Andy Dzurinko grew up in the once-thriving steel town of Monessen, Pennsylvania, twenty-seven miles south of Pittsburgh. From the time he played in the local Midget Football League, sports have always played a big part in Andy’s life. He was an All-State lineman for the Monessen High School football team that won a conference championship in 1960. He went on to Bucknell University where, in Andy’s senior year, the Bisons won the Lambert Cup, symbolic of Eastern small college football supremacy. For his many athletic accomplishments, he was inducted into Pennsylvania’s Mid Mon Valley All Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.
Commissioned a second lieutenant, he served two years of active duty with the U.S. Army, including a tour in Vietnam. Returning to civilian life, he earned a masters’ degree at the University of Pittsburgh where he began a ten-year coaching career that took him ta Williams College and Brown University before entering the insurance industry in 1978.
Andy joined AUL in 1980 and was director of training and regional vice president of agencies for American United Life Insurance Company in Indianapolis before relocating to Arizona in 1988 to become a general agent and personal producer for AUL. He has qualified for the Million Dollar Round Table and the National Quality Award, and been accredited as a chartered life underwriter and chartered financial consultant by The American College.
While his playing and coaching days are behind him, Andy maintains an active workout regimen and ran in his first marathon at the age of fifty-six. His bucket list after age sixtyfive included: hiking Mt. Whitney, the Half Dome in Yosemite, the Grand Canyon in the United States; and, internationally, Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, Machu Pichu in Peru, Mt Blanc in France, and Walking the El Camino in Spain.
While serving as executive director of Arizona Governor’s Council on Health, Physical Fitness and Sports, he received the Outstanding Council Member Award from the National Association. Always willing to give back to his community with such groups as Tempe Sister Cities, Sigma Chi Fraternity Alumni, Bucknell Alunrni, and the National Football Foundation, he has headed up the Frank Kush Youth Foundation for the past thirty years.