Brilliant coaching career lands Petruska in HOF
This is the seventh in a series of articles profiling members of the Butler County Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024
VALENCIA — A three-sport athlete at Deer Lakes, Dana Petruska opted to pursue a career in basketball.
“I played volleyball and softball, too, but basketball always seemed to be the most competitive to me,” Petruska said. “Softball and volleyball had a lot of stoppages, after each point or pitch. Basketball was more non-stop, getting up and down the floor, constantly competing.
“I loved that part of it.”
And she made the right choice.
A 1975 Deer Lakes graduate who went on to play women’s basketball at the University of Pittsburgh, Petruska wound up winning more than 500 games and a state championship as a high school basketball coach at Deer Lakes and Mars.
Now Petruska is being inducted into the Butler County Sports Hall of Fame. She is already a member of the A-C Valley Sports Hall of Fame and Mars Area Sports Hall of Fame.
“I’m very honored by this,” Petruska said. “I know the long history of athletics in this county. So many great athletes and coaches have come through.”
Petruska will join Josh Barthlow, Kevin Doyle, Brandon Fusco, Lily Grenci, Tammie Kellety, John Papa and John Enrietto in gaining induction at the BCSHOF banquet at 6:30 p.m. April 27 at Founders Hall on the campus of Butler County Community College.
Petruska described herself as “primarily a defensive player” during her playing career at Pitt. She graduated with a degree in Health and Physical Education and always desired to be a coach.
“A woman with connections to the University of Pittsburgh came on staff at Deer Lakes and she served as my connection to that school,” Petruska said of going to Pitt. “It’s strange how things work out. If I had never met that woman, I doubt I’d be where I am today.”
Where she is today is looking back on an illustrious coaching career.
Petruska first got into coaching at Pine-Richland, where she coached junior high basketball and varsity softball. She was eventually hired to coach girls basketball at Mars, taking over a team that won one game the previous year. In her first 19 years at Mars, Petruska compiled a 268-184 record.
Two years later, she took over a Deer Lakes program that won three total games over the previous two years. Her first year at Deer Lakes, Petruska led the Lancers to the WPIAL playoffs. She was 111-71 overall in eight years there.
“I’ve always felt my job as a coach was to draw the most I could out of the girls I was working with,” she said. “Some people liked me. Some people didn’t. But I felt like I was always able to get the girls to give me their best and work hard.
“When I was a player, my coaches did a lot of yelling. That’s how it was back then. So when I started coaching, I did a lot of yelling, too. My son (Jimmy) was coaching with me at the time and pointed out that I didn’t yell at my own kids, so why am I yelling at these girls? So I stopped yelling.”
When Petruska returned to Mars as girls basketball coach in 2014, she won a state championship with the Planets four years later.
“That was the magic season,” she described. “Everything came together that year ... just a great group of kids. They worked so hard and played together. It all paid off in the end and I was thrilled for them.”
Petruska retired from high school coaching in 2023 with 518 total wins. She spent this past season as an assistant on her son Jimmy’s women’s basketball team at Saint Vincent College.
“Totally different world,” she described of Division III college basketball. “No one’s getting any scholarship money to play, nobody feels entitled. I respect the way Jimmy handles those players. I learned a lot.”
Tickets to the BCSHOF banquet are available at www.butlersportshall.com or at the Butler Radio Network on Pillow Street in Butler, Parker Appliance in Chicora, Saxonburg Drug or Maddalon Jewelers in Zelienople.
