More on a DeBerardinis and other Stew tidbits

The DeBerardinis family, featured in last week’s Sports Stew, had yet another member who had a successful basketball career.

Chris DeBerardinis – the son of Paul– who was a 6-1 guard for Mon Valley Catholic High School.

Paul, by the way, once held the school record for the most points in a game after drilling 32 against Kiski Prep. It was a record later owned by his brother Dino.

Paul’s daughter Cara Pivovarnik said of her hard working and devoted father, “His love of basketball was always mentioned throughout our childhood. We had a hoop outside and you would find him shooting a couple of 3-pointers from time to time.”

When Paul’s Lignelli team in the Donora City Basketball League finished first for the second consecutive season in 1964, they did so with a 73-72 win in their finale. Paul scored 36, nearly half of his team’s points.

Family pickup games must have been something with Chris’s dad and uncles Jimmy, Gene, and Dino getting involved.

As for Chris, he spent his high school days at Ringgold, graduating in 1994. He was a 6-4 guard.

He played under head coach Phil Pergola and Jim Williams (with Bob Oesleger as the JV coach).

Pivovarnik said her father’s love for basketball “went on to Chris who was known to shoot a few 3-pointers, too.”

Chris was instrumental in the Rams’ success in his senior year with a scoring average of 12 points per game. That season, won their first WPIAL playoff game against Baldwin, but fell to Shaler Area High by three.

In the state playoffs, Ringgold knocked off Johnstown and Bethel Park before losing to Penn Hills, a team Chris described as being loaded with talent.

That season went 22-6. “When we lost, it was by three points or under every time. In every game that we lost, we had double-digit leads which we couldn’t hold onto,” Chris said. “For whatever reason, we were not a very good foul-shooting team. That’s what got us. Against Penn Hills, we were up 14 in the fourth quarter and lost by two because we didn’t make foul shots.”

All in all, the Rams had a fine roster with teammates such as Mike Horan, Czar Walsh, Eric Watson, Jamont Kinds and Jeff Tyree.

DeBeardinis went up against some noteworthy opponents, two coming for Shaler.

One, the highly recruited Tino Hunter, who wound up playing a few games for North Carolina State. Danny Fortson was good enough to last 10 seasons in the NBA after starring at the University of Cincinnati. There, he was a second-team All-American who averaged over 20 points per game.

DeBerardinis went from the RHS campus to play college ball for Cal U, where he earned his degree in sports management in 1998. Unfortunately, he never really got to display his ability there due to ankle and knee injuries.

He now lives in Shaler with his wife Brianna and two daughters, Sienna (who is on a fourth-grade travel team) and Mila.

Ties to Belichick NFL coach Bill Belichick has led his teams to an unprecedented nine Super Bowls and won a record six times.

Some Valley football fans may know that his father Steve was born in Monessen (back in 1919).

Steve spent one season with the Detroit Lions as a fullback, then was a back-field coach at Vanderbilt, North Carolina and Navy.

He’s in the Case Western Reserve University Hall of Fame where he played his college ball.

Coaching is in the Belichick bloodlines as Steve’s grandson, Stephen, coached for the New England Patriots for eight seasons (being part of Super Bowl winning team three times) and is now the defensive coordinator for the University of Washington.

A glance at Gaydos Donora High quarterback Bob “Butch” Gaydos played for Notre Dame on a football scholarship, graduating in 1958.

He also played on the line and learned from the man he called the finest coach he ever had, Johnny Druze, who was a member of the Fordham University line called the Seven Blocks of Granite, playing with Vince Lombardi.

Finally, did you know that the Valley has a connection to a big-league pitcher dating back to 1892 with Pittsburgh?

That man is John “Jock” Menefee.

After leaving the majors, he still kicked around the game. In a 1905 contest, he was beaned in a game against a Donora squad and recovered in Monongahela hospital.

That injury sidelined him for two seasons, but he came back in the low minors. His last outing, over the age of 40, pitching for the Class “C” McKeesport Tubers.

A story by David Nemec reported that in 1910, his 17-year-old son “was buried alive in a bin of loose dirt at a factory site Jock owned in Monessen.”

Menefee died in a nursing home in Belle Vernon as “one of the last remaining pitchers to pitch in the majors at the 50-foot distance” rather than the modern distance of 60 feet and 6 inches.