Spencer was a prolific scorer

By CHRIS LARICK

Though the Cleveland Browns of 1980 became known as the "Kardiac Kids" for their penchant of winning or losing heart-wrenching games, Pete Candela thinks that term could just as well apply to the St. John Heralds of his basketball years.

"We ended up my junior and senior years at about .500," Candela, a 1976 St. John graduate, said. "We were in every game and won or lost by three points or less."

To Candela that was a pretty good accomplishment since St. John, which had a total enrollment of between 400 and 500 students (and that was a goodly number considering the school's history), was so much smaller than its Northeastern Conference rivals.

"We played against Ashtabula and Harbor, which had players like Osborne, Bradley and Henton, much bigger schools than us, and hung with all those teams," he said.

Candela got his start in basketball in the fifth and sixth grade, when a group of coaches that included Al Goodwin organized a team of St. Joseph players to compete against squads from parochial schools like Mount Carmel, Mother of Sorrows, Assumption and Cabrini.

"Billy Johnston, the sheriff, and Ken Petrocello, were coaches too," Candela said. "They all took turns."

In addition to basketball, Candela also played baseball in Ashtabula's Little League system, along with football in grades six through eight.

In basketball, he began as a guard, since he was a good ball handler.

"I was smaller at the time," he said.

Candela spent his ninth-grade year on the St. John freshman team, then moved up to the junior varsity to start his sophomore season.

"A few games into the season, coach Denny Berrier moved me up to the varsity," Candela recalls. "I could pass the ball well. I didn't do a lot of scoring."

The scoring load for the Heralds of that year was taken on by the seniors — Bill Boroski, Jack Manyo and Steve Abraham.

Between his sophomore and junior years Candela had a growth spurt. By the time it was over, he was 6-4.

Candela recalls attending summer basketball camps sponsored by NBA star Pete Maravich at California College in Indiana with several other St. John players.

"Our parents would drop us off," he said. "All we did was play basketball. We'd play games at night from Monday to Friday. We got a lot of basketball in in the summer."

Despite his newfound height, Candela continued playing guard as a junior and senior.

"I handled the ball, but against a lot of teams (Berrier) said 'Get rebounds,' " Candela said. "I could play defense too. I guarded the best player on the other team. A lot of people didn't want to play defense, were offensive-minded. I loved it. I'd go to practice, go back home and then go back to the 'Y' and play for the rest of the night."

Among Candela's teammates were Doug Tulino, Tom Meola and Lenny Volpone.

Of Berrier, his coach, Candela said, "I liked him. He was not too much older than us, probably in his mid-20s or so.

"He taught us a lot, including the fundamentals of the game. The practices were intense, but I enjoyed the game so much it didn't matter to me.

"On offense, if we got the ball we liked to run. In the last few minutes of a game, if we were ahead, he liked to put the ball in a deep freeze (stall). Sometimes it worked, sometimes it backfired. Some people didn't like it."

"We had exciting games," Candela said. "When I was a sophomore, we won our first Class A sectional. We beat Harbor when I was a junior and as a senior, we beat Geneva."

Candela thinks he averaged 18 or 19 points a game his junior and senior years. He was voted MVP of the team and was an All-NEC and All-Ashtabula County selection. He is proud that his parents and two sisters were at all of his games.

After he graduated from St. John, Candela was encouraged by his father to attend Ohio Northern in Ada, Ohio. But, that summer, Candela went to the unemployment office and found a job for the Conrail Railroad as a brakeman. Conrail sent him to Pittsburgh for a week of training. He went back to work on the railroad, but labored there just two days before he was allowed a leave of absence to go to Ohio Northern.

There, he played on the junior varsity team.

"Their offense was very slow," he said. "If you got a rebound, you had to stop and set up the offense. That's not the way I liked to play."

When the college term was over in May, Candela went back to work for the railroad.

"I worked every day of the summer on the railroad and when it came time for school to start, I said, 'I'm not going back,' " he said. "Thirty-nine years later, I'm retired. I retired last July."

Candela started as a brakeman, but was promoted often, becoming a shift supervisor in 1996. He ran the coal dock from 1999-2006, when he became the Supervisor of Operations for the Canadian National Railway at the Conneaut Dock. He then was promoted to the dock manager on the Upper Peninsula in Escanaba, Michigan.

When he retired last July he stayed in Ashtabula for a while, then moved to Boynton Beach, Fla., about 15 miles south of West Palm Beach and 30 miles north of Miami.

"It's nice all-year round," he said.

Candela met his wife, Karen, an Edgewood graduate, at Walnut Beach. Karen has worked at Riden+Fields for 40 years.

The couple has three children: Julie, 32; Michelle, 30; and Pete, 27. Pete Jr. followed Candela into the railroad business and now works for the Canadian National Railroad in Green Bay, Wis. Pete Jr. has a son, Pete III.

"Pete, RePete and Three-Pete," Pete laughs.

Candela has continued to play basketball for many years. He played in a 35-and-older league in Ashtabula with the Spot Cafe team, with teammates like Dan Craft, Jim Hood and John Bowler and against players like Ernie Pasqualine, Louie DeJesus and Andy Juhola. He would like to find a basketball league in Florida.

"My wife has always been supportive of my love of basketball," Candela said. "When the kids were young, I played two nights a week."

He also took up golf in 1982 and has played in leagues in Ashtabula and Michigan.

"I can't complain," he said. "My life has been good and I'm healthy."

By CHRIS LARICK

Kenneth Green was the captain or co-captain of three athletic teams when he was at Grand Valley as a senior in 1968-69. But he was not faster than a speeding bullet.

However, Green now does demonstrate and sell cameras that can stop that speeding bullet in mid-air.

Just a couple of years behind Grand Valley stars like Tom Henson and Ron Chutas, Green stood out in basketball, football and baseball for the Mustangs. He began his basketball career when one of his teachers, Russ Johnson, put together sixth-grade team (the first-ever in Orwell, according to what Green has been told) that played squads from Rome, Windsor and Colebrook.

He moved on to the Grand Valley Junior High team, again coached by Johnson, where he played with Dan Nick, Bill Huntington, Don Hendershott, Rick Marrko, Bob Kassay, Dave Fulop, Bill Puffenbarger, Larry Richman, Phil Mason, Glen Gladding and Vince Doll.

When he became a freshman, Grand Valley formed its first freshman team ever.

"Back then freshmen couldn't play varsity basketball," Green said. "That was back in 1965. We had a 3-3 record. Though it was a freshman team, there were freshmen and sophomores on the team."

As a sophomore, Green didn't start, but was the first player off the bench, a guard who was only about 5-foot-7 at that time. Chutas, then a senior, was the team's leading scorer. Keith Steare, Gary Gadley and Fred Stuble also started.

Bill Young was the Mustangs' coach when Green was a sophomore and junior. Fred Stetler took over the head coaching job when Green was a senior. Among his teammates then were Bob Yeager, Bill Huntington, Tom Zakowski and Jeff Pizon, then a junior. Huntington, an outstanding track athlete, would go on to West Virginia University and later became a Hall of Fame track coach. Zakowski was an all-state fullback who led the county in scoring as a senior with 158 points. He went on to play at West Virginia under famed coach Bobby Bowden. Pizon became a long-time basketball, football and track coach at Geneva.

Other players on that team included Harry Peck, Tom Ahola and Bill Burkhart.

Green hit his stride as a junior, scoring 24 points a game.

"Bob Yeager and I were co-captains," Green said. "He still lives in Orwell and is still one of my closest friends."

Huntington settled in Akron, while Zakowski now resides in the Marietta area.

In Green's senior year, he, Yeager, Pizon, Henry Peck and Tim Henson (Jim and Tom's younger brother) started. Walter Coleman, a natural athlete who rushed for 1,600 yards and 20 touchdowns and was an outstanding track athlete, transferred in and came off the bench. Tim Henson was the same age as Green's younger brother, Russ.

The Mustangs went 10-8 in the regular season of Green's senior year of 1968-69. They beat Lutheran East in the tournament, but fell to Berkshire in the sectional finals, according to Green.

In addition to his skill in basketball, Green was also a star in football and baseball. He played wide receiver on the Mustangs gridiron squad, well enough to make all-state honorable mention.

Green reaped several awards in his athletic career at Grand Valley. He earned three letters in basketball, scoring 823 points. He was first-team all-county his junior year and first-team All-Great Lakes Conference and all-county, along with honorable mention all-state as a senior in that sport after averaging 19.3 points per game as a senior. He had regular-season games of 31 and 32 points and scored 37 against Newbury in the sectionals, where he was selected all-tournament.

In football he was honorable mention all-county and All-Great Lakes Conference as a junior and first-team all-county, second team All-North East Lake District and honorable mention all-state as a senior.

"I played against (Edgewood's) Gary Lago that year. He became the punter at Ohio State. He just ran me over, put a cleat mark right on my chest."

As a baseball player, he was an infielder and co-captain with Zakowski.

"My game was speed and finesse," Green said. "Tom hit the ball hard. Our baseball team went to regionals at Bridgeport. Our coach was Vince Pelligrini, a great coach.

"I think I led the county in hitting that year."

He ranks as just one of three Grand Valley male alumni who have been selected first-team all-county in three sports (football, basketball and baseball) in the same year.

The 1968-69 all-county team was an impressive one, consisting of Green, St. John's John Wheelock, Conneaut's Scott Humphrey, Ashtabula's Jim Hood (a sophomore that year) and Harbor's Roger Goudy on the first team.

After graduation, Green wanted to go to Wittenberg to play basketball. He was recruited there, but that school wouldn't give him financial aid, so he headed to Muskingum, which could give him some financial help, to play basketball and baseball.

"I played freshman basketball, but I ended up starting four years as a third baseman. I led the team in batting my junior year, hitting .320 or so."

The Fighting Muskies were in the Ohio Conference and had to bump heads against Marietta, one of the top teams in the country in Division III.

"We were competitive with them, but lost," Green said.

Green majored in math at Muskingum, but had no intention of becoming an actuary or teacher.

"I wanted something more flexible and interesting," he said. "I went into sales."

Union Carbide hired Green right out of college. When Union Carbide moved east in 1975, Green took a job with Owens-Corning Fiberglas at Cincinnati, then Albany before moving to Connecticut where he now lives.

"I was with Union Carbide in Cincinnati in 1973, 1974 and 1975," he said. "Nineteen-seventy-five was the year of the Cincinnati Reds' Big Red Machine, with guys like Johnny Bench, Peter Rose and Dave Concepcion. That was a fun time in Cincinnati.

"I've continued in sports, playing basketball in several leagues and playing softball and flag football. I've stayed very active in (sports) for a long time."

After his time with Union Carbide, Green was self-employed for about 10 years as a graphics designer.

Recently Green worked for a company involved with NASCAR and Indy Car racing with sponsors like STP, represented by Richard Petty and Mario Andretti. He met his wife, Kim, at Daytona while working for STP in 1991 and they married in 1995.

Kim has had struggles with breast cancer and other health-related problems over the past 18 years.

For the past 10 years he has worked for Del Imaging Systems, selling high-speed cameras.

"Our cameras can stop a bullet in mid-air or catch the image of a car-crash dummy's face moving. We are involved in highway safety and sell to the military. Our latest project is with the Orion Project which is trying to send people to Mars. They need a rugged camera which will catch parachutes deploying in slow motion."

The Greens have two children: daughter Tessa, a junior at Villanova; and son Torrie, a senior in high school in Connecticut. Kim is a breast cancer survivor and has had other health problems.

By CHRIS LARICK

Playing for Greg Mason-coached Conneaut High School teams in the late 1980s and early 1990s was an offensive player's dream.

"It was a lot of fun," said 1991 Spartan graduate Boyd Griffith, who will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball's Hall of Fame on April 3. "Our practices were like a game.

"When we lost Mo Wofford, we were not a big team, so we played very uptempo. Defense was discussed, but our style of basketball was to get out and run. Our joke was that we would get in trouble for not shooting the ball.

"We'd often score 35 or 36 points in a quarter. (Mason) had us run suicide sprints before a game so people could see what kind of shape we were in. Then we'd always be fresh to start the game.

"There wasn't a lot of half-court basketball; everything was uptempo."

Using that system, the Spartans scored almost at an NBA pace. Three times they passed the 100-point mark in Griffith's senior year.

Griffith started his basketball career in the seventh and eighth grades. Conneaut High School was only grades 10-12 at the time, so the freshman year was still at Rowe. As a result, freshmen didn't play on the JV team; they were restricted to the freshman squad.

When Griffith moved up to high school as a sophomore, Wofford, a three-year starter for the Spartans, was injured during the season, so Griffith was moved into the starting lineup.

"I didn't play JV even before I was a starter", he said.

Griffith also played football (as a wide receiver and defensive back) and baseball during his time at Conneaut. That meant that he, like so many others of his generation, was involved in sports year-round.

"There was no down time," he said. "We'd go from American Legion baseball with ARC (Ashtabula Rubber Company) to football. I'd put down my glove and go play football. Football overlapped with basketball."

Griffith's basketball teammates during most of his time there included Craig Fails, Steve Wahonick and Dusty Kaczoroski.

"I was probably our tallest player at 6-3," Griffith said. "There weren't many taller in the NEC."

A good outside shooter, Griffith, along with Fails, excelled at three-pointers. He estimates he had 40-50 successful threes, behind Fails, who had 60 or 70.

"Three-pointers were part of my success," Griffith said. "I could always go down low and play in the post."

He also garnered plenty of points off Mason's fast break, a necessary element for a team averaging as many points as the Spartans did.

"A large part of our scoring was our transitional game," Griffith said.

In addition, he was an excellent free-throw shooter, hitting 84 percent of his tries.

Griffith averaged just under 22 points per game as a senior, after averaging about 12 1/2 as a junior and 11 as a sophomore. After his senior year, he was selected as Player of the Year in the NEC.

In fact, Spartans were Players of the Year for five straight years. Matt Zappitelli achieved that honor as a junior and senior and Wofford succeeded him in his junior and senior years. Then Griffith completed the run.

"That was kind of neat," Griffith said.

In football, he played wide receiver and defensive back for head coach Jeff Whittaker.

"That helped me become more assertive and aggressive," he said.

His best sport was probably baseball, however. He pitched and played the outfield, batting .395 his senior year. With an excellent eye, he managed to coax 33 walks in 20 games.

"We won the NEC my senior year (in baseball)," he said. "That was a big deal for Conneaut."

He also played for Mike Hayes on Ashtabula's ARC team with players like Geneva's Brian Anderson, who would go on to play in the Major Leagues, including a stint with the Cleveland Indians.

Griffith probably could have played baseball at the Division III level, but opted instead to try to walk on at Bowling Green State University.

"Mike Hayes, our American Legion coach, had played at Bowling Green," Griffith said. "But I broke my ankle in my freshman year. That year they only wanted pitchers. I was the wrong place at the wrong time. But I don't have any regrets."

Most of the reason he doesn't regret attending Bowling Green is that he met his wife, Sheri there.

He began studies in sports management at first.

"I didn't know what I wanted to do," he said. "I didn't do the leg work to have a game plan. If I had to do it over, maybe I'd choose a different school, maybe at the Division III level. My parents would have loved to see me play.

"My wife wanted to be a nurse, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. I changed my majors and transferred to Youngstown State, but I didn't finish school."

Griffith now works at Mohawk Papers, on Route 45 in Saybrook. That company takes 3,000-pound rolls of paper, cuts it and embosses it. Griffith has worked there 18 years and is now an Operations Associate.

Boyd and Sheri have been married since 1987 and have two daughters" Samantha, 16; and Sidney, 12. They both play volleyball and softball, Samantha at Lakeside.

Softball, in particular, takes up a lot of the parents' time, since the girls are in traveling leagues in the summer.

"I can't tell you how much travel is involved in softball," Griffith said."I've been involved with the coaching. One of our girls plays in Willoughby, the other in Perry."

Griffith himself keeps active playing basketball.

"I was never too much into softball," he said. "I played in a recreational basketball league in Conneaut and broke my wrist. Playing basketball is fun and it's high impact exercise."

Among the players Griffith now plays basketball with are Matt Newsome, Jim Chiacchiero and Augie Pugliese from St. John, Mike Czup and Andy Juhola.

"It's a mixed group of guys," Griffith said.

He golfs a bit, too, but his kids' softball schedule puts a bit of a crimp in that.

He remembers his high school days fondly.

"I have good friendships to this day," he said.

Griffith remains thankful to Chuck Guglielmo, who recorded some of his best moments on the high school basketball court.

"He would do play-by-play of the games," Griffith said. "He wanted to get into broadcasting. I've looked at his tapes so many times."

By CHRIS LARICK
For the Star Beacon

It became clear to Sam Hands when he was a sophomore at Spencer High School that basketball, not football, was his chosen sport.

Basketball coach Al Bailey told him so.

"Al Bailey wouldn't let me (play football)," Hands, one of the 2016 inductees into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation's Hall of Fame, said. "I went to one practice. The next day Al came to my home and said, 'You're not going to play football.' That was the end of my football career."

Hands would go on to become one of the stars on the 1961-1962 Geneva team after Geneva, Spencer and Austinburg consolidated in 1961, a controversial move, at least for the Spencer athletes.

Geneva and Spencer had been bitter rivals for years and many people in the communities didn't care for the idea of merging.

"We loved playing Geneva (when I was at Spencer)," Hands said. "There was a lot of animosity and problems when we consolidated. There was so much competition for years. It was pretty bad the first year."

Bailey was chosen over Geneva coach Jim Ayers to lead the combined team, a move some people questioned. The Spencer players were used to Bailey's intense practices; Geneva's were not.

"The poor guys at Geneva had never seen anything like Al Bailey," Hands said. "He'd have you run laps until you threw up. The kids got in great condition, but he was a hard taskmaster."

Bailey ran a 12-month-a-year basketball program, contrary to even that day's rules.

"I had a summer job, but I still had to go to practices, every night and every day, even though it was illegal," Hands said. "But it helped us a lot, and I really liked playing basketball."

One time Hands didn't want to go to school and called in sick. Bailey sent him fruit juices and oranges and a message to stay home all week and get well so he'd be ready to play Friday night. As Hands recalls, that was the loss to Mentor, in which he didn't play particularly well, leaving him feeling guilty.

Another time Hands, Billy Coy, Bobby Legg and Jim Prill threw an apple through Bailey's front window.

"I was afraid he'd find out about who did it," Hands said. "That would have been the end of my basketball career. But he never did. He was a tough guy."

Despite Bailey's highhanded ways, Geneva's team was the better for his presence, Hands feels.

"He was definitely an asset to Spencer and Geneva. Once he took us to Ohio State University and we got to meet Jerry Lucas and Nate Thurmond.

It didn't help the situation in Geneva denizens' eyes when Bailey chose his starters — Hands, Legg, Dave Tirabasso and Coy, all from Spencer, and one holdover from the former Eagle team, Jim Osborne (Osborne and Tirabasso are already in the ACBF Hall of Fame). Prill, another Spencer player, was often the first person off the bench.

But the results are difficult to question. The new Eagles team went on to win its first 16 games and finished at 18-2.

Hands and Legg were the forwards on that 1961-1962 Eagles team. Both were about 6-foot-4 and looked enough alike that they could have been brothers. Their last names provided writers with plenty of fodder for headlines and articles.

"Hands and Legg on the same team, they felt that was funny," Hands said.

About the same size as Hands and Legg, but bulkier, was Tirabasso, a junior, who played center. Osborne and Coy were the guards.

Hands, who led the Eagles in scoring that year with about 14 points a game, scored most of his points in the paint.

"I figured something out between my junior and senior years," he said. "It was move that I later used with Pruden's Chicks (a community basketball team). I would come under the basket and over to the other side (a reverse layup). Bobby and Jim Osborne were better outside shots. I loved to go underneath."

Though Hands loved playing high school basketball ("I had a great time doing it," he said), he had no thoughts of playing in college, though Kent State offered him a scholarship.

"I was more interested in a new car and girls," he said. "I thought I could have more fun than going to college and playing basketball."

Hands went to work for IRC Fibers in Painesville, then moved on to R.W Sidley's, to Chardon Welding and a place in Newbury that made signs. His accumulated skills at those workplaces resulted in his creating his own sign business.

In 1990 he visited Maine. While there he heard a noise, then spotted a bull moose.

"I love to hunt," he said. "I told my wife, 'We need to move here.' We had seven children and no home. We moved seven kids to Maine in a 24-foot U-Haul trailer. Then we found a place in the woods. The kids had to go without electricity and indoor plumbing from 1990 to 1993 until I ran electricity to the house."

In Maine Hands started his own sign business. He has since built it to 16 employees, four of them his children.

"We're doing very well," he said. "We make high-rise signs. If you want a sign, we have it."

Hands met his wife, Ellen, who is from Pittsburgh, at Geneva-on-the-Lake in 1964. They met in March, got engaged in April and married on May 16, when Hands was 19. They have been married for 52 years. The Hands have eight children and 26 grandchildren.

"At Christmas, everyone comes here," he said. "We have a big house."

Ellen runs Sam's office. Jody, the oldest child, was born in 1965. She was followed by Rebecca in 1967, Samuel in 1969, Kathleen in 1971, Michael in 1973, Timothy in 1977, Sara in 1980 and Noah in 1985. The last four of those work with him in his sign business, along with a son-in-law. Jody runs a day care center, Rebecca is a nurse, Samuel has his own sign business in Spokane, Washington and Kathleen is a teacher.

Hands still remembers the day he met Ted Ocepek, a videographer with the Cleveland Plain Dealer for an interview. Ocepek was in the process of interviewing noted comedian Red Skelton. The three of them had a great time.

Of his basketball career, which included a stint with the Pruden Chicks, Hands said, "I had a great time doing it. I'm tickled to death to be coming back (for the Hall of Fame induction). It'll make my whole year."

By CHRIS LARICK

Terence Hanna wanted badly to play on the West Junior High School basketball team in Ashtabula.

How else was he going to get a chance to become the next Dr. J?

But Hanna had to pass his first obstacle to make the team, a hurdle devised by coaches Joe Rich and Roby Potts.

Hanna, along with the other candidates for a spot on the West team, had to make a left-handed layup.

"No one could make one, so (Rich and Potts) said if we couldn't make one by the next day, our likelihood of making the team was not very good," Hanna said.

"After the tryouts I went home. We had a basketball hoop outside and I practiced my left-handed layup."

He passed the test, but does Hanna think Rich and Potts really would have cut him?

"Some guys didn't make the team," he said. "I know I made it."

That anecdote points out the determination of Hanna, who made a big enough splash in the realm of county basketball that he will be inducted in the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation's Hall of Fame on Apr. 3 at the Conneaut Human Resources Center.

It also serves as a tribute to Rich's and Potts' ability to mold good players.

"I probably played (junior high basketball) at 5-8 or 5-9," Hanna said. "I played guard, even when I got to be 6-foot and over. I give credit to Coach Rich and Coach Potts. They helped me become a better ball-handler for a big man. When I got to college, none of the big men knew how to handle the ball. When I got to Baldwin-Wallace I was the only one who knew anything except playing down low."

The West Junior High team was not a great one ("We won some and we lost some," Hanna said), but it served as a foundation for Hanna's success in high school, where he started with the junior varsity as a sophomore, but became a starter (along with his brother Kevin) as a junior. Those teams were coached by Bob Walters, already in the ACBF Hall of Fame as a player and coach.

"I had heard things about Coach Walters being a good coach," Hanna said, "that he was demanding and made sure the players were physically fit, so I got myself mentally and physically prepared for that."

Among other things, Walters taught Hanna a facet of the game that few players were proficient at, or even attempted.

"He taught me how to use the backboard on outside shots," Hanna said. "In high school and at Baldwin-Wallace I was able to use the backboard. I used it from all angles, but definitely from the side."

The Panthers were a running team at the time, pressuring the ball and changing between man-to-man and zone defenses.

During those years (Hanna graduated in 1984), the Northeastern Conference was a very competitive league. Harbor had players like Andy Juhola, Dana Schulte and Raimo Kangas, Geneva had Rick Malizia and Ralph DeJesus, Edgewood countered with the Weltys and Conneaut featured Matt Zappitelli, the leading scorer in the county at the time. Madison was also tough with big man Craig Utt.

"We played so many good games," Hanna said. "(My senior year) we wound up playing Madison for the NEC championship. The gym was so packed the court was roped off. I think we wound up losing to Madison.

"The Harbor game at Harbor I think we wound up losing to them, playing against Raimo Kangas and (Dana) Schulte. I also remember playing Conneaut, which had the Stage Crew. When you shot free throws, they'd say anything and everything to you."

Hanna, the son of Jared and Goldie Hanna, averaged about 20 points a game as a senior and wound up as Co-Player of the Year with Juhola.

Baldwin-Wallace, where Walters had starred many years earlier, sent coach Steve Bankson to recruit Hanna, attending the Panthers' game at Madison. Hanna considered John Carroll and B-W.

"My brother had looked at John Carroll and Walsh," Hanna said. "When I was a sophomore we took a trip to John Carroll to visit."

When he was a junior, Hanna visited Baldwin-Wallace and fell in love with the school.

A Division III school, B-W could not give athletic scholarships, but he did get an academic scholarship and some grant money.

At 6-foot-3 or 6-foot-4 by that time, Hanna was usually positioned in the "3" spot (small forward).

"Our positions were interchangeable except for the 4 and 5 (power forward and center) though," he said. "I played the 1, 2 or 3, handled the ball more than normal."

He split time between the JV team and varsity as a freshman, dressing for the varsity games but playing sparingly. He played a bit more varsity as a sophomore, before moving onto the starting team as a junior.

"We had some very good players there," he said. "I played with Bernard King, an unbelievable guard and ball-handler whose skills were right up there with Pete Maravich's. He had some problems with alcohol abuse, though.

"I told him to stay away from alcohol, but he said, 'It's got ahold of me."

Hanna averaged about 20 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists per game his final two years at B-W. One of the highlights of his career came when the Cleveland Cavaliers recognized him as one of the outstanding players around the city of Cleveland. He still has the plaques he received for that.

At Baldwin-Wallace Hanna took a Bachelor of Arts in speech, communications and theater, with an emphasis on television and radio broadcasting. He took theater, radio and television classes and got to work with Mark Koontz, Tim Taylor and Dick Goddard at Fox 8 and sat in on tapings of "Big Chuck and Little John." He also worked with Wayne Dawson in the mornings.

Two weeks before he graduated in 1988, Hanna was hired to work in the Baldwin-Wallace admissions office. He was there for 13 years, working his way up from an admissions counselor to Assistant Director of Admissions.

In 2001 he decided to come home to Ashtabula and work as admissions counselor for Kent State University-Ashtabula Branch Campus.

That might not seem to be much of a change, but Baldwin-Wallace chooses its admissions selectively. KSU-Ashtabula is open to anyone with a high school diploma or GED.

"It was an eye-opening experience that all anybody had to do was apply and get in if they had a high school degree or GED," Hanna said.

He left KSU-Ashtabula in 2008 to work for Educate on Line, part of the No Child Left Behind program. A year later, he took a job with General Aluminum in Conneaut.

"I'm a molder," he said. "I do a wide variety of things, molding parts for BMW, Cadillac, Chrysler and Jeep."

That might seem like quite a departure from his jobs in education.

"I'm the type of person that likes to do a wide variety of things," Hanna said. "I had been in academics for 20 years. That takes a toll on you. I like a change of pace. I find (this job) challenging. It's good experience."

Hanna admits that his desire to play basketball was influenced by the success of Bob Walters' teams of 1976-1979, particularly the team that included Tom Hill, Scooby Brown and others that made a great tournament run before being defeated by St. Joseph's Clark Kellogg's squad.

Hanna's idol was always Julius Erving, Dr. J, though. He was fortunate enough to meet that idol.

"When the (NBA) All-Star game was held in Cleveland, I went there with my good friend, John Kazmerski," Hanna said. "We were sitting at a restaurant talking about the NBA when, all of a sudden, Dr. J walked in with Ronnie Lott and Joe Montana. He shook my hand and said hello. I'll never forget that until I die."

Hanna lists his coaches — a group that includes Rich, Potts, Walters, Bankson and Don Hughes — as some of the biggest influences on his life.

Kelly (Kapferer) Kruse Basketball Career
By CHRIS LARICK
For the Star Beacon

Kelly (Kapferer) Kruse's illustrious basketball career might have never begun except for a pair of shoes.

Yes, Kruse (pronounced "Cruisey") had played basketball with her brother Kurt in the family's driveway at an early age. But she wasn't sold on playing organized basketball.

Her dad, Bob wanted her to play in the seventh grade, but she wavered. Then ...

"I had my eye on a brand new pair of Air Jordans," she said. "My dad said I could have them if I played basketball."

Kruse, a 2000 Jefferson graduate, became so proficient at the game that she was a lock to make the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation's Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility. And she did.

"I wasn't anything great," she said of her start on that seventh-grade basketball team coached by Al Graper. "I had some good friends like Julie Herendeen, Mindy Giffin and Becky Hamper playing. It helped us develop our friendship."

At that time, Kruse stood just 5-foot-7 or 5-8 and played shooting guard.

"I wasn't a post player," she said. "I was very coordinated and was part of the press-breaker. Becky (Hamper) was always the tallest. I didn't catch up to her until my freshman year.

"But that worked in my favor. I learned to handle the ball. (Opponents) weren't used to guarding a post player who could do that."

Kruse and the Falcons had a great eighth-grade year under coach Jack Thompson, losing just one game.

"(That loss) hit us hard," Kruse said. "It was against Riverside's junior high team, J. R. Williams."

Between her freshman and sophomore years, Kruse "just shot up" to over 6-feet tall. Naturally, she was moved to the post.

"I developed my post skills, starting with volleyball," she said. "I was a middle hitter and learned how to use my height to my advantage. Being tall and athletic are great (attributes) to start a career."

Kruse and Hamper had been doing conditioning with the varsity basketball team since the eighth grade, which helped them acclimate to the team.

"At first we were overwhelmed as any eighth-grader would be," Kruse said. "But we were invited to go to camp at Perry and Mount Union. It was a big difference all of a sudden, playing with sophomores, juniors and seniors."

Some of those upperclassmen were less than delighted that talented freshmen like Kruse and Hamper would supplant them in their roles. Some resentment was anticipated.

"It was something we needed to be prepared for," Kruse said. "Some of the girls were three or four years older than us. It was hard to take their positions. But we were able to earn a spot in the starting lineup."

During Kruse's freshman year, she started for the Falcons with Hamper, Kiki McNair, Kelly Crowell and Laura Gregg, three seniors and two freshmen.

"Becky and I had a good freshman year," Kruse said. "But we played in (the upperclassmen's) shadows."

When the three seniors graduated, Kruse and Hamper became the heart of the team, post players who dominated opponents.

"Becky and I were interchangeable," Kruse said, "the Twin Towers. We complemented each other very well."

The other Falcon starters were Herendeen, Shannon Mellin and Felicia Coles. Jefferson had won the NEC championship Kruse's freshman year, but the Falcons had to rebuild when she was a sophomore. They were able to reclaim the title her junior year and, according to Kruse's recollection, may have finished second to Conneaut, led by Jessica Olmstead, when Kruse was a senior.

Much of their success has to be attributed to their coach, Rod Holmes, the winningest coach in Ashtabula County high school history.

"Mr. Holmes was very supportive, very much believed in me and Becky (Hamper) from Day 1. Being a very timid freshman starter could be intimidating," Kruse said. "He reminded me I had worked hard to get where I was. I always appreciated that.

"He was a laid-back type of coach. I didn't know any different kind until I got to college. (Some) coaches scream in your face and swear at you. He was a very nurturing coach who empowered you."

During her years at Jefferson, Kruse accumulated 1,588 points and 1,204 rebounds. She had a unique trifecta: First-team All-Ohio in her sophomore, junior and senior years; Player of the Year in the NEC all three years; and Player of the Year on the Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County all of those three years. In her senior year she was named Ohio State Player of the Year in Division II. Even in her freshman year, she was first team all-league and all-county and Honorable Mention All-Ohio.

In volleyball, she was Player of the Year in both the NEC and in Ashtabula County her sophomore, junior and senior seasons.

Not surprisingly, she was heavily recruited starting in her sophomore years. Conneaut's Jessica Olmstead and Kruse attended the Blue Star Basketball Camp after her junior year, and Kruse was chosen as the MVP of the camp.

"I had been a big fish in a little pond (at Jefferson)," she said. "That gave me a lot of confidence that I could make (college basketball) happen."

Though Kruse visited other schools like Oral Roberts, Kent State, Ohio University and Southern Florida, Bowling Green appealed to her more.

"I don't know why I picked Bowling Green, though I'm glad I did. It was only three hours from my home, so my parents (Bob and Denise) could see the games," she said. "Bowling Green played schools like Kent, which were closer for them."

Kruse made an early verbal commitment to Bowling Green during volleyball season her senior year and signed a letter of intent right before Christmas her senior year.

As a freshman she became the sixth man for the Falcons, the first off the bench, playing power forward and center, though she was only 6-1 1/2 or 6-2, small for a center even in those days.

She played in every game, starting about half of them her freshman year, a pattern she repeated as a sophomore.

"I liked (being sixth man)," she said. "It gave me a chance to find the rhythm of the game. My role had changed (from the one I had in high school). It was a different world."

The Falcons weren't that good her freshman year and the coach, Dee Knoblauch, was fired. Curt Miller came in from Colorado and took the reins and started to rebuild the team.

"My freshman year we were bad," Kruse said. "There was no continuity and the team didn't know how to play together. There were things going on outside the realm of basketball and the coaching staff wasn't stable."

"They wanted someone to come in and win," Kruse said. "And he did.

"When he came in, it was a rebuilding year. Obviously, he was inheriting someone else's recruits. I think he would have recruited me. He told me he wanted me, so that was in my favor."

Still, after her sophomore year, Kruse decided she needed some time away from organized basketball. So she quit the team, giving up her scholarship in the process.

That year revitalized her and she went back for her junior year (actually her senior year academically). First, though, she had to prove herself in practice.

"I worked out and tried to show (Miller) I was committed my junior year," Kruse said. "I was chosen as a starter, but I asked not to be a starter but to come in and play forward or center. We had a young class of great players. I was a utility role player who would get rebounds and set picks and be a leader out there."

At Bowling Green Kruse was an art major, taking a Bachelor of Fine Arts, graduating in 2005, intending to be an art teacher, get her master's and become a college art professor.

"But I decided that's not what I wanted to do," she said. "I didn't want to go back (to graduate school)."

She moved to Cincinnati, having friends from Bowling Green who lived there, and took a job in bank management. She has spent the past 10 years in different banks. Most recently she took a job with the Cove Federal Credit Union in Edgewood, Kentucky, near where she now lives.

She met her husband, David, when both were members in a band (the Stray Mafia), Kelly as a singer and David as a bass player, in 2008.

David works at Cincinnati Bell. The couple was married in 2010 and have three boys: Adam, 8; Nolan, 7 and Kaleb, 2 1/2. The family lives in Kentucky, about 15 miles from Cincinnati.

Kelly's siblings all had successful athletic careers at Jefferson, particularly in basketball. Kurt is married and lives in the Stow area, working for Hyland Software. He played baseball for the College of Wooster.

Haley is married and lives in Painesville after playing volleyball for Youngstown State. She works as a nurse.

Jamie is also now married, residing in the Stow area, but she still works in Ashtabula as an Occupational Therapy assistant. She played one year of volleyball at Walsh before returning home, transferring and commuting to Kent State Ashtabula.

Kelly has become a runner and participates in two half-marathons every year, in addition to keeping active with the children.

Geneva Basketball and Career Highlights

West Geauga, 40-27.

Of Korver, Geneva Free Press sports editor Rick Malinowski said, "Korver is a premier basketball player who should be ranked up there with anybody in the state.... She can shoot, pass, rebound and defend with anyone in the state."

She was once again the NEC's MVP.

Of her coach, Toukonen, who died a few years ago, Korver said, "She was a pioneer. She started the program, thank goodness. She enjoyed it and taught the fundamentals. She would read books (about coaching) and go to camps in the summer. She worked hard at it. Back then, she never had an assistant. She coached from the heart — push, push, push."

In those early years keeping accurate statistics was rare, so totals for rebounds, assists, blocked shots, etc. were either suspect or nonexistent. It isn't unlikely that efforts like her 14-rebound night against West Geauga were the norm for her, though.

"Kids kept the stats and they didn't even know what an assist was," Korver said.

As a senior, Korver scored those 340 points, helping her earn honorable mention all-state honors. Also an excellent volleyball and softball player, she won the D.J. Caton award as Geneva's top senior female athlete. She was no slouch in the classroom, either, being selected to Geneva's National Honor Society.

College scholarships for high school female athletes were rare in those days, but the University of Florida showed an interest in Korver.

"My mom and I flew to Florida," Korver said. "They said they'd pay for it, but they didn't. I was the tallest one (at the tryouts), but they said they wanted 6-foot guards. And they didn't like the way I shot the ball."

So Korver went to college close to home, at Lakeland Community College, where she served as co-captain her two years there (1979-80 and 1980-81) and became two-time MVP. She was named a National Junior College Athletic Association All-American twice and was the MVP of the state junior college tournament. A picture of her at Lakeland shows her palming a basketball in each hand. Those were regular men's basketballs, by the way; the smaller-size balls used today didn't exist.

After taking her baccalaureate degree at Lakeland (where she also played volleyball and softball and was inducted into the Hall of Fame), Korver was offered a half-scholarship to Thiel College.

"I was too stubborn (to accept that)," she said. "I wanted to go as far as I could free. I should have gone to Thiel. If I could do it all over again, I would have done that. That's the one regret I have.

"Instead I got married."

The marriage lasted just three years.

Korver went to work at Manor Home (a nursing home) and became Toukonen's JV coach at Geneva for five years, then continued that job under Jeff Pizon. She also served as Stan Beilech's assistant in volleyball for several years.

During that time, Korver had landed a job with ODOT (the Ohio Department of Transportation). When she was transferred to Dorset, she couldn't make the practice times, so she had to give up coaching.

She has worked for ODOT for 28 years and is now a Highway Tech 3, working on construction and maintenance of the roads.

"I enjoy working there," she said. "I'm outside every day."

Korver attributes her athleticism to good genes.

"I got my athleticism from my dad (John Henry Korver)," she said. "He was a superstar athlete at Geneva in basketball, football and track. Kyle Korver (who is one of the best three-point shooters in the NBA, playing for the Atlanta Hawks), is a distant cousin."

A sister, Kathy, who was also a good athlete at Geneva, married Mark Debevc, the outstanding football player and track star at Geneva.

Korver's mother, Helen, passed away in 2014 at the age of 93.

"She was my number one fan," Korver said. "I dedicate this honor (induction into the ACBF Hall of Fame) to my mother. She supported me 200 percent, didn't miss a game of mine in high school or college."

Brad McNeilly-Anta: Basketball and Military Career
By CHRIS LARICK
For the Star Beacon

When Brad McNeilly-Anta's children ask him what he did in the wars of his time in the U.S. Army, his best answer might be, "It's complicated."

Actually, the United States' involvement in the war in Bosnia had just ended when McNeilly-Anta graduated from West Point in 1996. The war in Somalia was already in our rear-view mirror, having ended in 1994, paving the way for hostilities to break out in Bosnia in 1995.

But peace is never simple, as evidenced by McNeilly-Anta's role in the post-war years in Bosnia.

"I assisted a French division, part of NATO, as a platoon leader for U.S. troops, supporting a multi-national division that the French ran," McNeilly-Anta, a 1992 graduate of Pymatuning Valley High School, said of his initial duties after graduation. "It was about enforcing the peace accords. My platoon provided technical support to the French divisions."

McNeilly-Anta's platoon's main responsibility was monitoring weapons inspections to make sure the Bosnians were living up to their end of the bargain.

"We would help (the French) understand what they were looking at — tanks, rockets, small arms, grenades. We would advise them if components were missing. Some of them were American, but most of them were Russian."

Life was a lot simpler for McNeilly (he added his wife's surname when they married) as he grew up as an athlete in the Pymatuning Valley school system.

He started playing basketball in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades in Dave Roberts' basketball program. McNeilly played basketball and football in junior high, but dropped football after the eighth grade.

Roberts took the PV teams to basketball tournaments in Kinsman and Champion, playing against local teams. In junior high, the Lakers played schools like Jefferson and Grand Valley. Among McNeilly-Anta's teammates then were some of the ones he would go through his high school career with — Matt Spellman, Rick King and Craig Martin.

When he became a freshman, McNeilly-Anta played mostly junior varsity, but saw some action on the varsity team late in the year and during the tournament, playing with upperclassmen like Sean Freeman, Bill Bates, Craig Nemeth and Gordy HItchcock. Doug Hitchcock, the son of PV coach Bob Hitchcock and Gordy's cousin, had graduated a year earlier. At the time, McNeilly-Anta stood just 5-11 and played guard.

"I was real small and skinny then," he said.

His sophomore year the Lakers were still a member of the old Grand River Conference, with Grand Valley, Ledgemont and Fairport. They "probably won 16 or 17 games," according to McNeilly-Anta.

For the rest of his career, Pymatuning Valley played in the East Suburban Conference, against foes like Berkshire, Cardinal and Kirtland. Meanwhile, McNeilly-Anta had sprouted to 6-foot-2 or 6-foot-3. Playing with Freeman, Andy Brown, Rod Brown, Paul Hochran, Neil Britton and Mark Pittsinger, McNeilly-Anta enjoyed a very productive year.

"We ran a lot of motion and had good ball movement," he said. "We were taking good shots."

When the seniors graduated after McNeilly-Anta's sophomore season, the experience, talent and victories fell off. Hitchcock, the coach, compensated by emphasizing ball control more.

"My sophomore and senior years we worked the ball, but if you got a good shot, you'd take it," McNeilly-Anta said.

"Any success the program had came from (HItchcock). He set the conditions so the players could be successful. I have nothing but positive memories of him."

That led to McNeilly's senior year and a rise in the Lakers' fortunes.

"The year before our record wasn't that hot, but we felt we were competitive," he said. "We had some decent summer camps. We had a lot of confidence. At the start of the summer the papers were predicting us for fifth or sixth in the league. That motivated us to prove everybody wrong."

With McNeilly-Anta, Spellman, Martin, King and Bates starting, the Lakers went 19-3 and won the GRC championship.

"Our whole starting five was 6-foot to 6-3," McNeilly-Anta said.

At PV McNeilly-Anta scored was a three-year letter-winner, scored 1,150 points, averaging 22.3 points, 7.2 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game as a senior, while shooting .454 from the field and .737 from the foul line.

As a junior, McNeilly-Anta was first-team All-ESC and all-county and was Division III All-Ohio Honorable Mention. His senior year he was selected as the league's, county's and All-Northeastern Lakes Division III Player of the Year and All-Ohio first team.

In addition to basketball, McNeilly-Anta competed in cross-country and track for Pymatuning Valley. He qualified for the state meet in cross-country his junior year and ran the distance events in track, making it to regionals.

He had been in correspondence with West Point and an Army assistant coach had seen him play at camps. After a fall visit his senior year, he was told if he could get an appointment to West Point (requiring a recommendation from Ohio congressmen) he would be accepted into West Point and play basketball there. Both senators (Howard Metzenbaum and John Glenn) recommended him.

His freshman and sophomore years at Army he played both guards and small forward as sixth or seventh man on West Point's team.

"I was a role player who played when someone was injured or people fell out of favor with the coaches. I got spot starts," he said.

As a freshman at West Point, he averaged 2.4 points, 1.6 rebounds and 0.7 assists, seeing action in 14 games with four starts. Over the last four games of that season, he averaged 6.5 points and 4.5 rebounds a game. His statistics were similar his sophomore season.

But he wasn't doing as well academically as he'd like and decided to quit the basketball team and focus on his schooling.

"At West Point there is a core curriculum of 80 credits," he said. "You don't work on a major as a freshman and sophomore. Everyone takes the same courses, proscribed courses. Chemistry was always a tough course for me."

Giving up basketball improved his grades tremendously. From a 2.5 to 2.7 GPA, he jumped to a 3.5 when he graduated. He majored in foreign language, specializing in Portugese, with a systems engineering disclipine.

When he graduated in 1996, he faced a six-year commitment in the U.S. Army. As previously indicated, he was assigned to Bosnia.

He spent two tours in Bosnia. Between 2001 and 2002 he spent part of a year in Kosovo with the 10th Mountain Division as a staff intelligence operations officer for the U.S. task force there, providing near-term analysis and recommendations.

In 2002 he came back to America, to Fort Drum in upstate New York, serving as Brigade Intelligence Officer. He left the service in January, 2003.

Meanwhile, in 1998, he had married Maria Teresa San Pedro Anta, whom he had met while he was at West Point and she at Vassar. The two both took the surname McNeilly-Anta.

After his discharge from the army, McNeilly-Anta took a job with DHL as an operations manager, working in northern New Jersey and New York City. In 2005, he hooked up with a friend to become a federal contractor (BM Consulting), supporting the U.S. Army. They've been working together for 11 years now.

"For the past year and a half we've been working on future technology and products for the army on projects (including robotics and drones)," McNeilly-Anta said. "We've done computer systems and developed mission command software."

The McNeilly-Antas have three children in New Jersey schools — Kennedy, 14; Isabela, 10; and Sebastian, 8.

"I work out and try to stay in shape," Brad said. "A month ago I started playing going to a pick-up basketball game with a team of old guys. I hadn't played in 10 years or so. I do coach. My older son is playing for the recreation team in the township and I coach him. I also coach my kids' soccer teams."

In addition to HItchcock, McNeilly-Anta credits his parents for his success.

"My parents were big supporters," he said. "They went everywhere. I used to play pick-up games against my dad in the driveway. I used to play in my driveway with my younger brother (Jared). He turned out to be a pretty good basketball player, too, scored more than 1,000 points and played for Allegheny."

Louis Pavolino: Official, Contributor, Veteran, and Family Man
By CHRIS LARICK

Louis Pavolino, who will be inducted into the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation on Apr. 3 as an official and contributor, always had a great love for sports. The only thing that kept him from participating in athletics in high school was his thin physique.

So Louis did the next best thing, joining the marching band so he could root the Ashtabula teams on, playing the trumpet and French horn at Ashtabula High School until his graduation in 1941.

"His family was all musically inclined," said Pavolino's widow, Jean, of her husband who died in 2012 at the age of 88. "He joined his brother Cosmos' band called 'The Brigadiers' and continued to perform after he graduated."

Pavolino's selection to the ACBF Hall of Fame is a tribute to his work as a basketball and football official, a job he held for 22 years, from 1947-1969, when he was forced to give it up after open-heart surgery.

The son of Vincenzo "James" and Rosolia (Adames) Pavolino, Louis grew up with siblings Mary, Cosmos and Vincent. World War II was underway when he graduated from Ashtabula High School and he was inducted into the U.S. Army in February, 1943. After basic training, he was assigned to the 633rd Quartermaster Laundry Division, arriving in England in January, 1944. Pavolino traveled through France, Holland (where he was wounded on Dec. 1, 1944, and received a Purple Heart) and Belgium. He was at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg, Germany, when the war ended. By then he had been promoted to Tech 4 Sergeant.

Honorably discharged, Pavolino arrived back in the United States on Jan. 20, 1946. He was awarded a European Theater of Operations Certificate of Merit Citation in recognition of conspicuously meritorious and outstanding performance of military duty. In addition, he received a Good Conduct medal, European African Middle Eastern Campaign medal with four bronze stars and World War II victory medal.

On May 17, 1947, Pavolino married Paulyne M. Zappa. The marriage lasted 51 years, until she died in July, 1998. The couple had one daughter, Jaime Lou, who died in 1985.

"She was the apple of his eye," Jean Pavolino said of Jaime's relationship with her father. Jaime married Ron Donatone in 1976 and they had two daughters, Julie and Lauren. Julie has three children: Isabella, Helaina and Addison Behm. Lauren's children are Giada, Enzo and Gino Fioritto.

Louis married Jean Matthews-McCollum on Sept. 9, 2006 after a seven-year courtship.

"We enjoyed six glorious years together prior to his departure on October 14, 2012," Jean said. "He embraced my two sons, Matthew and Corey, as his own, calling them 'My boys.' Matthew and Corey reciprocated by lovingly and affectionately calling him 'Dad.' He loved participating and sharing in every area of their lives. Lou was especially honored when Corey selected him to be the recipient of his first salute as a commissioned officer to a veteran in June of 1999 at the graduating ceremonies of the ROTC at Ohio State University."

Pavolino worked for Reliance Electric as a foreman until his retirement in 1982 at the age of 59 after 36 years on the job.

"Lou was a member of the Reliance basketball team," Jean Pavolino said. "He loved sports, whether participating in them or watching them on TV."

Pavolino's best sport was golf.

"He was an avid golfer, a passion that started at the age of 13," Jean said. "He achieved the status of club champion eight times at the former Ashtabula Country Club. He loved to help others improve their game. People called him 'The Machine' because of his control and accuracy hitting the ball down the center of the fairway. Lou even found a way to play golf in England during the war. He found a club and some balls, then found a course to play on."

"Lou also loved officiating both basketball and football."

Bowling was another sport Pavolino was adept at.

But the aspect of life that meant most to him was his family.

"His family meant everything to him," Jean said. "The only thing that exceeded that was his love for God and his Lord Jesus. He was a devout Catholic who served as an altar boy and usher and was always active in the church."

Jean still lives in Ashtabula. Of her sons, Matthew is a software engineer who lives in Florida. Corey is still in the U.S. Navy, where he has gone through six deployments in 17 years. He is currently Landing Craft Officer at Assault Craft Unit 1 in San Diego.

Corey has two children, Gwenevere and Alexander McCollum.

Kay Ann (Fails) Ruffin: Basketball Shooter and Softball Catcher
By CHRIS LARICK

From the time she was small, Kay Ann (Fails) Ruffin honed one skill that would prove invaluable to her career — shooting a basketball.

Ruffin and her brother, Craig Fails (two years older than Kay Ann) would spend every spring and summer shooting the ball from long-range on the driveway at her parents' (Bill and Linda's) house. Both of them contended in the free-throw shooting contests at the Knights of Columbus' tournaments.

Kay Ann remembers watching her brother and Boyd Griffith, a teammate of Craig's and another 2016 inductee into the Ashtabula County Basketball Hall of Fame, shoot while young. Eventually, she joined them.

"They shot from far out," she said. "I don't remember our driveway without a three-point line. We had a little slope in our driveway, so we shot a little higher. My brother wasn't tall, so he shot higher to get over people. Sometimes my dad would come out and challenge us. It seemed like we did more shooting than playing one-on-one, though we did play a little one-on-one."

Kay Ann didn't join an organized team until junior high school at Rowe in Conneaut, where she teamed with classmates Gretchen Showalter and Tammy Wiederman on the seventh and eighth grade teams coached by Mr. Fundermark.

The Conneaut varsity team was not very good and Ruffin made the team as a freshman.

She admits she wasn't at all sure she wanted to play organized basketball at that point.

"When I look back, I contemplated not playing my freshman year," she said. "I thought I might try something different, but I ended up playing. I liked being part of a team. I remember the people and the camaraderie we had more than the scores."

The scores weren't all that good her first couple of years, anyway.

"My first two years of high school, we were not very victorious," Ruffin said. "The other freshman (Showalter) and I got some playing time as freshmen. That helped when we became junior and seniors."

"By my junior year, Tom Ritari became coach and we had much more success. We had a core of girls who worked hard, had a winning season and went farther in the tournament."

The Spartans of those days (Ruffin graduated in 1994) were not a tall team. Ruffin, for example, stood just 5-foot-6.

"But we made up for it in other ways," she said. "We played hard and ran the floor. We had quite a few come-from-behind victories. We never gave up; you could never count us out."

Ritari, whom Ruffin now joins in the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation's Hall of Fame, earned her respect.

"I enjoyed (playing for him)," she said. "He pushed us and made us work hard. He made us better. He was a student of the game and structured it. He loved basketball and that made it more enjoyable to me."

Ruffin admits she was just a shooter as a freshman and sophomore.

"But in the last couple of years I morphed into a point guard/shooting guard depending on how the defense was set up.

"Martha Cananen played the post for us. She was probably 5-8, but she could jump. She and Gretchen (Showalter) were underneath the basket.

"Mr. Ritari knew we weren't tall. He was very good at teaching us how to take good shots so we made more hoops. As a team when we were juniors and seniors we played well together. We were friends on and off the court. When you get to know people well, it translates well (to sports)."

Ruffin recalls playing against Shaun Novak from Geneva and Anita Jurcenko from Jefferson.

"That was a lot of fun," she said.

In addition to basketball, Ruffin played volleyball (as a setter) and softball.

"I was so-so in volleyball," she said. "In softball it depends on who you ask. I loved softball. I got a (college) basketball offer and two softball offers as a senior."

Ruffin finally decided to go to West Virginia Wesleyan, mostly because she would get a chance to play softball there.

"To me, softball never gets old," she said. "I got some press in basketball in high school and a lot of people thought that was my best sport. In high school softball I played the infield and pitched, mostly pitched. The most exciting thing in college was my coach (Steve Warner) switched me to catcher. I loved it. I could throw from my knees and I loved the leadership aspect of being a catcher.

"I tried to lead by example. As a catcher, you're in control. The pitcher thinks he or she is in control, but a catcher really is."

In her junior year, her best year for the Dragons, she hit .406. Before the season, she had listed batting .400 as one of her goals, so that pleased her greatly.

Power was not her forte, however.

"I hit one home run in college," she said. "I still have the ball. I always hit in the high .300s and always hit fifth or sixth in the lineup. I made good contact and got a lot of RBI's."

At West Virginia Wesleyan Ruffin majored in elementary education. When she graduated, Adrian Powell, a good friend of hers, recommended her for a job in Loudoun County in Virginia, near Washington, D.C.

"I felt comfortable there," she said. "Adrian and I still keep in touch."

She taught seven years in Virginia, during which she married and had her first child. She met her husband, Scott, while she was teaching in Virginia and he was in the U.S. Marine Corps in Quantico. In 2005 she and her family moved back to Ohio after she obtained a teaching job in Wadsworth.

"It was great to be back in Ohio," she said. "We had two more kids, then, in 2013, my husband (Scott Ruffin) took a job in Seattle with Amazon. He works in logistics. We live 20 miles outside of Seattle (in Snoqualmie)."

The Ruffins have three children: sons Nathan, 12, and Ryan, 9; and a daughter, Morgan, 7.

"The weather is different here," she said. "We're close enough to the Cascades that we can go up to the mountains and see snow. We don't have to shovel rain."

Al Runyan

By CHRIS LARICK

A good coach requires (at the least) intelligence, knowledge of the game and the ability to teach, understand and motivate his players.

And, unless he knows sign language and has players who understand it, he needs a voice.

High school coaches are more vulnerable to voice damage than those at higher levels because most of them teach all day, requiring them to project their voices louder than in ordinary conversation. After four, five or six hours of that strain on the vocal chords, they must hold practices and shout instructions to their players, more strain on the voice. In game situations, that strain is exacerbated by the need to overcome the noise made by loud crowds.

And so it came about that Al Runyan, after many years of coaching several sports, found himself unable to perform his coaching duties as well as he'd like to simply because he couldn't talk loud enough without great pain.

Runyan, a 1969 Edgewood graduate, played basketball and baseball for the Warriors. Tall for his age in those early years, he started at center for Kingsville Junior High School in the seventh, eighth and ninth grades.

"I didn't grow much more," he said. "I actually played guard my sophomore and junior years and forward my senior year."

Runyan describes those Edgewood teams as "fairly mediocre, not real successful, under .500."

Runyan played as a sophomore when John Higgins, already in the ACBF Hall of Fame, and Steve Bish were seniors. When Rick Korpi, the leading scorer when Runyan was a junior, graduated, the Warrior seniors consisted of Runyan, Don Kidner, Ron Stowell, Gary Lago, Norm Gloeckler and Chuck Braden. Roger Sterling and Bob Rebera were juniors that year.

Jack Lammert coached the Warriors during those years, with Ed Armstrong and Jim Hughes serving as assistants.

"I scored eight to 10 points a game as a junior and senior," Runyan said. "I missed most of my sophomore year with mononucleosis."

His bout with that disease had another unfortunate result.

"It got to the point that some of the players called me 'Mono'," Runyan said. "They got a big kick out of it. I'm not sure I thought it was that funny."

Runyan was actually better at baseball than basketball, to a point that he played two years of college baseball at Edinboro in 1969 and 1970. When he needed to transfer to Ohio State as a better fit for his major (physical education), he made the team as a walk-on.

"I was a pretty good hitter," he said. "I could always hit the baseball."

The coach at Edinboro, Gary Conti, had played in the Baltimore Orioles' minor league system with players like Mike Cuellar and Jim Palmer.

"He made a huge impact on me," Runyan said of Conti. "We'd get to play because we were better baseball players. It sounds simple, that you always play the best players, but it doesn't always happen. Some of us got to play over guys that had played the year before."

At Edinboro Runyan batted .295 as a freshman and .285 as a sophomore. After transferring to Ohio State, he hit .265 in eight games before getting hurt and missing the remainder of the year after a freak accident.

"I was playing right field and chasing a foul ball," he said. "I ran into a batting cage, mashed up my legs really bad. I didn't catch the ball either."

After graduating from Ohio State in 1974, Runyan obtained a job with the Ashtabula City Schools teaching physical education. The program was discontinued after that time, but he was able to get a job at Braden Junior High, part of the Edgewood system, teaching science. He spent 33 years there, eventually getting into physical education in his last few years of teaching after Terry Melaragno retired.

"I enjoyed teaching science," he said. "I seemed to fit in well with junior high kids."

He started coaching from the first year (1977-78) he taught at Braden. By the time he had finished coaching, he had served as a basketball coach, mostly at Braden, but the final six years as Edgewood's head basketball coach, for 34 years.

"My winning percentage coaching the seventh, eighth and ninth-grade teams were all above 60 percent," he said. "I had a lot of kids who hadn't played a lot of basketball. I tried to teach them basic knowledge and skills. That's a big challenge to complete."

Runyan also became a baseball coach at Edgewood in the early '80s, the first three as Dave Melaragno's JV coach, then as head coach for three years. He got out of that to coach his son, Scott, in Little League, then went back into it when Mike Hayes started coaching at Edgewood.

Altogether, Runyan coached baseball for 15 years, eight of them as head coach. He spent 23 years as a basketball coach, six of them as head varsity coach after Jon Hall Sr. retired in 1995. That year his son Scott and the Warriors' other star, Steve Kray, were juniors. He led the team to a 15-6 record that year, 14-4 in the Northeastern Conference, finishing second to Riverside, as Runyan recalls.

The next year was even better. Led by Kray and Scott Runyan, the Warriors went 19-5, 15-1 in the NEC in 1996-1997, winning the NEC by three games while suffering their lone loss at the hands of Harvey by a narrow margin. The other starters on that team — Ryan Lencl, Curtis Colby and Chad Weagraff — were all juniors.

"Those were some of the most exciting nights," Runyan said. "The gyms were packed at Edgewood, Jefferson, Conneaut and Geneva. It was such an atmosphere. Now the gyms are bigger and spread out. I loved the excitement of smaller gyms and wall-to-wall people."

In 1997-98 the Warriors went 14-6, 12-4 in the league while finishing second to Conneaut, which had Tom Church and beat the Warriors in both games between the teams by narrow margins, once in overtime. Edgewood started Lencl, Colby, Weagraff, Eric Bibler and a sophomore, Jason Reed.

So young it had two freshmen starting (Josh Roberts and Matt Krause) and a third, Adam Schumann, coming off the bench, Edgewood slipped to 7-7 in the league in 1998-99.

Despite its 11-10 record in 1999-2000, that season was one of Runyan's most satisfying. The Warriors started 2-8 the first half of the season, but hit their stride and went 9-1 the second half.

"We lost to Madison in overtime the second half of the season and to Lake Catholic at the buzzer in the tournament," Runyan said. "With Josh and Adam and Brian Gowday we were using three sophomores. When I look back on our horrible start, I remember sitting beside (assistant coaches) Kevin Andrejack and Dave McCoy and saying, 'Can we be this bad?' But we got it back and were almost unbeatable the second half of the season.

"They kept on working and turned things around, never gave up."

Runyan's final year as head coach, 2000-2001, proved to be his worst, and not only because of the Warriors' record (6-8 in the NEC).

"I had decided before the season that that would be my last year," he said. "I had issues with my throat after coaching basketball and baseball for so many years, plus seven years of junior high football, two years of JV softball, eight years of summer baseball and six years of YMCA soccer. That doesn't count all the years of teaching.

"So many years of projecting my voice wore it out," Runyan said. "I didn't feel that I could coach in a gym like I use to. It's not that I yelled so much, but you have to make yourself heard above the noise in the gym. Vocal chords do not regenerate."

During his years of coaching, Runyan compiled an admirable record. In all the basketball games he was head coach at any level, he posted a 221-145 won-loss mark (.603). As a varsity basketball coach he was 77-49 (.611) overall, 62-30 in the NEC (.674). Those numbers include a 9-3 record against Harbor, 5-1 against Riverside and 8-5 against Jefferson.

In addition to his teaching and coaching, Runyan spent five years officiating basketball. His contemporaries included outstanding referees like Phil Garcia, Roger Sterling, Jerry Raffenaud, Bud Ruland and Doug Hladek.

"I had a ball doing that," he said. "And I think it helped me as a coach. In most cases I was tolerant of officials because I had been in that position."

Runyan's wife, Kathleen (Leonard) was a year behind him at Edgewood. They married in 1972 and have two children, Heather and Scott. Kathleen worked at Tim Brown Chevrolet for 10 years before moving to Premix in North Kingsville, where she worked as an account clerk for 31 years before retiring recently.

Heather is a physical therapist assistant in Willoughby, and with her husband, Jon Moon, a physical therapy assistant in Lyndhurst, has two daughters, Grace, 11, and Maggie, 9. Scott was a physical therapist in Willoughby until recently, when he took a job building cabins in Harperfield that will be used for tourism. Scott lives with his wife, the former Katie Kauppila, in Geneva, with their sons, Noah, 9, and A.J., 7. Katie teaches fourth grade in the Mentor School System.

Al himself retired in 2010. He and Kathleen keep themselves busy tending to their 10 acres of land, though Al did help Steve Kray with the Edgewood girls basketball team last year.

"A lot of it I miss," he said of coaching. "I truly enjoyed teaching the game of basketball. I always found it enjoyable working with kids."