CATCHING UP WITH THE 1964 FIRST MONONGAH POP WARNER FOOTBALL TEAM

 



                    RON MANZO, JANICE MANZO





CATCHING UP WITH

1964 first Monongah Pop Warner football team

 

On the first Monongah Pop Warner team in 1964 were players who were on Monongah High 1968 state championship team

quarterbacked by future University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban with speedy running back Kerry Marbury, who also had state track meet first places in shorter dashes and hurdles and as part of MHS relay teams.

John Fazio remembers, during his Monongah football days, super player the late Tom Hulderman "after a win, Tom (Hulderman) singing the Beatles song, 'Yesterday.' Tom could sing." Tom was Class of 1969. 

Twice a year Tom went to Mount Calvary Cemetery in Monongah to visit the grave of Nick Saban's father, clean the headstone and put flowers on the grave marker.

Bill McCombs, Class of 1969, was honored by West Virginia water utilities group in 2014 for the superb job he did handling Monongah’s water utility. Bill married Monongah Town Recorder Patty Steele McCombs.

Bill won the Monongah mayoral race when his name was drawn from a hat to break a tie with incumbent Don Harris. But after the state ruled that he couldn’t be both mayor and town water director, Bill resigned as mayor. 

 

Bill’s wife, Patty, broke the tie that put Greg Vandetta into the mayor’s chair. Vandetta Construction owner Greg married  Monongahfest president Debbie Manzo Vandetta, Class of 1973.

 

Monongah fire chief Harless McCombs, Class of 1976, is Bill McCombs’ brother. Harless  married to Monongah Middle School language arts teacher and children’s book author Lisa Myers McCombs, Class of 1977.

 

Mark Savereno, Monongah Class of 1970, is a son of Harriet Shears Savereno and Tony Savereno, Class of 1941. Mark lives in State College, Pennsylvania, with wife Cathy. Mark’s mother, Harriett, was 93 when she passed away in 2017.

Mike Michalski’s parents are Frank Michalski, who played football at Monongah High, and Ramona Fullen Michalski, who I visit regularly when I’m in Marion County at her Bridge Street Extension home that is just outside the Monongah city limits and up the hill from where Ann DeMary Eates, widow of Joe Eates, lives on Bridge Street.

 

Ron Manzo, who married Fairview High grad Janice Manzo 46 years ago, has five children -- Evan, Andrew, Aaron, Ashley and Jared – and 2 grandchildren. Ron works for Consol Energy’s Bailey mine. Janice is into physical therapy and once worked at Lakeview Fitness Center.

Ronnie’s sister, Debra Manzo Vandetta, married former Monongah mayor Greg Vandetta.

 

Ralph Serian, Class of 1970, who married Chris Serian and lives in Kilarm, is a son of coal miner and one-time Fairmont Police Department employee John Ralph Serian, who passed away in 2014, and Mary Jane Glover Serian, also deceased.

 

Curtis Lee, Class of 1970, and Karen Lee attended the 2021 and 2018 Monongah High Alumni Banquets. They live in Fairmont.

Rueben Mick, Class of 1970, who lives in Fairmont, attended the 2021 Monongah High Alumni Banquet.

Charles “Chuck” Chefren, Class of 1969, attended the 2018 Monongah High Alumni Banquet.

 

Jim Foster, who played football for Monongah High and married Linda Foster, Lee Allen, Chris Yanero were in Monongah Class of 1971.  Bob Evans, John Fazio in Class of 1970.

 

Bruce Basagic is Class of 1969.

 

Mark Basagic, who passed away in 2017 in Petersburg, West Virginia, is a son of Anne Vukovich Basagic and Julius Basagic graduated from Fairmont West in 1970, then Fairmont State, then Cincinnati School of Mortuary Science in 1978 before working at Morgantown’s Hastings Funeral Home and then the Petersburg Basagic Funeral Home in 1985-2002.

 

He was a member of the Monongah Baptist Church.

 

Others on the 1964 Pop Warner team were Bob and Brian Evans, Joe DeFazio, Harry Rogers, Alan Lee, Ed Salabor, Danny Eates, David DebalskiDavid Davis, Brian Murphy, Nick Lagamba, Dave Vanmeter, Joe Craig, Ronnie Joe Martin and

Steve Steele.

If you have any information about their lives in the 1964 Pop Warner team, email John Olesky at jo4wvu@neo.rr.com and I’ll be happy to add the details to this article.


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