Ninth HOF class announced
John F. Brothers | Herald-Standard
The 2017 class of inductees for the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame include (seated, from left) Vanessa McLee-Hall, representing her brother inductee Kevin McLee; inductees Max V. Tinci and Peter J. Barchetti, representing the 1950 Masontown High School football team; (standing, from left) Chris Cluss, board chairman; inductee Don Woodward, high school and collegiate referee, and inductee Bill Marovic, German Township High School baseball player.
John F. Brothers | Herald-Standard
The 2017 class of inductees for the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame include (seated, from left) Lois Henck, wife of inductee Jack Henck, Brownsville track coach; inductee Denise Gallo, Connellsville basketball, and Ed Merryman, representing inductee Tom Holliday, Uniontown native and college baseball coach. Standing, from left, are Tom Sankovich, representing inductee Tom Rae, South Union football player; Gary Garbutt, representing Uniontown 1974-75 basketball team; inductee Mike Hardy, Connellsville basketball, and Jes Hutson, board co-chairman and Hall of Fame co-founder.
The ninth class to be inducted into the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame features a big heaping helping of the Albert Gallatin School District, with strong side dishes of Connellsville and Uniontown and a dash of Brownsville and South Union Township.
That’s enough to satisfy even the heartiest of appetites.
And their just scratching the surface, according to Chris Cluss, chairman of the board of directors of the local hall.
“We have a lot of great athletes here in Fayette County,” Cluss said. “People still question, ‘Why isn’t this one in?’ or ‘Why isn’t that one in?’ Our bench is deep.”
This year’s class of 10 individuals and two teams will be inducted at a banquet to be held at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, June 17, at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus. The class was announced at a social gathering Wednesday night in the Ivory Ballroom in downtown Uniontown.
The inductees start with a pair of backfield mates in 1953 German Township graduates Jim “Happy” Ford and Robert “Buddy” Ward. They are joined by another German Township athlete in Uhlan and WVU baseball star Bill Marovic, who was selected out of the 1960-69 era.
Don “Woody” Woodward also represents AG, as the Masontown native and AG graduate (1961) was selected in the Special Recognition category for his many years as a college and high school official. The icing on the AG cake is the induction of the 1950 Masontown football team, who under coach Gene Franks won the WPIAL Class B championship.
The next two eras were filled by basketball players from Connellsville. Mike Hardy, a 1975 graduate, and Denise Gallo, a 1992 graduate, both got the call from the hall to represent the Falcons.
Two coaches were elected in that category. The late Jack Henck, who coached Brownsville track and field teams, was elected, along with Tom Holliday, a three-sport star at Uniontown High School, who went on to coaching greatness at Oklahoma State University.
Two deceased players will be honored with induction, including Uniontown and Georgia running back Kevin “Age” McLee and South Union and Maryland football player and high school coaching standout Tom Rae.
Rounding out the class will be Uniontown’s 1974-75 WPIAL championship boys basketball team.
“That Masontown team from 1950, they won the fifth title in their school’s history,” Cluss said. “They were in a school that already had a deep tradition, they had great players there and they worked hard for a great coach.
“Then, up to Connellsville, and Denise Gallo was a pioneer in girls basketball and Mike Hardy, that guy could play. His Connellsville team took my Uniontown team to triple overtime that season.”
Of course, “that season” was a 27-1 campaign that featured a WPIAL championship along the way for Herb Garbutt, Dana Perno and Co.
“And speaking of Uniontown, this class also has a McLee in it,” Cluss said. “Kevin was not only a great football player, but a great friend and a good person. Plus, you had Brad McLee at Michigan State, Bill and Reggie and young Kevin at West Virginia, plus Kevin at Georgia.”
Cluss continued in mentioning Marovic was a first-team All-American, which led him to the Hollidays and the “big time college baseball” they helped foster at Oklahoma State.
The Uniontown team finished the season 27-1, with the only loss coming against Schenley, 92-77, in the PIAA quarterfinals. The team beat Valley, 68-61, for the WPIAL Class A Championship. The team was coached by Abe Everhart and featured Perno, who went on to play at West Virginia University.
Masontown’s 1950 Class B football champs fashioned a 9-1-1 record, with its lone loss at the hands of Class A German Township. The tie was a classic 0-0 decision against Class A South Union Township. Behind coach Gene Franks, Masontown outscored opponents, 126-26, and beat Aspinwall, 12-6, for the title.
Eleven years later, Woodward graduated in the first class from Albert Gallatin as an All-State and All-County receiver/defensive back, but “Woody” made a name for himself as a basketball and football official.
He eventually worked over 300 games in 30 years as a football official, including the 1998 NCAA Division II national championship game and over 500 high school football games in 41 years. His many awards include the Bill Christy Memorial Award for Excellence in Officiating in 2010, National Football Foundation and College Hal of Fame in 1999 and WPIAL Hall of Fame in 2013.
McLee played so well as a junior at Uniontown that even a season-ending injury in the second game of his senior season couldn’t keep him from going to Georgia on a football scholarship. McLee averaged close to 100 yards per game in 1972 and scored 50 points for the Red Raiders under coach Jim Render. At Georgia, he became second-team All-SEC and Newcomer of the Year in 1975.
All told, McLee scored 21 touchdowns and was the Bulldogs all-time leading rusher at the time. He played briefly for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Rae was a football, basketball, track and baseball star at South Union. He was first-team All-County in football as a junior and senior and scored 612 points during his basketball career.
He played college football at Maryland and caught 17 passes for 196 yards in three seasons with the Terps. Rae stayed in College Park and coached Parkdale High School football teams for eight seasons. He won six chanpionships, including a state title in 1975. His teams fashioned a 30-game winning streak from 1973-75 and he was named Maryland Coach of the Year in 1975.
Holliday, for all intents and purposes, made baseball the Holliday family business. He was a three-sport star at Uniontown, playing quarterback in football, guard in basketball and catcher on the baseball team. He began a coaching career at Arizona State and moved to Oklahoma State in 1978 as pitching coach and recruiting coordinator.
The Cowboys made the College World Series in 1981 and went back for the next six seasons. Holliday compiled a record of 281-150 as head coach at OSU. He was inducted into the OSU Hall of Fame in 2016.
Henck was a legendary track coach at Brownsvile who won WPIAL team championships 20 years apart (1961 and 1981). Henck also compiled an incredible career dual meet record of 335-31 in 35 years of coaching at Brownsville.
He also coached track at California University of Pa. and won the Dapper Dan Coach of the Year award in 1961 and the state-wide Outstanding High School Track Coach award in 1991.
Gallo actually played most of her career at Geibel Catholic before finishing up in 1992 at Connellsville. She scored 1,671 career points as a varsity player and went on to score 1,962 points at Pitt-Johnstown to make her the Mountain Cats’ all-time leading scorer. Gallo also finished as the 17th all-time rebounder with 498. She was inducted into the UPJ Athletics Hall of Fame in 2015.
The Slippery Rock Hall of Fame welcomed Hardy in 2015 after the Connellsville football and basketball star took his talents to the Rock. Hardy played linebacker and tight end for the Falcons and scored 1,209 career points in basketball. He scored in double digits in every game as a senior at Connellsville. Hardy went on to score 1,221 points and grabbed 833 rebounds at the Rock and made CoSIDA Academic All-America team with a GPA of 3.633 in economics.
Marovic was a member of the Pennsylvania VFW championship baseball team in 1959 and played on undefeated German Township section championship teams in 1960 and 1961. He went on to play at West Virginia from 1962-65 and batted .404 in 1964 and became the Mountaineers’ first First-Team All-American later that year. He was inducted into the Fayette County Baseball League Hall of Fame in 1993.
Ward and Ford seemed inseparable at German Township, but carved their own niches after high school. Both played football and basketball and ran track, with Ward also playing baseball for the Uhlans. Ford scored 98 points in football in 1952, only to be outdone by Ward, who scored 104 to lead the county. Both made All-County in 1951 and 1952.
They went their separate ways for college, Ford going to Lincoln University in Missouri, where he scored 11 touchdowns and ran for at least 700 yards. Ward played football at Notre Dame, where he ran 60 times for 269 yards and a touchdown, caught seven passes for 88 yards and another score and also had an 84-yard punt return against Pitt in 1956.
Tickets for the banquet are available on the website fayettecountysportshalloffame.com or by phoning Katie Propes at 724-415-2260. The annual Hall of Fame golf outing will be held at 9 a.m. Friday, June 16, at Uniontown Country Club. For more information, call HOF co-founder George Von Benko at 724-626-1433.