Athletic Hall of Fame

The Fourth
Saint Peter’s Prep
Athletic
Hall of Fame
Induction Ceremony
& Dinner
November 4, 2010
Saint Peter’s Prep
Jersey City, New Jersey
The Fourth Saint Peter’s Prep
Athletic Hall of Fame
Induction Ceremony & Dinner
Honoring
Mike Burgess
Jack Cassedy, ’48
Jim Deveney, ’53
Doug Gronda, ’86
Mike Hurley, ’56
John Irvine, ’83, P’11
Tony Mendolla, ’62
Jerry Vayda, ’52
The 1951-52 Basketball Team
The 1952-53 Basketball Team
November 4, 2010 – 6:30 p.m.
Saint Peter’s Prep – Jersey City, New Jersey
Program for
the Evening
Master of Ceremonies
Joe Parkes, S.J., ’62
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Invocation and Welcome
Bob Reiser, S.J.
President, Saint Peter’s Prep
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Order of Induction
Mike Burgess
Cross Country, Track & Field Coach
Jack Cassedy, ’48
Track
Jim Deveney, ’53
Baseball & Basketball
Doug Gronda, ’86
Wrestling & Football
Mike Hurley, ’56
Football
John Irvine, ’83,P’11
Soccer Player & Coach
Tony Mendolla, ’62
Football
Jerry Vayda, ’52 †
Basketball & Baseball
The 1951-52 & 1952-53
Basketball Teams
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Dinner
in the O’Keefe Commons
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Pride & Glory
† posthumous
Mike Burgess
Speed and endurance – the two keys to success in any race. The
record will show that Mike Burgess’ cross country and track & field
teams have displayed ample speed, and they only seem to get faster.
Prep has earned 19 Jersey City and 17 South Hudson cross country
titles in Mike’s storied coaching career. In the past seven years alone,
24 of his indoor and outdoor runners have earned all county honors.
Four indoor seasons in a row have seen Prep represented at the Nike
Indoor Nationals. The past two Penn Relays have seen Prep’s 4x400
team bring home the gold medal in their class – most recently with
a blistering school-record time of 3:18.88. And this past summer,
Prep’s own Najee Glass traveled to Singapore, where he helped the
United States medley relay team bring home the gold in the inaugural Youth Olympic
Games.
As for endurance, consider this: Mike Burgess has coached Prep runners at the varsity,
JV and freshman levels each season, in all three seasons each year, since 1983. That’s 82
straight seasons, through the end of this year’s cross country campaign. Along the way,
he’s taught character along with athelticism, and done it all with a style all his own.
Character, of course, is the name of the game at his day job, too: as a crisis intervention
teacher at Ferris High School, Mike enforces the rules while helping students learn to
resolve conflicts in a mature and constructive manner. He and wife Barbara reside in Jersey
City. They have one daughter and three grandchildren, including Prep freshman Corey
Fogg.
Jack Cassedy, ’48
Reading over Jack Cassedy’s accomplishments as a member of the
Prep track team, one might mistake it for a list of championships
a runner could have won in Hudson County high school athletics
circa 1948. Amazingly, however, these titles all belonged to young
Jack Cassedy: Jersey City indoor and outdoor champion; regional
champion; Hudson County champion; Jesuit champion; New Jersey
interscholastic indoor and outdoor champion; and national interscholastic indoor champion. Whether competing individually or as
part of a relay team, when Jack Cassedy stepped to the line, he was
the man to beat. When he wasn’t running for Prep, he was running
for office, serving as president of his class for the first three years, and as a student council
representative as a senior.
Small wonder, then, that college track teams were engaged in a race of their own to
offer Jack athletic scholarships. Ultimately, he accepted the first ever track scholarship to
Providence College, where his heroics continued as he won numerous championships.
After college, Jack would be invited to join the prestigious New York Athletic Club’s track
team, competing alongside several 1952 Olympians.
Jack has been retired since 1993 from a career in the insurance industry that saw him rise
to several leadership positions, most recently chairman and C.E.O. of SCB, Inc. He and
wife Betty split their time between Normandy Beach, New Jersey and Naples, Florida.
Jim Deveney, ’53
It’s fitting that Jim Deveney’s classmates called him – still, in fact,
call him – “Jim Jim.” After all, he represents not just one great Prep
athlete but two. There is the basketball Jim, the “glue” that held
together the state champion basketball team of his senior year, a
team we honor this evening. It was Jim’s free throw against Trenton
Catholic that cemented the state title. And even more impressively,
there is the baseball Jim. That’s the Jim who dominated the talk of
Hudson County baseball in 1953, notching hits in eleven consecutive
at-bats. Even after a controversial scoring decision saw him reach on
an error in the twelfth at-bat, Jim, undeterred, went on to earn three
more walks and two more hits for a total of seventeen plate appearances on base safely.
That magical 1953 season capped a high school career in which he posted a batting
average over .500, committed just one error and struck out only three times. Coach Bill
Cochrane was impressed, remarking, “You can’t strike him out!” The Pittsburgh Pirates
were impressed, too, signing him to a minor league contract.
Both basketball Jim and baseball Jim earned all-city, all-county and all-state honors
during Jim Deveney’s four years at Prep. Now retired from teaching in the Elizabeth
public schools, he resides in Bayonne.
Doug Gronda, ’86
The 1985 Prep football team earned the school’s first county title
since the undefeated season of 1958. Fittingly, one of three cocaptains 25 years ago was Doug Gronda, whose father, Rich, ’59, had
been a part of those fabled teams of the late ’50s. The senior running
back and linebacker was co-mvp of the county championship game
against North Bergen.
But for all his gridiron heroics, Doug Gronda’s name was made on the
wrestling mats. The first Prep wrestler to win 90 matches, his school
win record stood for nearly 20 years. In all four years of his Prep wrestling career, he placed in the district finals, winning the title in 1985.
He finished two seasons in the regional top-three and reached the quarterfinals of the state
tournament in 1986. The three-time Maryland Province Jesuit Tournament winner was a
member of a team of North Jersey all-stars who took on the visiting Japanese under-18
national team, a member of the state freestyle team that competed in the junior nationals,
a 1985 AAU all-American and the 1985 Eastern U.S. freestyle champion.
Following a four-year wrestling career at Brown, Doug went on to earn two master’s degrees and an M.D. from Boston University, spending time as an assistant wrestling coach
at Harvard along the way. He lives in Upton, Massachusetts with wife Judy and their
two daughters. He practices medicine as part of a 50-member multi-specialty group, and
serves as medical director of Saint Patrick’s Manor, a skilled nursing facility in Framingham.
Mike Hurley, ’56
“It appears that I was destined to attend Saint Peter’s Prep at an early
age,” Mike Hurley recalls, “since my father, Thomas, ’27, advised me
that I had no other options.” If it was a matter of destiny for Mike to
attend Prep, then it was also a matter of destiny for opposing linemen
never to forget the day they first lined up opposite this hard-nosed
tackle. And so was it destined for the scribes of New Jersey high
school football to take notice: in his senior year, he was named to the
Newark Star-Ledger All-State and All-Group first teams; the Jersey
Journal All-County and Catholic Group A All-State first teams; the
Hudson Dispatch Parochial All-State first team; the Newark News
All-North Jersey Catholic Prep Schools first team and All-State third team; and the
Advocate All-North Jersey first team.
When all the ink had dried, Mike accepted a four-year football scholarship from Coach
Mike Holovak at Boston College, where he played in the inaugural game at Alumni Field
in 1957. With a degree in industrial management in hand, Mike recejved a commission
in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he attained the rank of captain and played football while
stationed in Virginia and California. Now retired after a long career at the American Can
Company, which saw him rise to director of international sales and marketing, he lives
with wife Lorraine Ann in Newtown, Connecticut, where he has served three terms on
the town’s Legislative Council. They have three daughters and six grandchildren.
John Irvine, ’83, P’11
In the fall of 1979, a freshman from Jersey City put on a Prep soccer
uniform for the first time. Over the next four seasons, John Irvine
would go on to become an All-County and All-State goalkeeper for
Coach Connie Gallagher. As a walk-on at Rider College, he played
his way to a scholarship offer for sophomore year, but he transferred
to Saint Peter’s College. And that’s where the real story begins.
John returned to Prep in 1985 while he was still in college, to coach
the JV soccer team. More than 50 wins and a county title later, John
moved up to coach varsity in 1990, succeeding Jack Raslowsky, ’79,
who had just been appointed principal. In 18 seasons, John’s teams
amassed a record of 217-113-33 (with 144 shutout wins, the proud ex-goalkeeper adds),
earning five city, four league and six county crowns, and two state sectional appearances.
Equally important is the legacy of sportsmanship and integrity John helped establish for
Prep soccer, reflected in the numerous sportsmanship awards he and his teams earned
during his career – among them, a 1992 Jack Schrumpf Sportsmanship Award from the
Referees’ Association, a 1998 Jersey Journal Everyday Heroes Award and a 1998 Award of
Excellence from from the National Federation of State High School Associations and the
NJSIAA. A three-time Jersey City and four-time HCIAA Coach of the Year, John now
serves as Prep’s director of admissions. He resides in Kearny with wife Ticia and son John,
a current Prep senior.
Tony Mendolla, ’62
In the ’50s and ’60s, Coach Bill Cochrane fielded great Prep football
teams, composed of great Prep football players. Tony Mendolla
epitomized the Prep football tradition of excellence both on the field
and in the classroom.
A three-year starting halfback, Tony was best known for his ability
to break away for a long gain, making him a scoring threat from any
field position. In a scrimmage against Snyder, Tony burst into the
spotlight as a sophomore with an 88-yard touchdown. He steadily
led the team in rushing and scoring, earning spots on the Coaches
Fifth Quarter, Sunday Daily News and Hudson Dispatch All County
Teams and the Parochial All-State Team. As a senior team captain, he won the Tommy
Meyers Trophy as MVP of the Thanksgiving Day game against Dickinson. And through
it all, he remained a four-year honor student, in the top ten percent of his class.
After returning to Prep for four years as a math teacher and assistant football coach, Tony
began at 25-year career with Continental Insurance, during which time he continued to
teach math and computer science at the college level. He would return to the classroom
full-time before retiring in 2007. He and his wife of 44 years, Carmela, reside in
Manchester, New Jersey. They have two daughters and three grandchildren.
Jerry Vayda, ’52
Whatever the sport, whatever the era, great teams have certain things
in common: the right coach, the right talent, the right chemistry.
And to have the right chemistry, a team needs a catalyst – that
player who gives his teammates an edge and makes it all happen.
In the case of the 1950-51 and 1951-52 Prep basketball teams, that
player, that catalyst, was Jerry Vayda. With his tenacious rebounding,
laser-accurate shooting and lightning-quick passing, Jerry could help
his team from anywhere on the court. In the 1951-52 county final
against Saint Michael’s, it was Jerry’s gutsy rebound against Tommy
Heinsohn that turned the tide in Prep’s favor.
Based on the astonishing 44 scholarship offers he received, college coaches, too, knew that
Jerry Vayda was a special player. He chose to attend the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, the first recruit for new coach Frank McGuire. Over his four years as a Tar
Heel, Jerry once again proved to be a catalyst, twice earning the Foy Robinson award as
the most inspirational player on the team. No less an authority than Lennie Rosenbluth,
who succeeded Jerry as captain of the UNC basketball team and led the Tar Heels to
the 1957 national championship, credits his predecessor with laying the groundwork
for UNC’s legendary basketball reputation. This evening, we are honored to have Jerry’s
widow, Priscilla, on hand to accept his award.
The 1951-1952 Basketball Team
The 1952-1953 Basketball Team
The late 1940s and early 1950s represented a “golden era” for high school
basketball in Hudson County in general, and at Saint Peter’s Prep in
particular. Coach Roy Leenig and his teams dominated the courts of
Jersey City, not to mention the rest of the county, the state and even the
entire Eastern Seaboard.
Arguably the most outstanding among the Prep squads of that era, the
1951-52 team complied an overall record, including tournament play,
of 25-2. Along the way, they took the Jesuit Tournament, Jersey City,
Hudson County and New Jersey Catholic A titles, before capping the
season with a second straight triumph in the Eastern States Catholic
Invitational Tournament (ESCIT). That tournament, held from 1938
through 1962, brought together the greatest high school hardwood
heroes on the East Coast, and amounted to a sort of de facto national
championship.
By all accounts a worthy successor to that squad, the 1952-53 team
repeated the feat of losing just two games in the course of the season,
sewing up the Jesuit Tournament, South Hudson and New Jersey
Catholic A championships. Sadly, we can never know whether a third
straight ESCIT crown was in the cards; a change in NJSIAA policy
kept Leenig’s crew from participating in the post-season tournament. To
the players and those who followed the team, however, a three-peat (to
use a term coined decades later), which would have retired the ESCIT
trophy and housed it permanently at Grand & Warren, seemed a distinct
possibility.
As Prep’s basketball program once again rises to prominence, it is fitting
that we honor these two teams and their legacy of excellence.
Sponsors
& Donors
We are grateful for this evening’s sponsors, whose generous
donations will support the Hall of Fame Scholarship Endowment.
Sons & Daughters of Saint Peter
Tom Sullivan, ’53
In Honor of Jim Deveney, ’53
Jesuit & Special Guest Sponsors
Rich Barnitt, ’56
In Memory of Lou Rettino, ’59
Joe Carr, ’61
In Honor of Tony Mendolla, ’62
and John Irvine, ’83, P’11
Jim Hackett, ’56
Rich Hamilton, ’90
Brian Harkins, P’13
In Honor of Mike Burgess
Ken Kunzman, ’54
Patrick Mellea, P’04
In Honor of Mike Burgess
and John Irvine, ’83, P’11
Jack Savage, ’57
In Memory of Rev. Joe Novak, S.J.
Paul Schaetzle, ’71
Priscilla Vayda
In Memory of Jerry Vayda, ’52
Contributors to the Hall of Fame Scholarship
Ed Corrigan, ’62
In Honor of Tony Mendolla, ’62
Dan Federman
In Honor of Mike Hurley, ’56
Larry Fell, ’54
Matt Foster-Moore, ’00
In Honor of John Irvine, ’83, P’11
John Frost
In Honor of Jim Deveney, ’53
Michael Giacone, P’12
Julia Mendolla Rienzo
In Honor of Tony Mendolla, ’62
Saint Peter’s Prep Advancement Staff
In Honor of John Irvine, ’83, P’11
The Prep
Alumni Board
The Athletic Hall of Fame was created in 2005
by the Saint Peter’s Prep Alumni Board, which sponsors
this evening’s induction ceremony and dinner.
For their leadership and continued support, we wish to thank the
members of the Alumni Board:
Bob Colacurcio, ’73
President
Rich Hamilton, ’90
Vice President
Ray Aumack, ’55
Tony Azzarto, S.J.
John Bergin, ’50
Gene Boyle, ’56
Lou Castelli, ’66
Jack Caulfield, ’71
Lou Cella, ’50
Kevin Brodbeck, ’89
Secretary
Len De Pinto, ’76
Gabe Doria, ’81
John Feeney, ’80
Dave Finn, ’82
John Gibney, ’81
Joe Giglio, ’87
Jim Hardiman, ’47
Steve Hudik, ’85
Jerry Lally, ’56
Joe Massarelli, ’80
Robert E. Reiser, S.J.
Jim Ryan, ’66
Jack Savage, ’57
Paul Schaetzle, ’71
George Taite, ’73
Athletic Hall of Fame Selection Committee
Tony Azzarto, S.J.
Gerry Bellotti
John Bergin, '50
Lou Castelli, '66
Joe Cooney, '45
John Feeney, '80
Joe Guarino, '86
John Gibney, '81
Ed Grant, '43
Rich Gronda, '59
Rich Hansen
Mike Hogan, '72
Jim Horan, '70
Jim Keenan, S.J.
Joe Parkes, S.J., '62
Jack Raslowsky, '79
Paul Schaetzle, '71
T.J. Sullivan, '93
Joe Urbanovich, '65
Acknowledgments
& Special Thanks
Prep’s Office of Institutional Advancement, along with other members
of the Saint Peter’s Prep staff, have played an essential role
in ensuring the success of this evening’s event.
In particular, we thank the following.
For Their Leadership Support:
Chris Casazza, ’97
Chief Advancement
Officer
Bob Reiser, S.J.
President
Gary Bogdanski, ’02
Director of Alumni
Relations
For Their Ongoing Logistical Support:
Kevin Albers, Nancy Cunningham, P’99,’01, Danielle DiCerbo,
Fred Galano, Mike Jiran, ’03, Debbie Lillis, P’10,
Ginny Needham-Doyle, P’07, Renee Rivera, Liz Walsh
and the Prep Operations Staff
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Program design: Mike Jiran, ’03
Printing: CD Graphics – Joe Villanella, ’79
Pride
&Glory
It is our Pride and our Glory,
old in song and in story;
and we cherish your name
and we love your fair fame
for the days of long ago.
And we your sons will be loyal
to Saint Peter’s so royal.
May your banners still guide us
wherever we go!
It is a story of gladness,
with no shadow of sadness;
our years spent with you,
Saint Peter’s so true,
and you hold our hearts’ love yet.
And through the years we will treasure,
with a joy beyond measure,
the gifts you have given.
We shall never forget.