John Dzik roamed the Cabrini men’s basketball sidelines for 25 seasons. Dzik coached the Cavaliers to 16 conference championships and 11 appearances in national postseason tournaments. All told, Cabrini emerged victorious 483 times while he was drawing up the X’s and O’s. And now for one second, imagine that never happened.
At the conclusion of the 1979-80 season, Dzik had just finished his fourth on the sidelines at Division I Saint Joseph’s University. One year following, he was an assistant coach at Division III Widener University. But if it weren’t for a recommendation for another position, John Dzik and Cabrini College may have never met in the same sentence.
After finishing as a finalist for the head coaching position at Delaware County Community College, Dzik was recommended by the school’s athletic director Bob Cutler for the same position at Cabrini, a college that had been founded less than 25 years prior.
“Is that in Pennsylvania?” Dzik laughed. But, once Academic Dean Joseph Romano, Ph.D., finalized his hire, the rest is history.
In Dzik’s first three seasons from 1980-83, Cabrini captured the
Keystone Athletic Conference title. From 1983-87, the Cavaliers advanced to the NAIA Tournament four times, won four District 19 championships and hoisted the Eastern Pennsylvania Athletic Conference hardware on three occasions.
“It’s difficult to single out one memory from my time at Cabrini,” Dzik said. “But one of the more memorable ones was winning the District 19 title in 1984 as decided underdogs on the road at Coppin State to advance to the nationals in Kansas City. That was the first time that Cabrini College had appeared in a national tournament in any sport.”
In 1987-88, Dzik helped usher Cabrini into full-time membership with the NCAA and Eastern States Athletic Conference (ESAC). The Cavaliers wasted little time in making an impact within their new surroundings, winning the ESAC title in 1988.
From there, Cabrini joined nine other private, four-year colleges in Eastern Pennsylvania in forming the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference—now the Colonial States Athletic Conference. In addition to helping with the league’s formation and serving as its first president (1992-94), Dzik just happened to aid the Cavaliers to eight conference championships, including a run of six straight from 1992-98.
Under Dzik’s tutelage, Cabrini played in the NCAA Tournament nine times and advanced as far as the “Sweet 16” Round in 2001-02. With Dzik at the helm of the program, the Cavaliers won 20 games in a single season 14 times.
Quickly for Dzik, Cabrini went from an unfamiliar place to a home with a strong foundation. But, he’d never accept all of the credit.
“From a basketball perspective, I really had some dedicated, hard-working and knowledgeable assistant coaches,” Dzik said. “When you take a look at Joe Kelly and Mike Keeley, and what they’ve contributed to the basketball program at Cabrini—it’s wonderful that I am being honored, but you need to put the two of them standing right next to me. They poured their heart and soul into it for 25 years of their lives.
“And, of course, it couldn’t be done without the wonderful players. We were blessed with many hard-working and outstanding players, who helped to create the tradition for Cabrini men’s basketball. They not only started it, but they passed it down. It went from class-to-class and year-to-year. That’s what makes a program strong.”
In addition to his coaching responsibilities, Dzik served as Director of Men’s Athletics (1980-86) and as Director of Athletics (1986-2003).
Today, Dzik becomes the 23rd member of the Cabrini Athletic Hall of Fame and the sole inductee of the class of 2010.
“It’s certainly nice to be recognized,” Dzik said. “To me, it gives everything we did at Cabrini a stamp of approval and let’s me know that I did a good job. And, that’s all that you ever try to do. I always tried to do a good job.”
Since 2005, Dzik has been athletic director at Piedmont College in Georgia.
