Time to put this old post back at the top of the blog. Hopefully a few more suggestions come this way. So far, the names Drew Denham, Dom Wytovich and Lloyd Williamson have been suggested. Looking for those hidden gems or forgetten players.
Here's the original:
Spent part of the day compiling something I hope turns out interesting. Working on my all-time high school football team (yeah, I know, not much of a life). There's two conditions:
1. The player must be from the Observer-Reporter coverage area.
2. The player have played high school football at any time from 1999 to the present. This exludes the likes of Wash High's Brian Davis or Ringgold's Joe Montana. The reason? I started at the O-R in 1999, and I'm still here.
There are a few definites on the club and I'm working on a starting lineup with the possibility of a few backups. I'm asking for help. Offer your suggestions. Any player, within reason, can be considered.
9 comments:
Here is a list of some pretty talented kids from this area in that time frame.
QB/DB: Lee Fritz (Waynesburg),
LB/RB: Lanfer Simpson (Waynesburg),
RB: Mike Vernillo (Fort Cherry),
RB: Rocky Doman (Carmichaels),
OL: Dan Mozes (Wash-High),
TE: Andy Miller (Trinty),
WR: Mike Sutton (Wash High),
LB: Bobby Hathaway (Carmichaels),
QB: Cody Endres (Trinity),
LB: Matt Stay (Beth-Center)
DE: Steve Hvizda (Beth-Center)
WR: Perry Ivory: (Fort Cherry)
LB: Andrew Sweat: (Trinity)
LB/RB: Mike Yancich (Trinity)
There's a very good chance a few of these kids will be on that team. Like the Rocky Doman mention. Personally, I thought he had a better senior year at Carmichaels than Vernillo did at the Fort. If memory serves correctly, they graduated high school the same year.
And Mike Sutton was the first O-R Boys Athlete of the Year. Every varsity team he ever played for at Wash High made the playoffs. Impressive.
I totally agree with you about Doman. He played on my team in the Tri County Classic that year and was an absolute work horse. I thought of one more that I should have put on my original list as well (Travis Thomas: Wash High).
Also I won't put him on here YET but I will say that I think Mike Hull will be one of the best football players to come out of this area in a long time. Also I wanted to thank you for getting me thinking about all of the great talent that we have had in this relatively small area. If you took this back a little further even to just the early-mid 1990's its amazing to think of the quality of athletes this area produced. I know a lot of the guys that come to my mind never really made that much impact after high school. But IN high school they were as good as it gets. Now I'm a little bias because I'm from Beth-Center but I have to say that Keith Miller and my personal favorite Shawn Rohrer played the game at a very high level. A few more that I really enjoyed watching (among many others) were Aaren Gatten (Wash High), Darrell Harding (Charleroi), and Rodney Wilson (West Greene). Anyway thanks again. I wish others would chime in and throw a couple more names out there to think about.
Justin Gregula, Washington, PK-P and QB
this is an excellent idea. i'm curious to know who you've got on the list so far?
How about Ben Jennings, Troy Grove,JR Ward, Brian Skaggs
garove was good but he only had one good year... dont think it was enough to be considered among the elite
You could do a big school small school layout, for example its hard to leave small school stars out like Colby Giles possibly the best all around player/athelete in history, Jono Menhart who had a standout college career at Carnegie Mellon as a defensive back, Gerod Buckhalter who led the entire area in receiving in at a dominate running school, and Ryan Geisel who had a amazing senior year and only had 2 players rush for more yards then him in the entire WPIAL, Drew Denham who has every record in Mapletown history as a Quarterback and also had 19 interceptions in two years as a Free Safety...small school players can't be overlooked b/c almost all of them played both ways all game long and Special teams
I am a Canon-Mac grad and I agree with many of these names but I also felt compelled to get my schools name out there and mention a few guys. Although I am not sure we have had any serious individual talents to rank as 1st or 2nd teamers on an All-area post '99 team, I atleast think we have a couple honorable mentions who deserve to be recognized and thrown in the mix. I thought it would be fun to do some PR for a couple of Big Macs that I had the pleasure to play with....
Albert Miles('03)- Known mostly for his wrestling accomplishments; 2-year starter, rushed for 900+ and set school record for sacks in one season as a 160lb MLB.
Doug Rheam('05)- 3-year starter at QB, single-season TD pass record, 20+ wins as a starter, led Big Macs to 1st ever playoff win in '05(CM was very bad for very long)
Brendon Steele('04)- Probably the most recognized Big Mac in recent years and for all the right reasons. 3-year 2-way starter, 3-year all-conference SS/RB. Single-season TD record(That may be broken soon by Mike Hull). Did pretty well for being about 5'8 160 (That may be generous). You can read about him nowadays in the O-R's Sunday edition as they recap saturdays Waynesburg Jackets games.
I dont know how much we look beyond the stats but these guys were all great leaders, hard-workers, and fiercely competitive.
Go Macs!
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