To a 23-year-old who had never stepped foot in Palm Beach County before his first day on the job as a high school writer, he was a friendly and comforting presence in a strange land.
Everyone I met that first year working for Palm Beach Newspapers — co-workers, coaches, athletes — was a stranger. I was the outsider hoping to be accepted into their world.
And as I covered the county few welcomed and accepted me like Cardinal Newman coach Sam Budnyk.
Budnyk was about midway through his iconic coaching career when I arrived in 1981. And although I spent just one year covering high school sports that was enough to develop a relationship, both as a reporter and friend, with one of the most legendary coaches in the state of Florida that lasted for more than four decades.
Budnyk died Friday, July 17, having impacted more athletes and students than perhaps any other in our county’s history. He was 92.
“Not only is he obviously a great coach, but a role model and how much he inspired kids,” said Cardinal Newman football coach Jack Daniels. “He shaped so many people’s lives.
“Just a sad loss.”
Sam Budnyk impacted thousands of young people as a coach, educator
To call Sam Budnyk a football coach would be a disservice. He had a profound impact on thousands of boys and girls. Men and women. Athletes and students who came through Cardinal Newman since 1961, and St. Ann Catholic School before that.
Yes, Budynk was extraordinary at the job that highlights his athletic resume; winning 278 games and sending more than 150 players to NCAA Division I programs on scholarship, including four who reached the National Football League, in 46 years as football coach at Cardinal Newman. But he was as successful coaching young men and women in softball, track and field, basketball and golf. Budnyk was on the sideline for well more than 1,000 games in his career, winning 954. Few resumes in the country can compete with Budynk’s.
The football and softball fields at Cardinal Newman are dedicated in Budnyk’s honor.
But beyond that, Budnyk was a devout Catholic. A husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather. An educator, a mentor and a leader.
This written about Budnyk on the Cardinal Newman Facebook page:
“Coach Budnyk dedicated his life to shaping generations of Crusaders, not only as an extraordinary coach but as a mentor, teacher, and friend. His impact on our school, our students, and our community will never be forgotten.”
Budnyk coached with the compassion of a parent and the discipline of an ex-Marine, which he was.
He was tough and demanding. He was soft and caring. He didn’t judge his players or his students.
“He wasn’t a guy that you go knock on his door and just shoot the (breeze) with,” said John Carney, a kicker and punter for Budnyk at Newman before graduating from Notre Dame and spending 23 seasons in the NFL.
“He held this aura around him that if you’re going to speak with him, it better be something important. You better have your thoughts together, you don’t want to waste his time talking small talk. And he’s going to give you a great answer that’s going to be wrapped with experience and wisdom.
“You took away from that program lessons in commitment, perseverance, teamwork, toughness, grit. Coach Budnyk was a great mentor and leader.”
Carney, 62, mentors and coaches kickers at a year-round program in Carlsbad, California. But his career may have taken a much different turn if not for the persistence of Budnyk, who was doing what he did best … looking out for one of his own.
Gerry Faust was recruiting Newman running back Alonzo Jefferson and stopped by the West Palm Beach school when Budnyk “kept elbowing” the Notre Dame coach to remind him he had a kicker/punter who could help his program.
“(Faust) said, ‘You know what? We got Alonzo. We’re really excited we got one of the top running backs in the nation and the top running back in the state of Florida, so we’ll take your kicker/punter as a preferred walk-on,'” Carney said.
“I was thrilled. It was his encouragement and perseverance towards the recruiters and Gerry Faust that finally worked.”
Remembering Sam Budnyk as a pioneer, visionary
Something else Sam Budynk was … a pioneer and visionary.
In 1965 he hired the first African American assistant football coach at a private school in Florida. Two years later, he and Ben McCoy, the coach at Kennedy High School in Riviera Beach, scheduled the first game in Palm Beach County between a predominantly Black school and a predominantly white school.
This was more than 13 years after the Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in schools unconstitutional, and three years before federal courts ordered the desegregation of Palm Beach County public schools. One historian and activist calls it “one of the most important events probably in the state of Florida and the South.”
“To this day, we’re so proud of that,” Budnyk told me four years ago.
And in 1973, Budnyk was recognized by the National Organization for Women after allowing the first girl in Palm Beach County to compete in varsity track and field.
Bill Davis, an emeritus director of the Palm Beach County Sports Commission, said Budnyk was one of those people who “made it very easy for this community to accept things that were different to them. They were used to seeing things you didn’t see in the normal South. They literally changed the direction of our community.”
Davis, 80, met Budynk the summer before he started high school when he was at Currie Park in West Palm Beach. “This man showed up and started telling us the things we needed to do and get it right,” Davis said. “He taught us more in four hours we knew in our lifetime.”
Cardinal Newman state title a nod to Sam Budnyk
Daniels arrived at Cardinal Newman in 2022. He understood the looming shadow under which he would work and the responsibility of leading a program that was synonymous with one man.
“I don’t think you ever want to step into the footsteps of a coach like coach Budnyk,” Daniels said. “I reluctantly, hesitantly stepped in and thought I’d give it a shot.
“He built that school.”
As Cardinal Newman was advancing through the 2025 playoffs and attempting to win the school’s first state championship, Daniels kept thinking of Budnyk.
“The last couple times I saw coach, you could tell it was on the decline,” Daniels said. “That was always on my shoulder, too. I really felt like, if we didn’t get it for coach this year, I don’t know if he would … you know. I didn’t know if we’d ever get it.”
“I think he had God on his shoulders and looking over us.”
Sam and Maurita, his wife of 65 years, were in the kitchen of their home in North Palm Beach listening as Cardinal Newman defeated four-time reigning state champion Chaminade-Madonna, 17-14, in the Class 1A state championship game.
“We finally broke the ice,” Budnyk told me the day following Newman’s title. “It was like we had gremlins. It seemed like we were jinxed and hopefully we broke the jinx and they’ll run some more wins like that.”
And when they do, Sam Budnyk will be looking down on the program, the school, the city and the county in which he impacted so many young lives.
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Sam Budnyk’s legacy transcends his record as a coach | D’Angelo
Reporting by Tom D’Angelo, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Tom D'Angelo, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
