George Kazakos Passes Away, Sports star and Vietnam Veteran

According to recent reports, George Kazakos has passed away sadly.

When he was a young child in Greece, his father, who also served as his instructor started him playing soccer.

He excelled at EVERY sport, particularly baseball and soccer. A jock, a sports star, was created during that time.

In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at Washington Junior High School, he began the journey toward a prosperous life. Because of his outstanding athletic accomplishments and sportsmanlike demeanor, he attracted enormous media attention.

In 1963, while attending Liberty High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he was given the moniker “The Golden Greek.” He had a powerful swing.

Numerous tributes poured in since the sudden demise of George Kazakos, Social media users could not hide their shock at his death news.

Below are some Facebook posts about the death news.

Sad to hear that George Kazakos passed away this weekend 🙁

I was blessed to have awesome teachers, and Mr. Kazakos was most definitely one of the best. He liked our class so much that he followed us from East Hills to Freedom, so he was our gym teacher for six years in a row 🙂

LOL of COURSE we played a lot of soccer in gym class – inside and outside – the man was the one-man soccer ambassador for planet Earth! I played soccer at East Hills and was way too busy to keep going at Freedom. As a goalie, he once told me the JV had never been scored upon in the history of East Hills and I most definitely better not be the first to give one up. I didn’t care if it was true or not, all I know is I didn’t let him down. Later on, at Freedom, he came to me and asked if I wanted to rejoin the soccer program because one of the goalies got hurt. I told him no, and he said “you have your whole life to become a rock star, but you’ll only get one chance to be a state champion.” Holy crap if they didn’t win that championship just a few months later.

But soccer was just his vehicle to be the most positive and supportive mentor a teenager could have. He taught me there was no halfway, if you have the talent to do something then go freakin’ DO IT.

I ran into Mr. Kazakos soon after 9/11, and I had the chance to thank him for being one of my most important teenage role models. We were all fortunate to have him, one of the most genuine and amazing people I have ever met.

I want to share a funny story – a story I told last night just moments before finding out Mr. Kazakos had passed:

There was a bar near Lehigh University where my friends and I performed at. One night, they had a “Miss (name withheld)” contest, and the first, second, and third place winners were my high school classmates. All was well and good until the owner of the bar showed the pictures from the night to her brother. Mr. Kazakos. Yup, he had to tell her that all of us in the pictures were currently attending high school at Freedom… but the awesome part of the story was that he told her to let me keep playing there – because he was pretty sure I was going to be a rock star one day 🙂

Imagine playing your favorite sport in middle school and high school while being coached by just one man.

Then consider that in that six-year stretch under his watch, winning nearly every game, including several undefeated regular seasons, two middle school titles, multiple high school league titles, four district golds, one state final four, and one state championship — in the longest game in Pennsylvania sports history.

These storied teams were coached by a fiercely dynamic leader who was also a legendary soccer and baseball player — with shimmering stats to support his star status.

Ask any athlete who competed for George Kazakos and they’d say they never worked harder, cared more, or wanted to win as badly as when Coach K was commanding the battle from the sidelines.

Our Freedom Patriots won nearly everything with him. We loved him and his confident spirit. He brought us together as we bonded as teammates and lifelong friends.

We thank him for being an inspiring mentor and an incredible person.

We’ll miss you Coach, your love of life, and your passion for Our Beautiful Game.

Our heartfelt condolences go out to the deceased’s family and friends, who have been struggling with the loss of such an intelligent and compassionate individual.

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