Dec 28, 2015 By George Von Benko for The 7 min read

Most great basketball teams have an outstanding point guard. Uniontown’s 1981 state championship team was no exception.

The man who ran the show for the 1981 Red Raiders was point guard Greg Gabriel.

Looking back years later, Gabriel feels the seeds for that Red Raider state championship squad were planted in junior high school.

“The term “a date with state” had come up our junior year,” Gabriel recalled. “It went back earlier than that. At some point it was a merging of two really good junior high basketball teams. We were coached by Bill Broda at Ben Franklin and Coach Rich Bierbower was over at Lafayette and those were two very good teams with a lot of good players. The merging of those two very good teams is kind of what set things in motion in 10th grade.

“One of my early memories from junior high was Coach Lash Nesser coming to watch one of the BF-Lafayette games and I remember him sitting on a stage right above the basketball court and he was right behind our bench. There was a thought by him that these two teams were going to merge and the expectation was very high even back in junior high school.”

The players were very familiar with each other because the playground system was still a big part of growing up in Uniontown.

“Everybody knew who everybody else was,” Gabriel said. “We were fairly tight from playing on the playgrounds and our relationship as teammates went back into junior high school.”

The nucleus of the 1981 state championship team starting getting playing time at the varsity level at Uniontown when they were sophomores in 1978-79.

When that group of players were sophomores, the Red Raiders went 21-6 and lost to Latrobe in the WPIAL playoffs, 61-55. In 1979-80 as juniors, the Raiders finished 28-4, beating Mount Lebanon, 73-60, Central Catholic, 71-60, and falling to Beaver Falls in the WPIAL playoffs, 64-56.

In the PIAA playoffs, the Red Raiders defeated Perry, 81-55, and Altoona, 82-78, before Erie McDowell ended their title hopes, downing the Raiders, 65-60. The stage was set for a magical 1980-81 campaign.

Gabriel developed into a solid point guard, in 1978-79 he tallied 189 points. In 1979-80 he notched 486 points for an average of 15.7 points per game and in his senior season, Gabriel scored 481 points for an average of 14.1 points per game. He finished with 1,156 points for his varsity career at Uniontown. Gabriel’s high game for the Raiders was a 28-point game in a 96-58 win over Laurel Highlands his senior year.

“Those losses we remembered,” Gabriel stated. “We definitely felt like we had a date with state our senior year, that was the expectation, we wanted it all.”

Uniontown went 32-2 on its way to a state title. The Raiders marched to the WPIAL championship beating Norwin, 76-62, Bethel Park, 91-53, and defeated Aliquippa in the WPIAL title game, 80-67.

In the PIAA playoffs, they dispatched Erie Prep, 50-41, Brashear, 79-65, Erie McDowell, 66-50, Altoona, 80-73, and won the state championship with a 73-61 win over Springfield Delco.

“I felt like it was all going to happen for us,” Gabriel said. “We wanted to win them all, unfortunately we lost two. We lost at Belle Vernon and we lost a close game in the Las Vegas Tournament. The thing I remember too is that it takes a community to win and the entire Uniontown community made that run possible. The support we received was unbelievable and very meaningful. I’ve always felt that great teams come from great communities and Uniontown was and is a great sports community.”

Gabriel was aware of the tradition of Uniontown basketball and it was a special time in his life.

“Putting on that uniform was special.” Gabriel remembered. “One of the most difficult time for me was taking that Red Raider uniform off. I distinctly remember after the state championship game and I was wearing my uniform and I was thinking this is the last time I’m every going to wear this Red Raider uniform and I didn’t want to take it off.

“In a team concept I was never comfortable with individual awards. We were the ultimate team, we were a close knit team. When somebody had an off night there was always somebody else to pick it up.”

Gabriel had a great relationship with his old head coach, Lash Nesser.

“He had a great ability to connect with people,” Gabriel opined. “For me personally it was more than just a coach player relationship. Lash and his wife, Martha, would invite me to their home for dinner. I very much felt going through high school that I was part of the Nesser family.”

Gabriel was selected to play in the preliminary game of the Dapper Dan Roundball Classic.

“Leading up to that was a real thrill,” Gabriel stated. “You got to scrimmage and practice against the US All Stars and that was the year that Patrick Ewing, Bill Martin and Anthony Jones who all signed with Georgetown. That was a big thrill.”

Gabriel scored 12 points for the Western Pennsylvania All Stars in their 113-109 loss to the Eastern Pennsylvania All Stars.

When Gabriel graduated from Uniontown High School in 1981, he had three primary scholarship offers to Delaware, Midwestern State University in Texas and Carnegie Mellon.

“I didn’t want to go far away from home,” Gabriel said. “Dave Maloney was coaching CMU and I took to him right away and I decided to go there.”

Gabriel was a key player on Tartan squads that went 10-11 in 1981-82, 6-15 in 1982-83 and 5-16 in 1983-84. He scored 780 career points in three seasons at CMU and still ranks ninth on the Tartans All Time assists list with 261 assists. He was an Academic All-American.

“Larry Anderson became the head coach my senior year and I didn’t play my senior year,” Gabriel explained. “He didn’t cut me, but he cut a lot of friends from the team because he wanted to go in a different direction and I felt mostly out of loyalty to Coach Maloney and some of my friends that were cut that was not the path I wanted to go down and I did not play my senior year. I applied to CMU’s 3.2 MBA program and was accepted. So I did three years undergrad and two years for my Masters degree.”

One of Gabriel’s teammates at CMU was Herb Sendek who coached at Miami of Ohio, North Carolina State and Arizona State. Sendek is godfather to Gabriel’s son.

Gabriel went to work for the family business Gabriels a discount clothing chain. He left the firm seven years ago to pursue a teaching career in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is a Eastway Middle School seventh-grade math teacher. He was the Eastway Middle School 2012-2013 MeckEd Teacher of Excellence Recipient.

Gabriel, 52, resides in Charlotte with his wife of 27 years Beth. They have three children Christine 26, David 24 and Rachel 21.

“I am blessed to have been born in Uniontown and be the son of Eli and Rosemarie Gabriel and been raised in the Uniontown community, it’s a blessing. Uniontown was home and it always will be home.

George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Monday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.