 29 years and its women’s team for 12.
“Chuck and I had been in the Field House one day and he said, ‘We need to put the word Pioneers across the baseline of the basketball court. We need to put that there. It would look good.’ It was summer. He said, ‘When you have a few days, can you and I put it on the floor?’
“And you know what? We didn’t ask anybody. He didn’t ask anybody. He didn’t expect anyone to do it. And we painted it on the baseline. PIONEERS.”
Dunaway, Miller said, “laid the foundation for athletics at BC3. His leadership is responsible for the success that athletics has experienced over so many years.
“He was a true Pioneer.”
Donations may be made to Charles W. Dunaway Student/Athlete Scholarship Fund: “BC3 Education Foundation to benefit the BC3 Pioneer Athletic Program,” BC3 Education Foundation, P.O. Box 1203, Butler, PA 16003.
