Another Carpatho-Rusyn is finding great success in the college sports world. Bob Chesney is the new Head Football Coach at UCLA, coming off a spectacular two-year stint at James Madison University. Following Curt Cignetti’s departure from the JMU Dukes to coach Indiana University to a NCAA National Championship, taking the top 13 players with him, Chesney recruited a whole new roster and still recorded a 21-5 record. The Dukes won their first bowl game in Bob’s first year and then the Sun Belt Championship in his second year, including a record setting appearance in the College Football Playoffs. Even before UCLA’s first game has been played, Chesney has infused the Bruins program with an energy and winning attitude.
Chesney grew up in Kulpmont, Pennsylvania in the heart of the Anthracite Coal Region. His Polish American father, Bob Sr., was a well-known and successful high school football coach and now acts as an unpaid UCLA defensive assistant for his son. His mother, Claudia Yonkovig Chesney, is the paternal great-granddaughter of Lemko immigrants from Swiatkowa Wielke and the maternal granddaughter of a Ukrainian grandfather and a Lemko grandmother. John Yonkovig, Bob’s paternal 2nd great-grandfather, was one of the founders of Transfiguration Catholic Church in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, which was first a Ruthenian parish which shifted to the Ukrainian fold under circumstances that Carpatho-Rusyns know too well. Coach Chesney graduated from Transfiguration Elementary School along with his brothers Vincent and Nicholas as well as his mother, his Aunt Alexa, his Uncle Mike, and his Great Uncle Zen.
Please follow UCLA college football to watch a Carpatho-Rusyn coach of a major university build a program based on winning with honor, integrity, commitment and values. His proud Godfather is Dr. Mike Yonkovig, a Carpatho-Rusyn Society member and 2025 alumnus of the C-RS Studium at Presov University.
Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel, “Holy Cross head football coach Bob Chesney closeup,” via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
