Jack Seitzinger | The Dunmorean

By Steve Svetovich

There was a time back in the day when Guy Valvano and Jack Seitzinger were the biggest duo on the forefront of the local sports scene.

The duo were both editors in the sports department of the old Scranton Tribune.

Seitzinger was the sports editor of the Scranton Tribune. Valvano was sports editor of the Sunday Scrantonian.

The duo worked efficiently late into evenings covering all of the local sports in Northeast PA.

It was a small sports department, but these two made it a big one.

Now only Dunmore’s Valvano, 95, remains to tell the stories of the sports department in the old newsroom.

Seitzinger died Saturday, January 20, after being stricken ill at home. He was 82.

All of the other sports reporters at the old Scranton Tribune, namely Jimmy Calpin, Paul Krupski and Dave Williams, have passed. The Scrantonian-Tribune folded in 1989.

That leaves Valvano to tell the story of his former colleague.

“It was a pleasure to work with Jack all those years,” Valvano said. “He loved what he was doing.”

Seitzinger and Valvano had that in common.

“Jack was highly energetic,” Valvano said. “That was the first thing that stood out about him. He knew what he wanted to do and he did it.

“You knew what he was all about just by watching him. He was very important to the success of that department.

“His work was second to none. He could work any place and produce.

“He was a big help when we switched from typewriters to computers. He picked up on it quick and helped all the other reporters.

“He was a great part of the camaraderie. He really loved his work.

“Jack was very quick to help others in the department or in the entire new room. He would volunteer to take calls on results from swimming or track meets. He didn’t have to be the one answering the phones, but he would just do it. He would just take calls for other reporters. He had no problem with it. I never saw anyone in my life put the time in that he did.

“A lot of people thought we had the best sports department. Most of the events were late in the day or at night, so we had the advantage there.”

Valvano was not only impressed with his former partner as a sports editor, but also as a person and friend.

“Jack was a gregarious person and had an impact on a lot of people. That was clearly seen at his viewing and funeral. What a turnout!

“He just liked being around people and really loved his work. He liked helping people.

“I saw him at church just a couple weeks before he died. He came over to me as I was coming out. He would always come over when seeing me. And his last words would always be to say hello to Marie, my wife. And those were his final words to me.

“I read in his obituary that he played minor league baseball. You know, I worked with him all those years and never knew that about him. He never mentioned it.”

Seitzinger, married for close to 60 years to the former Geraldine “Geri” Halaburda, graduated from Frackville High School, but lived in the Green Ridge section of Scranton for most of his adult life. The couple raised five children and were proud grandparents of numerous grandchildren. Seitzinger kept active in his later years attending various sporting events, including those of his grandchildren, and keeping up on the local sports scene.

He attended Bloomsburg University before playing minor league baseball in the Detroit Tigers organization. He played both semi-pro baseball and basketball.

He began his journalism career at the Shenandoah Evening Herald as a news writer and then moved on to The Pottsville Republican, where he became a sportswriter.

He then joined Valvano at The Scrantonian Tribune covering local sports. He eventually became the sports editor working alongside Valvano.

Seitzinger wrote a sports column, “Seitz on Sports,” and was a tireless promoter of both men’s and women’s athletics. His aim was to cover all of the sports equally and give every possible athlete recognition. And that meant from youth leagues through high school and college and beyond.

After the closure of the Scrantonian Tribune, Seitzinger became the first sports information director at Marywood College.

He expanded his career in 1990 by working in public relations with the Pennsylvania Democratic Caucus. He was then hired in a similar role by Senator Robert Mellow, with whom he remained a dear friend until his final day.

For his accomplishments as an athlete, Seitzinger was inducted into the Northern Anthracite Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.

For his work as a journalist, he was inducted into the Northeastern Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame and the University of Scranton Wall of Fame.

For his work in sports information, he was inducted into the Marywood University Sports Hall of Fame.

An icon in local sports, his career at the Scrantonian Tribune spanned four decades. His passion for local sports never wavered.

Valvano described his former colleague as “energetic, efficient and enthusiastic.”

In his role at Marywood, Seitzinger, true to his nature, would do double duty as a part time employee. He would work the scoreboard and the desk duties at a basketball game while compiling game statistics in real time. And he would do it by hand.

Then he would write a report and send it to local newspapers, television, and radio stations for publication.

Always confident and thorough, Seitzinger never complained of his long work hours and still found time to become a fixture in the community and beloved family man.

Former Scrantonian Tribune reporter/columnist Lew Marcus said it best. “I loved Jack. Who didn’t?”

The late Jack Seitzinger, fourth from left, is shown with his children Matthew, Geralyn, John, Maripat and Mark.

By Maureen Hart

I didn’t know if I was going to write this story or not. After all, our sports editor Steve Svetovich has a wonderful interview on page 4 with Guy Valvano, our old colleague from the Scrantonion-Tribune, regarding our recently deceased coworker Jack Seitzinger.

That ‘s good, I thought to myself. After all, although I joined the Tribune in 1972, I certainly did not work in the sports department, something that would have been unheard-of at that time. (To give you an idea, I have a doctor friend who recalls in that same year being told she would not be allowed to do the surgical rotation unless she signed a document pledging never to practice surgery. She was the only female in her class, there were no female professors, and she signed and proceeded to clean surgical instruments for her whole rotation. Young women today have no idea….)

Anyway I was interviewed for a position in what was quaintly called the Social Department as assistant to the formidable editor, Gene Brislin. Gene had been with the newspaper since the war years when, with a lot of the men away, she was able to write front page news stories, and was by all accounts, a phenomenal reporter.

But when the men came back from Europe and the Pacific, Gene was dumped back to write weddings and cover parties. She wasn’t happy about it, but she had no choice.

I, on the other hand, didn’t care where they put me. I had a job. On a newspaper! I would remain there until the Trib closed 18 years later.

I won’t say I wasn’t nervous, being one of only two women in the heavily smoke-filled newsroom, but I am here to swear that that rough and tumble group of newspaper reporters right out of “The Front Page” could not have been kinder to me. Even when I was nervous and asked a stupid questions such as “Does our stylebook capitalize the word Jello?” (I was retyping that week’s school. )

No ever told an off-color joke or used a dirty word around me, not in the newsroom or in the even rougher composing room. I am certain they were cussing their heads off when I wasn’t there, but they were respectful of both me and Gene, without either of us ever saying anything to them.

Anyway, I was hired in April and at the time I was living in a studio apartment in Wilkes-Barre. I planned to move to Scranton in June, to a second floor apartment on Clay Avenue. My stepfather planned to drive up from Mechanicsburg to move my stuff.

That is, until Tropical Storm Agnes hit Wilkes-Barre the day before my move. Nobody could get in or out of the city. I couldn’t even get out of my apartment until the National Guard came along a night or two later in motor boats. I found a ride to Scranton, by lying that I was covering this big story. (Well, actually, my editor did ask me to write what then the first first-person account of the disaster, and my landed on the front page. My first and only coup. But that was after I had already lied about my urgent assignment.

I slept on the floor of my unfurnished apartment that night. Then Gene and her husband insisted I come and stay at their home, where I bunked for three weeks.

Finally, there was information that people who lived in Wilkes-Barre would be allowed in to retrieve some things. I talked about it in the newsroom, unsure what to do because it was such a restricted, chaotic situation in Luzerne County.

But two of my coworkers told me they would move me. I told them I wanted to get everything –which wasn’t much since I was just out of college. They said that would be fine.

They did not realize I had box after box of books which were my most precious possessions. There was no elevator working, and I lived on the 11^th floor of a 12-story high rise. But in the summer heat, Jack Seitzinger and Danny Orr, who barely knew me, stepped up and moved all those books to Scranton. They would tease me about for years. I’m sure they must of have wished they had gone golfing or fishing that day, but they never truly complained and said they were glad to help. They were just grateful that the 12 flights of stairs were going down, and that they only had to drag everything one flight up to my new apartment.

I was 22 years old, in a city where I did not know anyone but Gene and the guys in the newsroom, most of whom worked at night while I had a day shift.. Reading his obituary, I realized with a shock that 52 years ago, Jack Seitzinger would have been just 30 years old.

Another thing that took me by surprise in the obit was mention that Jack played minor league baseball with the Detroit Tigers, as well as semi-pro basketball. I figured everybody must have known that except for me.

But Guy Valvano, who worked side by side with Jack covering all the local sports, mentions in his interview that he never knew that either. It proves what a solid, down-to-earth guy, modest Jack was.

Valvano last saw him at church, and though I do not know precisely when, I am certain I had my last glimpse of Jack at the Green Ridge Little League field where he and his wife Geri consistently supported their children, and then their grandchildren. I assure you, so many of us are going miss seeing him there this year.