Hall of Fame list filled with accomplishments
The Washington-Greene Co. Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame will hold inductions for Sunday, June 26 at the Hilton Garden Inn, Southpointe. The event is sold out.
The following is the biographies for the first group of inductees.
Edward E. Monaco
Canon-McMillan High School
Kent State University
Mertorious Service (Posthumous)
Monaco served as longtime treasurer for the Washington-Greene Co. Chapter Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame and a cornerstone of the organization. He was a member of the 1969 Canon-McMillan football team, which was the last Canon-McMillan team to win a conference championship. Monaco was a lineman for the Big Macs.
Monaco introduced the Special Honoree awards the Hall of Fame Chapter now presents each year at the annual banquet. He also pushed to have professional athletes and coaches to be automatically elected if they qualified under Chapter guidelines. He handled many tasks in helping to organize and operate the annual banquet
Monaco also took the lead on many of the Chapter’s fundraising efforts to enhance the student-athlete scholarship fund and the fund balance. He died in March, 2022.
Rick Bertagnolli
California University
Bertagnolli has coached the Cal softball team for the past 28 years, compiling a 900-332 record through 2021. His overall 35-year collegiate coaching record is 1,163-382, which includes coaching stints at SC-Spartanburg and Wabash Valley Community College. He ranks in the top 10 among active coaches in NCAA Division II in victories and winning percentage, plus is the winningest coach in all of Cal sports history.
Bertagnolli was inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2013.
He has guided the Vulcans to 21 NCAA Division II postseason tournaments with back-to-back NCAA National Championships in 1997 and 1998, along with six NCAA Regional championships. Bertagnoli and his assistant were named 1998 NFCA Coaching Staff of the Year.
Bertagnolli’s Cal teams have appeared in the PSAC Championship Game 14 times and set an NCAA record with 88-consecutive conference wins from 1994-99. The Vulcans have won 19 PSAC West titles under Bertagnolli and made 25 consecutive PSAC postseason tourney appearances from 1994-2018
Bertagnolli has produced more than 40 NFCA All-Americans, nearly 100 NFCA all-region honorees and more than 175 all-conference players. This list includes 1998 NFCA Player of the Year Danielle Penner and four members of the Canadian Senior National Team
Chelsey Pryor Burk
Bishop Canevin High School
University of Kansas
The Washington native earned a scholarship to play golf at the University of Kansas, where she was a three-time Academic, All-Big 12 Conference honoree and a three-time National Golf Coaches Association All-American Scholar. She had four top-10 finishes in her Jayhawks career and won the ORU shootout in her senior season and helping Kansas to a second-place finish.
Among her awards at Kansas were the Outstanding Women in Athletics, community service, the international arena and leadership and a non-traditional woman, among others
At Bishop Canevin, she was a three-time qualifier for the WPIAL Championships, finishing 6th in 2000 and 2001 and 10th in 1999. She was a two-time PIAA Championships qualifier, placing 11th in 2000 and 14th in 2001. She was a four-time MVP for the Crusaders and a two-time winner of the Canevin Catholic Athletic Achievement Award.
Pryor Burk won a PGA Junior Series tournament in 2000 in Kentucky and placed fifth in two other PGA Junior Series tournaments and finished the year ranked third in the PGA Junior Series Player of the Year standings. In 2001, she finished second in the PGA Junior Series in Nebraska and at Penn State, which qualified her for the Westerfied Junior PGA Championship.
She recently became the Assistant Commissioner and Chief Financial officer of the Atlantic 10 Conference. Previously, she served as the Deputy Director of Athletics at William & Mary with oversight of the athletics business office, athletic facilities, equipment, and human resources.
Ron Burke & Burke Stable
Harness Racing – Athlete of Distinction
Burke was named the Dan Patch Award Trainer of the Year three times: 2011, 2013 and 2018. He was elected to the Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 2021 and will be inducted July 4 weekend.
His horses won the Little Brown Jugette and Little Brown Jug in 2021, and twice finished second in the Hambletonian. Southwind Frank, who was beaten by a nose by Marion Marauder in 2016, and filly, Mission Brief, was runner-up in 2015. Four years ago, What The Hill, crossed the finish line first but was disqualified for interference in the stretch.
Burke took over the family’s training stable from his father, Mickey, the 2006 Trainer of the Year, in late 2008 and pushed the operation’s success to record-setting heights. He has led the sport in wins and purses each of the past 12 years. His $260 million in career purses is a record, as is his more than 11,800 career wins. He has won at least 762 races a year since 2009 and topped 1,000 victories three times. He has topped $20 million in purses seven times, including a record $28.4 million in 2014. He is the only harness racing trainer in history to reach $20 million in a season
Burke trained 2017 Horse of the Year winner Hannelore Hanover. His other stars included 2014 Pacer of the Year, Sweet Lou, and 2011 Pacer of the Year, Foiled Again, who retired following the 2018 season as the richest harness racing horse in history with $7.63 million in lifetime earnings.
In addition to Burke’s success as a trainer, Burke Racing was named Owner of the Year (with partners Mark Weaver and Mike Bruscemi) in 2018 and 2013. In December 2019, Mickey Burke, Sr. – the patriarch of the most successful horse racing stable in the world – was honored by the Monticello-Goshen Chapter of the United States Harness Writers Association with the Chapter’s highest honor, its Lifetime Achievement Award.
William A. Christy
Beth-Center High School
California University of Pennsylvania
Official (posthumous)
Christy officiated high school and college basketball, softball, and volleyball for more than 35 years, and served as supervisor and assigner of officials for the PIAA, PSAC, WVIAC, ECAC, and COA. He was Officials Technical Adviser for several NCAA Division I, II and III basketball and volleyball conferences.
On the high school level, Christy officiated numerous state championships, along with NCAA and NAIA National Championships in softball and volleyball.
The Tri-County Athletic Directors Association honored him by naming the William A. Christy Memorial Excellence in Officiating Award in his honor and presents it to deserving officials at its annual Coach of the Year Banquet
Christy assigned countless softball, basketball and volleyball games, and after officiating he was considered a master at scheduling games for high schools and colleges.
Christy was a member and manager of the 1973 Sol Mintz softball team that won the USSSA Class B men’s world championship in Saint Louis, Mo. That team was inducted into the Washington Greene County Hall of Fame in 1986.
Morgan “Bunny” Denson
Washington High School
Waynesburg University
Football, Basketball, Track
Denson was a three-sport standout at Washington High School, starring in football, baseball, and track and field. As a senior he won three WPIAL track gold medals, winning the 330 intermediate hurdles and was part of the Little Prexies’ 880 and mile-relay teams. He was part of Washington track and field’s 1974 and 1975 WPIAL (largest classification) runner-up teams.
Denson was on the 1972 Washington football semifinalists and an All-WPIAL receiver on the 1974 Century Conference co-championship 1974 team.
During his sophomore season, Denson was a top reserve for Wash High’s Section 14-B basketball championship team that reached the WPIAL finals and PIAA semifinals. He was selected to play in the prestigious Colt Classic (top senior basketball players in Western Pennsylvania), where he led the South to a second-place finish and led the team in scoring both games.
At Waynesburg, Denson caught a 16-yard touchdown against Geneva in his first collegiate start in 1975 and helped the Yellow Jackets achieve three straight winning seasons.
Dennis Garrett
Jefferson-Morgan High School
Waynesburg University
Football & Basketball
Garrett was a three-sport standout at Jefferson Morgan, excelling in football, basketball and track and field. He was a flanker and safety on the Rockets’ 1973 and 1974 conference and WPIAL Class B football championship teams which compiled a 19-0-1 two-year record. Garrett scored touchdowns in both of the Rockets’ WPIAL championship game wins, including an 85-yard fumble return.
He scored five touchdowns in a Homecoming win and his 103-yard interception return for a touchdown remains a school record.
A three-year PIAA qualifier in track, Garrett was a conference champion in the long jump and triple jump and shares school records in the 100-yard dash (9.9 seconds) and 220-yard dash (22.6).
On the basketball court, Garrett set a school record with 1,356 career points in only three seasons, earning All-WPIAL recognition
At Waynesburg University, Garrett was an all-conference receiver, leading the Yellow Jackets in receptions his junior and senior seasons.
Garrett has coached for more than 40 years at the high school and collegiate levels. After coaching football at Waynesburg University (1980-94), Washington & Jefferson (1995-97) and Beth Center (1998-2006), he returned to Jefferson-Morgan in 2006 where he was the football team’s defensive coordinator and boys basketball head coach. Before becoming the Rockets’ basketball coach, Garrett was a top WPIAL basketball official for 35 years and worked three WPIAL championship games.