‘Old-school’ Miami great, part of father-daughter duo in UM Sports Hall of Fame, has died
.jpg "Ernie Yaroshuk, who died at the age of 81 on Friday, Dec. 16, 2022, is shown with his daughter Paige at Hard Rock Stadium several years ago. The two form the only father-daughter duo in the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame.")
When University of Miami baseball star Ernie Yaroshuk played his senior season in 1963 as captain for first-year Hurricanes coach and future legend Ron Fraser, he hit .448 — now the third-highest single-season average in UM history behind Pat Burrell’s .484 in 1996 and Larry Wilson’s .459 in 1962.
But Yaroshuk, who died last Friday at age 81 from complications of Alzheimer’s Disease, was much more valuable than that.
The beloved father of former Yankees minor-league player Ernie Jr. and longtime, nationally accomplished UM women’s tennis coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews, Ernie Sr. was a hard-working, intensely caring parent, grandparent and husband of 55 years to Carol.
Ernie and Paige are the only father-daughter duo enshrined in the UM Sports Hall of Fame, an honor often announced when both attended the annual induction ceremonies.
“I missed his UM induction ceremony [in 1992] because I was competing in a match at UCLA, but he was there for mine [2012],’’ Paige said this week. “He would have loved for me to be there, but there was no discussion. You do your job. The most important thing he instilled in his kids and grandkids was the importance of family and hard work.
“I was never the most talented kid but I was definitely the hardest worker and most competitive, and that philosophy is something I try to teach my teams — 100 percent because of my dad.’’
Ernie Jr., who works for Ecolab chemicals company and whose daughter Erin plays tennis for Rollins College and son Ryan will soon play baseball at Winthrop in South Carolina, said he and Paige were “lucky having the dad we had.”
‘Old-school’
“He was the one who pushed us and knew how to navigate the game and all the things that happened off the field as well,’’ Ernie Jr., who played baseball at Stetson, said. “He was the one who could talk you through everything and taught us how to lead. He was a guy who you might not have always agreed with, but you were going to hear his opinion anyway. He was an old-school person who taught us that you’re not going to have a great day every day, but there were always ways to help you get where you wanted to go.”
Stu Weinstein, the former Miami Dolphins security chief who retired in 2018, began his close friendship with Yaroshuk in 1969 when they played for competing men’s slow-pitch softball teams.
“He was very, very competitive,’’ Weinstein said. “He was the pitcher and would talk to the batters, try to intimidate them when he threw the ball, argue with the umpires. He was a great teammate and very supportive. You’re glad he’s in a better place, but he’ll certainly be missed.’’
Yaroshuk was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, and moved with his family to Miami when he was 12. He graduated from Miami Jackson High and then from UM, signed with the Philadelphia Phillies and played for a year-and-a-half with the Class A affiliates in Miami and Bakersfield, California. Weinstein recalled that Yaroshuk was told he would make his first start at Miami Stadium and the intensely proud infielder bought “a bunch of tickets for his family and friends.’’
“But when they all get to the game, the manager comes up to him and says, ‘I changed my mind Ernie. You’re not starting.’ Ernie went off on the guy.’’
Iron Arrow
Yaroshuk spent 37 years in the airline catering industry as a general manager and volunteered for the Special Olympics, telling his family that those athletes “are the real heroes.’’ Both he and Paige were inducted into the Iron Arrow Society, considered the highest honor attained at UM.
But what he loved most was mentoring his children and watching them play sports. Ernie Jr. and Paige “grew up at the University of Miami attending baseball games at Mark Light Field, football games in the Orange Bowl and Canes basketball games,’’ said Paige, the only girl on her youth baseball and soccer teams, staunchly supported by her father.
The pickup basketball games in their Kendall driveway were “so heated,’’ she said, “that we would set up one of those old-school, huge VHS cameras because we would foul the heck out of each other and somebody would go up for a layup and get sucker-punched. So, every night after work, my dad would watch the video and break down the film to decide who actually won.”
Ernie Sr. told Paige after she informed him she wanted to play at UCLA: “If this is where you want to go to school, you better start practicing harder.’’
“She’d be sitting there with a hopper full of balls, a tennis bag, her towel and a jug full of water,’’ he told the Miami Herald in 2008. “She was so disciplined at a young age it was almost scary.”
‘Emotional’
In 2016, Ernie Sr. told the Herald he “still gets emotional” when he thinks about being in the UM Sports Hall of Fame with his daughter. He described her as a disciplinarian with a loving touch, someone who knows how to communicate and is extremely proud of the university.
“Tough doesn’t mean that you’re mean or old fashioned,’’ he said. “It just means you care.’’
Yaroshuk-Tews, whose daughter Emma, 17, is a competitive USTA junior player and son Landon, 14, plays baseball at Westminster Christian, said as competitive as her father was, “every single time I stepped on the court for a match, my father would give me a kiss and say, ‘Have fun.’ He was a caring man with a huge heart.”
A private service and burial took place this week. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America.
This story was originally published December 22, 2022 at 8:19 AM.
