Donald Chomicz was a two-sport athlete at Catholic Central High School (CC) earning multiple varsity letters in Football and Track. In the fall of 1953, CC had an outstanding football team. While the 1953 season began with a loss to Flint Central 19-13, CC then ran the table (Servite, Hamtramck, Boys Town, Aquinas, Muskegon, Wayne, and Toledo) scoring 310 pts to 63 for opponents.
Individually, Don Chomicz earned All-State honors as an offensive tackle and was named to the Mythical All-State Football team, the forerunner of today’s Dream Team. He excelled in Track, placing at the regional meet. Don, vice president of the class of 1954, capped off his athletic career at CC by being chosen as the 1954 Whalen Award winner.
Moving on to university, the big three of CC football for the 1953 season were Don, Bob Handloser ’54, and Cliff LaRose ’54. All three (3) roomed together at Michigan State University with Chomicz then going to the Naval Academy after his freshman year. Don Chomicz was an outstanding lineman on some great Navy teams which beat the Notre Dame twice as well as the University Michigan.
From the Naval Academy 1959 yearbook: “Hailing from Detroit, Don graduated from Catholic Central High School in 1954. Chomicz joined the Class of ’59 after a year at Michigan State. As a top-notch guard, he played three years of varsity football, winning his letter Second class year. If you chanced to be watching television the past few Army games or the Cotton Bowl game, you would have seen Chom very active on the field. He did not let football interfere with academics as he maintained a 3.2 average for his four-year stay.”
It is important to note that the Army/Navy game was the most watched game in that era. The Cotton Bowl was one of the four major bowl games at that time (Rose, Cotton, Sugar, Orange) so it was a great honor for a team to be in any one of these bowl games.
Following his graduation from the Naval Academy, Don completed his military service in the U.S. Air Force spending 26 years as an engineer in both Munitions and Systems Development. While in the Air Force, he earned a master’s degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from U of M. He retired with the rank of Colonel. Don’s second career was as a Sr. Systems Engineer for the Boeing Defense and Space Group until his retirement. Don has been married to his wife, Elenore, for 58 years, they have two children: Greg and Michelle
We are proud of Don’s accomplishments and the way he lives his life as a “Son of Mary Alma Mater”.
