Red Raiders coaching legend Everhart to enter Pa. Hall of Fame
The late Abe Everhart, legendary Uniontown basketball coach, will receive a long overdue honor when he is inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame on Nov. 3 in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
“It’s tremendous that he is being recognized,” former Uniontown star Ron Sepic said. “He had a great career at Uniontown. At that time there was a lot of great, great competition in Western Pennsylvania. For him to be a consistent winner like he was, with Ed McCluskey at Farrell, Neenie Campbell at McKeesport and some of the other coaches at that time … we played against some really great schools and coaches, and he was right up there with the best of them.”
Everhart came from a coaching background. His father, Abe Everhart Sr., was a longtime coach at Uniontown High School and guided the Red Raiders to their first state championship in 1925.
Abe followed in his father’s footsteps and fashioned a great record coaching basketball, track and cross country at Uniontown.
Everhart once made Sports Illustrated Faces in the Crowd for his coaching success. He coached Uniontown for 29 years before retiring after the 1976 season. His career record was 549-149, with four WPIAL championships and two PIAA titles. His 1964 team was undefeated and his teams once won 52 games in a row, a streak that still ties a WPIAL record. His Red Raiders won 21 sectional titles and between 1960 and 1966 and went 95-1 in section play.
The record is, of course, impressive, but Everhart also was beloved by his players.
“Abe would let us play according to our abilities,” former Raider great Don Yates said. “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.”
“He was a very nice person,” former Raider Pete Smith said of Everhart. “He really got into the game, but he let you play your own game and he didn’t have an attitude. He’d get on your case if things weren’t going well, but he kept things on an even keel.”
“I always liked Abe and I thought he was a good coach,” former Red Raider Allyn Curry explained. “He let you know that he stressed defense, so when you came to practice your first year he sat you down and he said 75 percent of our practice is going to be defense. You knew that from the beginning, but I always thought he was fair and if you hustled you were going to play.”
Everhart was respected by his coaching rivals as well.
Dick Black coached Mount Lebanon from 1961-1997 and compiled a record of 622-251. He faced Uniontown on many occasions and had this to say about Everhart.
“I think his personality helped make him a great coach,” Black stated. “The way he handled the kids, they not only respected him, I think they loved him. There was a lot of respect between our coaching staff and the Uniontown staff and our players and the Uniontown players. They played the game the right way. I was a young guy back then and Abe was terrific, and he and John Kruper really made a great team. Abe was a guy you could look up to and respect.”
Hal Weightman coached against Everhart in the same section for many years at Connellsville High School.
“Abe picked up small things that he took advantage of,” Weightman offered. “One year we won 10 straight exhibition games at the beginning of the season, and he sent Bob Fee to everyone of our games. We were 10-0 and we opened section play with Uniontown and I was averaging six points a game on inbound plays from under our basket. Abe took that all away from us, we had to throw the ball back to half court to get it in bounds. He took that six-point edge away and we lose by two points. That’s the way he coached, he would see one little thing and he would take it away. He was a great coach.”
Donora was in the same section with Uniontown for many years. Fran LaMendola coached Donora and Ringgold and compiled a record of 265-148 over 20 seasons. He captured nine section titles and led the Donora Dragons to an undefeated regular season in 1967-68. In 1973 he took the WPIAL championship. He remembered Everhart and those great Uniontown squads.
“He was a great coach,” LaMendola stated. “When you played Uniontown you faced constant pressure with their press and he had good personnel. You knew when you faced Uniontown you were going to have pressure and you had to be on your toes.”
Phil Pergola didn’t coach against Everhart, but had coaching stints at at Mon Valley Catholic, Ringgold, Charleroi and California. He is one of only 11 WPIAL coaches to reach the 600-win milestone. Pergola had the perspective of going up against Everhart when he played at Charleroi.
“They had that press that was just phenomenal,” Pergola said. “In my opinion they were ahead of the time with what they were able to do. They had size, they had quickness, they had everything you needed to be a tremendous team. Everhart’s teams were ahead of their time with what they did.”
Everhart had health issues which eventually led to the Uniontown School Board forcing him into retirement after a second heart attack in 1977.
“The school board didn’t want to take any chances with me,” Everhart said at the time. “I couldn’t get cleared by my doctors. For one solid year I stayed away from coaching. I was having some serious problems. I wasn’t chipper. I missed it a lot.”
Everhart returned to coach girls basketball at California High School for two years and then at Laurel Highlands and wound up coaching the Uniontown girls.
Everhart was a class act as illustrated by another anecdote from his great star Sepic.
“I had great respect for Abe in many areas, not only how he handled the players and the team,” Sepic said. “Also in him being a graceful loser, whenever we did lose. Also Abe never ran the score up on teams to make our team look better. He always took the other team into account, he would pull the first team out when things were getting out of hand. To me he showed respect for the other team.”
Everhart died of a heart attack in 1986 at the age of 74.
He is a member of the Pennsylvania Basketball Hall of Fame, the WPIAL Hall of Fame and the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame. Everhart will be part of the 2018 Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame Class that will be inducted on Nov. 3 at The Woodland Resort & Convention Center in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
For tickets or additional information, contact Bob Walsh at 570-346-2228 or email Jerry Valonis at gvalonisfamily@aol.com or Judy Igoe Carr at jic105@psu.edu.
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.