Anthony "Chant" Rovinski was the football coach at Palmerton High School for two years.
1933 Holy Cross College yearbook photo
Rovinski was born in Nanticoke (just west of Wilke-Barre, Pennsylvania), and he attended Kingston High (now part of Wyoming Valley West School District) where he starred as an end on the 1925 championship team.
After graduating from high school in 1928, he attended St. John’s Preparatory School in Worcester, Massachusetts for one year. He then studied at Holy Cross College from which he graduated in 1933. At Holy Cross, he played end and quarterback for three years.
According to various newspaper accounts, in 1933-34, “Anthony Chant Rovinski… has decided to play professional football and will join a team from Brooklyn this month.” I've also seen mention that he played with the Brooklyn Dodgers football team in 1934, but National Football League reference sites, such as www.pro-football-reference.com/players/R/RoviTo20.htm, only show him as being part of the New York Giants reserve squad in 1933. He may also have played semi-pro ball in Paterson, New Jersey.
In 1938 he became head of athletics and the football coach at St. Nicholas High School in Wilkes-Barre (now St. Nicholas – St. Mary’s School).
Palmerton hired Rovinski in August 1942. He took over from John C. Young, who had enlisted in the US Navy. “The new mentor faces the arduous task of molding what is left of last year’s fast but light Bomber aggregation into a coordinated hard-hitting eleven.” (The Morning Call, 1 September 1942) Rovinski was also hired as a senior and junior high school math teacher.
In two years at Palmerton, he had a very successful team, 6-2-1 (1942), and a not-so-successful team, 2-6 (1943).
After he left Palmerton High School in August 1944, I have not had much luck in finding out where he went. He did change his last name to “Rovine” in June 1944. According to his obituary, he had resided in Kingston for the last years of his life, and he had worked as an aide at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Lyons, New Jersey.
In July 1936, he married Josephine Sternick (1911-2000) in Kingston, Pennsylvania. Like her husband, she was born and raised in Kingston. They had a son and daughter.
Rovinski (Rovine) died in Wilkes-Barre in 1973. His wife died in 2000.
In 1973, Harold (Guffy) Pugh recalled about Rovinski: “Tony was one of the best players ever developed on the local gridders (sic) although he wasn't too big. He just loved to play the game.” (The Times Leader, 19 April 1973)