Curt Cignetti took to the podium at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta on Thursday morning to speak to assembled media. While he was not being inducted into the museum just yet, the moment did complete a circle that was unfinished.
Curt’s father, Frank Cignetti Sr., was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2013 and Curt was the only family member not to attend the ceremony.
“My dad was inducted in the College Football Hall of Fame in ’13, as you said, and I was the only family member that couldn’t make the ceremony, and my wife told me this morning that actually her and the kids had gone, but I couldn’t go. We were in fall camp at IUP, and I wasn’t going to miss practice.” Cignetti said.
Frank, who passed away at the age of 84 in September of 2022, has been the coaching role model that Curt wanted to follow. He started his coaching career as a high school assistant at Leechburg High School in Pennsylvania and served as the school’s head coach from 1962-65 before starting his college coaching journey at Pittsburgh in 1966. After stops at Pitt, Princeton and five years as an assistant at West Virginia under Bobby Bowden, Frank took over the Mountaineer program in 1976. After four mostly disappointing seasons and a record of 17-27 the elder Cignetti was fired in 1979.
It did not seem like the start to a hall of fame coaching career. But after beating a cancer diagnosis, Cignetti got back on his feet and into coaching by taking over Indiana University Pennsylvania in 1996. That is where the magic happened.
Frank Cignetti went on to win 182 games at IUP from 1986-2005 and had the field named after him. Less than a decade later Curt would follow in his footsteps as he left Alabama where he was the recruiting coordinator and wide receivers coach under Nick Saban to bet on himself.
“I learned so much from my dad, you know. I don’t even know where to start. He was a great leader, and he led by example, and he was a role model, and he was a strong man. He had a little John Wayne and Clint Eastwood in him.” Cignetti said. “And, you know, he — I get letters, and I read things on social media about all the people he helped at West Virginia and at IUP, helped them in their lives.”
In a rare moment to stop and soak it all in, Cignetti got to take a look around the hallowed halls in Atlanta as he remembered the lessons his father taught him.
“So this is the first time I’ve ever been in this building, and I did get to kind of see — and it was nice to be able to do that.” Cignetti.
Frank Cignetti touched the lives of many people in the coal mining region of the country in West Virginia and western PA, but his influence on Curt happened at an early age. It set in motion the career that could very well share a spot in the Hall of Fame with his father.
“When I was growing up, we were at West Virginia, and the pressure was a little different than when the other ones were growing up when they were at IUP” Cignetti said. “But I had a great upbringing. I knew in third grade I wanted to coach, and he had a lot of pearls of wisdom.”
Cignetti and his Hoosiers are set to play for a spot in the College Football Playoff national championship game on Friday night in Atlanta in a bowl game that his father coached in and would be proud of even if Curt was a little late getting to see him in the College Football Hall of Fame.