A Hall of Fame athlete at Mentor High School, he was a tight end at Miami University from 1963 to 1965. He got his first head coaching job in 1969 at the young age of 25. He coached the Chillicothe High School Cavaliers for four seasons before returning to the Miami RedHawks in 1973 as an assistant. In his only season with the RedHawks, the team had an undefeated 11–0 season. Miami finished the year with the 17th overall ranking and defeated the Florida Gators 16–7 in the Tangerine Bowl. This season also began an 11-year relationship between head coach Bill Mallory and Durchik.
From 1974 to 1978 Durchik was Mallory's offensive line coach with the Colorado Buffaloes[1]. In five seasons at Boulder the Buffaloes had a 35–21–1 record, appearing in two bowl games, both losses. He was an assistant coach for Gary Moeller for one year 1979 at the University of Illinois before joining forces again with Coach Mallory at Northern Illinois, where he was the Huskiesoffensive coordinator from 1980 to 1983. After a brief stint as interim head coach during the off-season between the 1983 and 1984 college football seasons, he was a finalist for the head coaching Job at NIU but decided to head to the Canadian Football League when Lee Corso got the head coaching job.
Durchik's next coaching position was as the offensive line coach for Montreal Concordes. Durchik replaced head coach Joe Galat for the final two games of the 1985 season, winning both. He defeated the Ottawa Rough Riders 30–20 in the East Semi-Final. He returned to coach the team (which restored the Alouettes name) to a 4–14 season the following year. The team would disband shortly after the start of the 1987 CFL season. [2][permanent dead link]