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Mikes’ Ricco credits coaches for his success

By George Von Benko for The 7 min read
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Tom Ricco bled Carmichaels blue and gold as a player, and still does.

Ricco was an outstanding three-sport athlete for the Mikes in the early 1990s, excelling in baseball, football and basketball.

On the gridiron Ricco was the starting quarterback from 1990-92. The Mikes posted a record of 3-7 in 1990, then were 6-4-1 in 1991 and made the postseason for the first time in 10 years. They were ousted from the WPIAL playoffs by Rochester, 32-0.

In 1992, they finished regular season at 8-1, outplayed Clairton in playoffs but lost 14-12.

“We were pleased with the season, but not the end result,” Ricco lamented. “We lost that game by two points. We had the ball at the three-yard line first and goal and we couldn’t get it in, so I tried to kick a field goal and it was blocked.”

Ricco says, “I was a lot like a game manager as a quarterback, I had exceptional backs behind me in Chad Lechner, Tracey Rush and Brett Kotarsky. We probably threw maybe 10 times a game, I was pretty efficient. If we threw 10 times I would complete six or seven of them.”

As a senior the 6-foot, 180 pound Ricco did toss five touchdown passes.

“I loved football,” Ricco stated. “When I was young my family owned a golf course here in Carmichaels and my grandfather many, many times offered me all kinds of stuff not to play football and be on the golf team and I always refused and to this day I’m still glad I did, because some of the best times I had were playing football.”

Ricco has great respect for his old football coach John Menhart.

“Coach Menhart was the best motivator I’ve ever been coached by,” Ricco said. “He could make you run through a brick wall, he had a special bond with every player and I think every player that ever played for him would have done anything for him. He was a special guy. I have a lot of respect for that guy.

“As the quarterback I had a special relationship with Coach Menhart, and it still exists to this day. I’m the president of the school board in Carmichaels and he is the superintendent. I’m kind of in a different role, I’m kinda the head coach and he’s the quarterback, but we still have the same kind of dynamic.”

Ricco played basketball on Mikes squads that went 4-16 in 1990-91, 14-8 in 1991-92 and 15-9 with a trip to the WPIAL playoffs in 1992-93. Carmichaels defeated Riverview in the playoffs 71-53, but then lost to Kevin Price and Duquesne 64-38.

“I was the sixth or seventh man on the hoop team,” Ricco said. “We had a very, very talented basketball team with Chad Lechner, Tom Hastings, Brett Kotarsky and Bill Everly. They were all just phenomenal. I came in and I was more of a defensive specialist.”

Ricco also loved his basketball coach Don Williams.

“Coach Williams is another motivator,” Ricco said. “He could get you to do whatever he wanted you to do. He was a yeller, he was a screamer, but he always told you if he stops screaming at you that he gave up on you. I still use that same thing to this day in my coaching from him. We put a little thing on our basketball court recently — just his initials, ‘DW,’ and the reason is very seldom do you see someone so involved in so many guys’ lives, as he was. Forty years of year after year of just helping kids, he was a teacher.”

It was on the baseball diamond where Ricco really made his mark. He was a four-year starter and as a freshman he played left field and then switched to catcher as a sophomore. As a senior he batted .488 with 13 RBIs. Only four base runners were able to steal a base against the strong-armed Ricco during his senior campaign. Ricco batted .370 as a sophomore and .462 as a junior. He was a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Baseball All-Star as a senior.

“We had amazing baseball talent,” Ricco opined. “We had a pitching staff my junior and senior year that was outstanding with Bill Everly, Jason Diamond and Ron Nopwasky. They were amazing. My senior year was the best that I’d ever seen, three guys that could just throw lights out.

“We could hit, there wasn’t a hole in our lineup. We put a ton of runs up and played good baseball.”

The Mikes captured three section titles in the four years that Ricco played. In 1992 and 1993 Carmichaels was 26-4 and they were 23-1 in Section 17. In 1993 the Mikes were ousted from the WPIAL playoffs in the semifinals when they lost to Canevin on a controversial call.

“We all are still fuming about that loss,” Ricco explained. “Considering that we lost on a ball that was hit underneath a lawn chair and our left fielder went to get the ball out of there and they didn’t call the ball dead. We were up against a kid name Brad O’Malley and that ball changed everything. We should have won the game, but it is what it is.

“The funny thing about my career at Carmichaels is we had a lot of success my senior season, but there are two things that happened that year that really stick out in our mind. The field goal try against Clairton and the lawn chair play against Canevin in baseball.

“Coach Tom McCombs was great,” Ricco said. “I think for two years of our four years there he didn’t have an assistant, he coached us by himself. I was blessed with really three great coaches in my career at Carmichaels and they all taught me different things. I coach a lot now with the junior high team and various travel teams, and everything that they taught me I use today.

“They molded me as a coach.”

When Ricco graduated from Carmichaels in 1993 he was an invited walk-on at West Virginia, but soon found himself attending Waynesburg University.

“I tried out at WVU and was one player away from making their roster,” Ricco recalled. “I got cut and then went to Waynesburg and I played three years at Waynesburg and I had three different coaches. I played for Steve Lee, Dave Walkosky and Mark Florak.”

Ricco was on Waynesburg teams that finished 17-12 in 1995, 11-11 in 1996 and 19-15 in 1997. He batted .316 as a sophomore, .362 as a junior and hit .346 as a senior.

“The highlight of my college career in my final game,” Ricco said. “I had a walk-off home run. That helped us lead Division III in batting average. If I don’t hit the home run we don’t lead the nation.”

When Ricco graduated in 1997 he played in the Fayette County Baseball League worked in the family business at Carmichaels Golf Club. Most recently he started a business called Advanced Masonry.

Ricco, 42, and his wife of 19 years, Carrie, reside in Carmichaels, and they have three kids: Caitlyn, Micaela and Nicolas.

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.

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