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Longtime YSU doctor recalled as being ahead of the game
The Youngstown State community lost an important part of their athletic history. But he never played a minute, down, set, period or even put on a jersey.
Dr. Michael Vuksta simply made sure everyone else could – safely.
The longtime physician for Youngstown State athletics died recently at 91 and left a legacy remembered by many in the Mahoning Valley.
Vuksta was inducted into the Youngstown State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1987, but he did work outside of the university as well, helping the area’s high school athletes as well.
“I’ve known Dr. Vuksta since I was 12 or 13,” 1974 Boardman graduate Joe Conway said. “He diagnosed me with my first concussion. He was the leading sports doctor in the area and was before his time.”
That area of concussions is perhaps the best example of Vuksta being a leader in sports medicine. During a time where concussions were just treated as a player “getting his bell rung” and nothing more, Vuksta knew better.
“In the early 70s coaches would say, ‘Shake it off! Get back in there!’ But [Vuksta] would say ‘No. You’re going to get rest,’” Conway said. “I would have light sensitivity, couldn’t sleep, blurry vision. It would sound like you have a furnace bearing that was bad in your head. It would just be loud constantly, even in a quiet room.
“There wasn’t much of a concussion protocol back then. Even 10 years ago they’d tell people to shake it off.”
But Vuksta, who achieved the rank of captain in the U.S. Navy, helped not only the players, but nearly everyone who came to him, even at the drop of a hat.
“I remember having a rapid heartbeat while doing play-by-play type at a basketball game early in my professional career,” former YSU sports information director Greg Gulas said. “At halftime I rushed down to Dan Wathen’s area and asked [Vuksta] to take a look at me and see what was happening. He told me I had tachycardia, to take a deep breath and not to worry. He said get back to press row and work the second half. He put me at ease.”
Vuksta wasn’t one to brush people aside either once they were out the door. Conway said Vuksta took a special interest in him even though he chose to play college football at Toledo instead of with the Penguins.
“When I came back to the area I introduced myself and he said ‘Oh yea, I remember you.’ He said he followed my whole football career at Toledo,” Conway said.
Vuksta was also very respected by his peers. Dr. George Saadey, a local dentist met Vuksta in 1963 when both their practices were in the same building and a friendship flourished from there.
“He was one of the top surgeons in Youngstown and even though I was a dentist he was like a mentor to me,” Saadey said. “Everybody loved him.”
After a few years, YSU’s first football coach, Dwight Beede, began inviting the pair to training camp each year to check the players over.
“He’d give them a physical and I’d check their mouths and fit them for a mouth guard,” Saadey said. “He loved sports and he’d do anything he was asked to be involved with in the community.
“It got to a point he was so popular when they chose a new football coach after Beede, he was on the committee. He was the type of person that never tried to socially climb, but he did.”
When the news broke of Vuksta’s death, it’s hard to think of it as a celebratory occasion. But Saadey, while obviously not joyous with the news, thought Vuksta lived the best life he could.
“I felt bad but at the same token I smiled believe it or not because he lived such a good life,” Saadey said. “He did exactly what he wanted to do. You’re almost happy someone lived a great life like that.”