Terry Zuk
Terry Zuk '64 Baseball and Soccer
Terry Zuk spent his first year at Fenn acclimating himself to the warmer climes of his adopted home, and then plunged headfirst into Fox athletics.
Baseball was his first to call him, and the hardest throwing of Coach Jim Rodriguez' early teams.
None of the four squads that Zuk played on between 1961 and 1964 played more than 14 games. In fact, the four teams for which he pitched and frequently pinch hit played a total of only 49 games less than a one-season total for most collegiate baseball teams of the 90's.
The result was a set of statistics, which taken out of the context of the times, would create not a stir of interest among the average fan.
But Zuk was a beacon of light for Fox partisans seeking a reason to cheer the Red and Gray.
In his senior year, 1964, as co-captain of the team, he compiled a sparkling 2.51 ERA, striking out 34 batters in 46 2/3 innings, and combined with another lefthander, Joe Kaderabek, to give Fenn what the 1964 Fanfare describes as "the best pitching the team has had in recent years."
The anonymous historian goes on to pint out that the combined ERA of the Zuk-Kaderabek combine "a glossy 1.88, has never been equaled in Fenn history."
And Zuk's contribution was strong enough to earn him the MVP award on a club which indeed boasted some of the finest players in Fox annals.
Two-sport stars were relatively rare at Fenn, whose co-op program madeheavy demands on a would-be athlete's time.
The energetic Zuk, however, could not be satisfied with one sport.
With his first baseball season under his belt, he decided to take a crack at soccer, a sport he had never played but one, he reasoned, couldn't be too distantly related to football since you kick a ball in each sport.
He began his career in 1961 as a forward, the most skill-oriented position in the sport, scored the only goal of his career in a 3-2 victory over Grove City - one of just two wins the Foxes recorded that year- and earned his first letter.
The next year he moved back to midfield to become a part of what many felt was Fenn's best center line ever to that time and helped the team to rebound to a 4-3-2 mark.
By his senior year in 1963, the aggressive New Yorker had become a tri-captain and a skilled enough player to earn a berth on the All-Ohio squad, one of just two Foxes on the team.
That honor, along with his showing in baseball that following spring combined to earn the Cauldron's selection as Fenn's co-Player-of-the-Year with basketball superstar Weldon Kytle.
Zuk graduated in June of 1964 with a BS in Industrial Technology and enrolled at Case Tech to pursue a master's degree. Shortly thereafter case merged with Western Reserve and he graduated from CWRU with an MBA in management with a minor in marketing.
Upon graduation he began a lengthy career with General Electric, working with jet engines in Cleveland and Cincinnati. Promoted to Manufacturing Program Manager in 1981, he participated in the full scale development and testing of the F110 Engine now powering the F14 Tomcat and the F16 Falcon Fighter planes.
He later participated in F16 engine sales to Turkey, Greece and Israel as well as setting up offset programs with many European countries.
He left GE in 1986 to join Textron Lycoming as Director of Program Management in Stratford, CT then moved to Williamsport, PA in 1988 to become Director of Operations with Textron's Reciprocating Engine Group.
In 1990, he returned to the Greater Cleveland area to become general manager of Precision Castparts Corporation's Mentor plant.
He and his wife Mary, now make their home in suburban Concord.
