Red Raider legend: Yates slated to be inducted Into PBC Hall of Fame
Former Uniontown High School basketball star Don Yates is scheduled to be inducted into the 2023 Legends Class of the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Hall of Fame on Feb. 3 at a brunch at Chartiers Country Club.
The class also includes: Dan Bonner, Avonworth High School and University of Virginia; Rueben Montanez, Bishop Boyle and Duquesne; Brandon Fuss-Cheatham, Blackhawk and Ohio State; Sid Bostick, Jeannette and West Virginia; Hal Bentley, New Brighton and Kansas State; Mark McCloud, Valley and Robert Morris; Chad Calabria, Aliquippa and Iowa, Hank South South Hills Catholic and Cornell, Larry Anderson South Hills and Point Park; Marvin Woods, Aliquippa and DePaul; Tom Parks, Belle Vernon and Robert Morris; Larry Harris, Loraine, Ohio and Pitt; Jack Wojdowski, Canevin and Duquesne; Brian Generolovich, Farrell and Pitt; Mike Williams, Allegheny and CCAC-Santa Fe; Stew Johnson, Clairton and Murray State; and Larry Young, Sto-Rox and Military Service. The 1973-74 Pitt Elite Eight team will also be honored.
When Yates received the news that he was being honored he was elated.
“It may be funny, but I felt like I was ready to suit up again,” Yates stated. “In all seriousness I was super proud. At first I couldn’t believe it, but I appreciate it very much.
“I was thinking that I was in a Hall of Fame situation with my team and as an individual. I said now I have another one and I’m stretching down to Pittsburgh. I’m super proud and super happy.”
During the Golden Era of Uniontown High School athletics in the 1950s and 1960s, basketball took center stage. The King of the hardwood for the Red Raiders was Don Yates.
Yates was perhaps the most celebrated basketball player to ever play for Uniontown High School. He led the Red Raiders to a state basketball championship in 1962. He earned All-State honors for two consecutive years, and he received more votes than anybody else for the honors in both years.
A 1962 graduate of Uniontown High School, Yates starred for three seasons with the Red Raiders.
“At that period in time around my senior year and a little bit earlier the talents began to grow and show different means of how to play,” Yates recalled. “To be a pioneer of that, well, that’s a big trophy to me.”
“Don Yates and brother Pat. I remember the Yates family,” Sonny Vaccaro, founder of the Dapper Dan Roundball Classic, said. “Don was very good and at that time I was just starting to travel around looking at players. He was pre-Roundball Classic. Uniontown to me was a standalone great athletic situation. That’s what I remember about Uniontown.”
The 1962 championship made up for the disappointment Yates suffered his sophomore and junior seasons. Uniontown defeated Norristown, 70-57, with Yates pacing the Raiders with 22 points. Uniontown ended its miracle run with a 29-2 record.
“We had a great team my sophomore and junior years,” Yates explained. “We lost to Farrell my sophomore year. They had Willie Somerset and Brian Generalovich. And my junior year we fell to Mt. Lebanon. We were supposed to win it all and it did not happen.”
Yates and 6-foot-4 junior Ron Sepic were a potent one-two punch for the Red Raiders in 1962.
“Without both of us we never would have made it,” Yates offered. “It was a combination of both. If I wasn’t present I don’t think we would have won and if Sepic wasn’t present I don’t think we would have won. But we won as a team and Sepic was a great rebounder and he started our fast break for us and he played great defense.”
“My thoughts as I reflect go to those particular athletes in football and basketball at Uniontown,” Yates continued. “There are several guys that always have a No. 1 in front of their names and being part of all that means a lot to me also, to be able to fall within the range of all the great athletes and supporters of us during our times at school.”
Yates has fond memories of his coach at Uniontown, the late Abe Everhart.
“Well he only hollered at you when you messed up,” Yates joked. “And that wasn’t very often, but it happened. Abe would let us play according to our abilities. He would not have anyone do anything that they were not capable of doing. He had a great record, but he was a great coach. He took every player, and this is from my sophomore year and ever since I’d known Abe from my eighth grade on up, he would put players in positions that they were good at and he asked no one to do more than they could do.”
As with other players from his era, Yates believes the playground system in Uniontown bred success.
“No one understands that except those from Uniontown,” Yates offered. “It was an incubator for developing talent, but it started something else in the way young players used to develop. Nowadays they go to the travel basketball with schedules and everything. Back in the old days our experiences outside of our towns and schools was we would get in the car with older guys and go various places to play. We go to Sharon and I had a chance to go with Mel Freeman and some of the guys. I was younger and they would go to Cleveland to play against the Cleveland Tech team. In some ways there are similarities with our time and what’s going on now, I can’t even conceive of Uniontown without the playgrounds.”
One memory of those great Uniontown teams is their vaunted full-court press.
“It was tough for us to do it,” Yates explained. “Abe didn’t let up either. We would get in the huddle and say Abe can we walk down, no, get back out there we’re going to press the whole game, and I did that for three years as the point man on that press. That was our weapon!”
“Coach Everhart revolutionized everything,” Vaccaro stated. “Nobody knew what the press was and Uniontown pressed you and it was something to see. I saw the Red Raiders and Yates at the Pitt Field House. They had great teams and great players.”
Yates tallied 1,344 points in his Uniontown career in an era before the three-point shot. He ranks No. 4 on the Red Raiders’ all-time scoring list.
When he graduated from high school Yates was the subject of intense recruiting from colleges all over the country. He ended up following former Red Raiders Sandy Stephens and Bill Munsey to the University of Minnesota.
“I was with Archie Clark and Lou Hudson,” Yates recalled. “Even to this day I brag about being the first black player to get a basketball scholarship to Minnesota. I say all three of us. It was big news back then and we went through a lot of situations during those times at various places that we played. There had to be a beginning and I’m proud of that also.”
Yates is pleased that he is still remembered and thrilled that there will be a contingent of Uniontown faithful at the PBC Hall of Fame brunch.
“People don’t understand the support that us athletes get from the various people of our town,” Yates stated. “I’m honored to be part of it.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Sunday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.