A recent series on the world-wide sports leader got the Varsity Letters thinking. With all the high school athletic tradition this area (Washington-Greene Counties and a few surrounding communities) boasts, which can carry the title of Town of Champions?
Throughout the next couple weeks, the Varsity Letters will showcase several of the area's more tradition-rich athletic programs and, eventually, readers will be asked to select one as its Town of Champions.
Our first installment honors one of the WPIAL's oldest athletic programs:
Washington High School
A legendary powerhouse, Washington High School's rich athletic history dates back to the early 20th century. Legendary coaches - including, more recently, Guy Montecalvo and Ron Faust - have called Wash High home. So have the likes of Brian Davis, Ted Vactor, Laila Brock, Dan Mozes, the Sandusky brothers and several NFL products.
Washington football has won six WPIAL titles, one state championship and, last year, became the fourth WPIAL team to reach 600 victories. The Prexies were state runners-up once and WPIAL runners-up six times.
Prexies boys basketball won three straight WPIAL titles from 1984-86. A 52-game win streak is included during that run. Washington has four WPIAL titles and two state championships in addition to the second-most section titles in WPIAL history.
Washington baseball produced three WPIAL titles and one state championship. Girls basketball has a WPIAL title. Girls track has won a state team championship, while both the boys and girls have fielded numerous state and WPIAL gold medalists. Wash High wrestling has produced 12 state champions.
Washington's Sammy Angott (pictured) is a member of the World Boxing Hall of Fame.
19 comments:
Don't forget the Greyhounds!!!
Canon-Mac is the ultimate title town. Just look at the baseball team aka the greatest high school baseball team EVER in western Pa
Canon Mac wrestling is very impressive. At one time they had the high school record for the most regular season wins in the nation.[maybe you can verify that]
It has been a great run for CM sports for the last few years and it shall continue into 08-09. Hard to argue with the success of the track, football, basketball and baseball teams recently and each team has just reloaded to begin 08-09
I'm a Canon-Mac person but Mike Kovac did say that he will be reviewing ALL the schools up for this distinction. Does everything have to come down to canon-mac? There are other teams and athletes out there who deserve recognition! Let's be a little more open-minded...Kovac will get to us!
A blog is suppose to be an open discussion. I like reading about other schools accomplishments. Wash high has an impressive resume and will be pretty hard to beat. Having said that I have nothing in common with them. There are 5 comments and 4 are from Canon Mac fans. Where are the other school's fans? I am open minded but cannot comment on other schools unless they post comments?
I am also a Canon-Mac fan but I don't think we are even close to being called Titletown.
Look at the banners on our gymnasium wall. I think we may have as many or at least close to as many WPIAL titles in wrestling as we do section titles in all other sports combined. While that does say a lot for our prestigious wrestling program, it also says very little for the rest of our athletic teams. Before this year, I don't believe we had won a WPIAL title in anything other than wrestling.
Thanks for the input everyone. I hope this ongoing series will generate intelligent conversation and remind our younger readers of the great traditions within this region.
Wash High sports a great resume and will be tough to beat, but wait until you read a few other entries. It will be a difficult decision.
I don't think anyone from Canon Mac would think we are a candidate for title town unless your qualifier was last year. But it's a start! Considering how many sports programs there are in the wpial, last year was a great year. It will set the bar a little higher for this year. I like to watch the sports programs year to year! There are always great stories and achievements from year to year. History will take care of itself!
Mike,
An earlier post has me wondering something about CM.
What percentage of total post on the blog, regardless of subject matter, relates to CM sports.
On a subject like this topic, I haven't seen many Wash High comments but CM takes over. Just curious.
Over the last few months, the Canonsburg area has been big for this blog.
It depends on the season and the success.
For a while, this blog was getting a lot of hits in Ann Arbor, Mich. At times, it can be Greensburg or McMurray.
As long as people read, I don't care where they are from.
How about Fort Cherry. With great athletic success in their history like Jim Garry, Marvin Lewis, Perry Kemp, and Marty Schottenheimer, to name a few, they should at least be mentioned...not a lot of WPIAL titles lately, but there's some...
Mike Hull received a verbal offer for football from the University of Florida this afternoon.
Also today Alex Piehikeis, a senior lineman (6'1 340lbs) is receiving interest from several programs looking to beef up their line.
lmao pihakis 340lbs ahahahhaha
Is Piehikeis really receiving a lot of attention? I'm not sold on him at this point mostly because he has ballooned up to the reported 340lbs. He has some athleticism and toughness, but at that weight it would be hard to really explode off of the ball. I wish him the best though. Piehikeis is one of the best athletes to come through CM in a while, plays 3 sports, and could be the wpial homerun leader next spring. I think a kid like Mike Hull will tell you that without piehikeis he would not run for 1000 yards.
As Mike said he will be posting other contenders for title town. Enjoy some facts both past and present. You might just be amazed and learn something new. Knowledge talks, wisdom listens.
If you look at the banners in everybody's gym, they include section championships. However, at Wash High you are only recognized with wpial and state championships. The older WH fans only talk about those who won championships. You can win 90% of your contests, but your only judged by being #1. The seasons are failures in the communities mind if you don't win it all.
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