Les Kish’s career in athletics spanned the width of the СŷƵ.
He was an all-state quarterback in New Jersey and a talented second baseman while playing for the Phillipsburg Stateliners and was selected as СŷƵ Scholar-Athlete of the Year by the National Football Foundation in 1962.
He continued his career in both football and baseball at Lehigh University where he earned six varsity letters in two sports and was the MVP of the 99th Lehigh-Lafayette football game when he led the Engineers to a 15-8 win at Lehigh’s Taylor Stadium. A sophomore quarterback, Kish led both Lehigh scoring drives. He rushed for 103 yards on 16 carries, ran for one touchdown, passed for another and also tossed a two-point conversion pass.
In 1966, he began a 33-year career with the Allentown School District, teaching and coaching football as an assistant under John “Jeep” Bednarik at Dieruff.
But it was his next stop where Kish made his biggest impact.
He spent seven years as the head football coach at Allen with the highlight being the 1973 team that went 8-2 and won the Big 6 title. He then spent 17 years running the entire Canaries athletic department as athletic director.
In those 17 years prior to his retirement in June of 1999 at the age of 55, Kish got to celebrate a state championship in softball in 1990, a District 11 title in football in 1992, a state title in swimming, and numerous league and district titles in basketball.
There were also celebrations for the new Allen High Sports Hall of Fame that Kish began, along with the remodeling of the gymnasium and organized celebrations honoring 100 years of football in Allentown and the 40th anniversary of Crum Stadium.
Along with that came some controversies within the East Penn Conference as five schools departed and joined the Mountain Valley Conference, leaving the three Allentown schools, Bethlehem Catholic, and Emmaus behind as a five-school league with lots of open dates on schedules to fill.
Through it all, Kish strived to do what’s best for local sports in general and Allen in particular.
Sadly, Kish died June 11 at the age of 81, but his legacy with Canary athletics lives on.
“He was always a Valley guy and he had chances to leave here because he had friends in Texas and friends in California, and friends all over, but he dedicated his life to the Valley and especially to Allen,” said his son, Bryan, who was a standout football player at Dieruff and a key part of the Huskies’ 1992 EPC title team. “My dad always believed the СŷƵ was a wonderful place, and that’s why he never left.”
Kish was inducted into multiple halls of fame — the СŷƵ Chapter of the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame (1997), the Northeast Region Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame (1998), the Allen High School Athletic Hall of Fame (2016), and the Phillipsburg-Easton Football Hall of Fame (2022).
Earlier this year, his 1960 Phillipsburg team was enshrined in the Phillipsburg Athletic Hall of Fame.
“He loved Phillipsburg, and he was so honored when he went into the Phillipsburg-Easton Hall of Fame, but wherever he went, he seemed to make friends and have an impact on so many lives,” Bryan Kish said. “He loved Allen, though. He made so many great friends there, starting with Milo Sewards. They were very close. But he had a connection with everybody. He was always in the gym or at the stadium, and he was there for everything because he was the stadium manager. He took a lot of pride in that stadium. If I wanted to see him, I would either go to the gym, his office, or the stadium, and that’s where we had so many dinners together, usually Yocco’s.”
Kish tried to treat everyone with respect.
“He told me one day that it’s important to treat everyone well,” his son said. “He said the janitors are as valuable to me as anyone else. Everybody is of equal value if they’re putting in the work and time.”
Kish made two hires that resulted in great success.
One, was Rich Sniscak as football coach, who resurrected a scuffling program. Sniscak’s Canaries won the 1992 District 11 title.
The other hire was bringing Doug Snyder back to Allen as boys basketball coach after the retirement of John Donmoyer. Snyder coached for 23 seasons, matching Donmoyer in length of tenure, and won 364 games, four league and four District 11 championships.
Snyder played football for Kish at Allen, and said he had a great influence on his own coaching career.
“Les kind of established a foundation for football at Allen,” Snyder said. “Coming into that program from Raub, South Mountain and Trexler we knew the success he had before we got there and we were looking forward to getting into that group and tasting some of that success. Les was the first coach I ever had who had a written practice schedule and plan. You could go to the locker room door at the fieldhouse and see a written schedule for what we were going to do minute-by-minute.
“I thought that was very impressive, and as I got into my own coaching career, I remembered how meticulous Les was and how organized and planned out everything was, and incorporated some of that stuff into my own coaching style,” Snyder added.
He also remembered that Kish brought meditation to the locker room.
“We would go out on the field for warmups and then come back into the locker room and the lights would go down and we’d lay on our backs and meditate for a few minutes and get our thoughts together,” Snyder said. “I mean, this was the early 1970s, and nobody was doing mental things like that. And he also would have us doing weightlifting sessions over the summer. Maybe the guys playing baseball and basketball wouldn’t be there all the time, but he was ahead of his time when it came to organizing, planning and running a full-time program.”
Snyder also remembered Kish’s kindness and concern after he suffered a major injury during his junior football season.
“He was just completely supportive,” Snyder said. “I was a wide receiver and safety, and Mark Smith threw me a pass, and I caught it and got hit from a Parkland player from the backside. It was a clean hit, but he happened to hit me in the kidney. I had a ruptured kidney, but didn’t know it at the time. I wanted to go back in, and Les wouldn’t let me, which is something I am so thankful for. I wound up spending 17 days in the hospital. I am a 16-year-old in there, and Les would stop in and see me all the time, and he’d bring food over from the old Roundhouse at 14th and Tilghman. I mean he took good care of me and later he hired me as the boys basketball coach, which, of course, I was grateful for.”
Current Allen athletic director Randy Atiyeh said when he got the job, he reached out to Kish.
“I have great love for the school’s history and wanted to hear from him and talk,” Atiyeh said. “It was great because he loved telling me old stories, and I certainly loved hearing them. This past year, he came along with me as a guest at our EPC luncheon we have for retired ADs and principals. That was also neat, and I know he enjoyed seeing old friends. Now I am so glad I got to join him for that.
“The bottom line is that Les had great passion for Allentown athletics and William Allen,” Atiyeh said. “I always did think of him whenever I went into the gym lobby and was surrounded by our Hall of Fame photos because he founded the Allen Hall of Fame. He will be missed.”
He will be missed most profoundly by his children, Bryan and his sister Corey. It figures to be a most difficult Father’s Day as they plan for their father’s funeral at noon on Monday at J.S. Burkholder Funeral Home at 16th and Hamilton in Allentown.
In the spirit of teamwork that Coach Kish would have admired, Bryan saluted Corey.
“She took him in because he could no longer live by himself, and took care of him over the final months of his life and did a wonderful job,” Bryan Kish said. “I know he told me he was getting good care from her, and I have to say thank you to her for doing that. I know my dad was proud of the two of us, and while it’s not easy on this Father’s Day, I know his spirit lives on with us and his grandkids.”
