Franco Harris was a legend whose contributions transcended the game of football that he played so well.
The unexpected passing, from natural causes, of the former Pittsburgh Steelers and Penn State star fullback at the age of 72 at his home in Sewickley on Dec. 20 — just three days before the 50th anniversary of his iconic “Immaculate Reception” shoestring touchdown catch that gave the Steelers the franchise’s first-ever playoff victory, a 13-7 win over the Oakland Raiders — shocked football fans throughout the state and country, and was one of the Mirror’s biggest sports stories of 2022.
The Steelers planned a ceremony to retire the No. 32 jersey worn by Harris at halftime of their Dec. 24 game with the visiting Raiders — who are now known as the Las Vegas Raiders.
That ceremony was held, but without the esteemed guest of honor physically present, and with his legion of fans throughout the Commonwealth and beyond in a shocked state of mourning and sadness.
Harris, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990, played 13 seasons in the NFL — including 12 with the Steelers, helping them win four Super Bowls in six seasons from 1975 to 1980.
Taken by the Steelers out of Penn State with the 13th overall pick in the first round of the 1972 NFL Draft, Harris accumulated 12,120 career rushing yards on 2,949 carries in 173 regular-season games — third best in league history behind Walter Payton and Jim Brown.
Harris, who amassed eight 1,000-yard rushing seasons and scored 100 touchdowns, appeared in nine Pro Bowls and was well-known in the Pittsburgh area and throughout the state of Pennsylvania for his civic, philanthropic, and political contributions.
The shocking passing of Harris capped off a season in which the Steelers broke in a new quarterback for the first time in 18 seasons after the retirement of another surefire future Hall of Fame inductee, Ben Roethisberger.
Roethlisberger, who formally announced his retirement last January, was replaced on a full-time basis as the Steelers quarterback by Kenny Pickett, a former University of Pittsburgh standout who was unexpectedly available when the Steelers made their first-round NFL draft pick last spring.
In other big local sports stories of the year, Central High School captured the PIAA Class 3A state baseball championship in June, capping off a perfect 27-0 season with a 13-2, five-inning mercy-rule victory over Lancaster Catholic in the state title game at Penn State’s Medlar Field at Lubrano Park.
The Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference announced a massive all-sports expansion set to begin in 2023 that will involve the addition of several area high school sports programs to the conference. The change will be especially significant in football, which will adopt a 20-team, four-section format that will include new additions Tyrone and Bellwood-Antis.
Penn State hired a new athletic director in 2022, when former AD Sandy Barbour announced her retirement and Patrick Kraft, who was formerly the athletic director at Boston College, stepped in to replace her.
The Penn State football team put together a 10-2 season and earned a trip to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. on Monday. Penn State enters the game ranked ninth in the country, while Utah is ranked seventh.
The Penn State wrestling team also extended its reign of dominance under head coach Cael Sanderson, winning another NCAA team championship.
The passing of an icon
The Steelers dominated the NFL during the 1970s, but prior to that, the team had been an afterthought in the league.
The addition of Harris in 1972 changed all of that. Harris helped the Steelers come of age on the football field, and his Immaculate Reception on Saturday, Dec. 23, 1972 that gave the Steelers their improbable win over the Raiders was voted in 2020 as the single biggest play in the NFL’s then 100-year history.
A fourth-down pass from Steelers’ quarterback Terry Bradshaw that bounced into the air after a collision between intended receiver John “Frenchy” Fuqua and Raiders defensive back Jack Tatum landed into the outstretched hands of Harris, who caught it in stride inches from the Three Rivers turf at the Oakland 45-yard line and rambled down the left sideline for the winning touchdown in the final seconds of the game.
The play was not without controversy because of the fact that there was no replay review in place at that time to determine whether the ball had touched the ground, or that the pass hadn’t touched Fuqua before being deflected, which would have nullified the catch. The heroics by Harris sent the Steelers into the AFC championship game the following weekend, where they lost to the undefeated and eventual Super Bowl champion Miami Dolphins.
But more than any other single play, the reception changed the fortunes, trajectory and culture of what became one of the NFL’s most successful franchises.
After his retirement from football, Harris — who is survived by his wife and grown son — remained in Pittsburgh, opened a bakery, and became involved in several charities. Among the most prominent of those philanthropic ventures is Pittsburgh Promise, which provides college scholarships for public school students in urban areas.
Harris also had strong ties to Blair County, often visiting Tipton, where he forged a great business relationship with the DelGrosso family through his close college buddy, Ron Rossi. Harris had a special sauce named for him by the DelGrossos, just as he had once inspired the formation of “Franco’s Italian Army” during his playing heydays at Three Rivers Stadium.
In so many ways, Harris left a legacy that will never be forgotten.
It was expected that Roethlisberger would announce his retirement in 2022, and that happened.
It was expected that the Steelers would add at least one new quarterback. That happened, too.
The team, however, was forced to cope with another shocking tragedy early in 2022 when backup quarterback Dwayne Haskins was killed in Florida last April after being struck by a vehicle in an automobile-pedestrian accident.
Haskins was a former college standout at Ohio State who, after Roethlisberger’s retirement, could have factored into the Steelers’ quarterback picture this season.
Roethlisberger, who had been the face of the Steelers franchise since emerging as a sensational rookie first-round NFL draft pick out of Miami (Ohio) University in 2004, officially announced his retirement last January 27, after a stellar 18-year career in which he led the Steelers to three Super Bowl appearances, two Super Bowl championships, and was selected to the Pro Bowl six times while throwing for 64,088 career yards and 418 touchdowns.
Roethlisberger led the Steelers to a 9-7-1 regular-season record last year and an improbable berth in the American Football Conference playoffs, which they secured with a 16-13 overtime road victory over the division rival Baltimore Ravens last Jan. 9.
The Steelers qualified for the playoffs as a Wild Card entry but were eliminated in the first round with a 42-21 road loss to the Kansas City Chiefs Jan. 16.
Roethlisberger — who turned 40 years of age this past March — enjoyed a fabulous sendoff from a sellout home crowd on Monday night, Jan. 3, when he took a lap around the stadium after completing 24 passes for 123 yards and a touchdown in the Steelers’ 26-14 victory over the rival Cleveland Browns.
With tears in his eyes during a postgame interview with ESPN, Roethlisberger greeted his wife, Ashley, and their three children with hugs on the field following the game, and the family left the stadium together.
Local favorite Pickett was selected by the Steelers with the 20th overall park in the 2022 NFL Draft, an unexpected turn of events that delighted the vast majority of the Steelers’ fan base.
Pickett took over the Steelers’ starting quarterback job in the fourth game of this season, Oct. 2 against the New York Jets, and has stayed in the role for the remainder of the season, missing only two games after being placed in concussion protocol on two separate occasions.
Despite enduring some expected growing pains, Pickett has largely acquitted himself well in his first NFL season, completing 217 of his 333 passes (a 65.2 percentage) for 2,041 yards and five touchdowns and rushing for 234 yards on 47 carries and three touchdowns. The Steelers open the 2023 calendar year with a 7-8 record and a very remote chance of making the American Football Conference playoffs entering their game Sunday against the Ravens in Baltimore.
Pickett, a New Jersey native, enjoyed a very decorated college career, leading the Pitt Panthers to their first-ever Atlantic Coast Conference championship in 2021. Pickett finished his Pitt career as the school’s all-time leader in career passing yards (12,303), pass completions (1,045) and passing touchdowns (81).
He also had the most 300-yard passing games (16) and the most 400-yard passing games (five) in the history of the Pitt program, and finished with 20 career rushing touchdowns — another school record for a quarterback.
The Steelers signed Trubisky to a two-year contract in March. Trubisky, a second overall pick out of North Carolina in the 2016 NFL Draft, started his career with the Chicago Bears and later was a backup with the Buffalo Bills.
He performed well enough in the preseason to earn the starting assignment at quarterback for the Steelers’ regular season opener at Cincinnati, but was eventually supplanted by Pickett.
Pickett gained valuable experience, negotiated some necessary growing pains, and got his feet wet in his first season as the Steelers starting quarterback in 2022.
The Steelers also adopted a name change for their football field in 2022. Named Heinz Field since its opening in 2001, the stadium is now known as Acrisure Stadium. The Acrisure company, a global insurance broker, purchased the stadium’s naming rights midway through the 2022 calendar year after signing a 15-year contract with the Steelers.
Central wins PIAA baseball title
Central High School won its second PIAA baseball championship in school history and finished 27-0 for the first time in the program’s venerable baseball history via its mercy-rule victory over outmanned Lancaster Catholic of District 3 in the state title game June 17.
Jeff Hoenstine, a junior last spring, led Central’s batting attack in the title game with three hits, two RBIs and two runs scored, while sophomore Hunter Smith had two hits and three RBIs, and winning pitcher Devon Boyles collected two hits and two RBIs.
Central dominated the vast majority of its games in 2022, but needed a three-run homer by Boyles to edge District 9 champion Punxsutawney, 6-5 in a PIAA semifinal matchup at Homer-Center June 14.
The Central baseball program made its fifth appearance in a state championship game in 2022. The Scarlet Dragons also won the PIAA gold medal in 2017.
Both championships came under the direction of A.J. Hoenstine, who has led Central to four state championship game appearances in his 13 seasons as the program’s coach.
The talent-laden 2022 Central state championship team featured two senior players who have gone on to play baseball on the Division I college level — Boyles (Radford University) and outfielder Paxton Kling (LSU).
The Central football program also had another very successful year in 2022, reaching the PIAA Class 3A state tournament semifinals for the second consecutive season before losing a 21-17 decision to eventual state champion Belle Vernon in a game that was played on the Central Cambria High School Athletic Field.
Hoenstine was named the Pa. Football Writers Player of the Year in Class 3A.
In another state championship baseball game that did not involve a school in the Mirror’s core coverage area, Everett won the PIAA Class 2A title on June 16 at Medlar Field with a 1-0, nine-inning victory over WPIAL runner-up Neshannock in the championship game.
Senior outfielder Jadin Zinn’s RBI single drove home pinch-runner Jacob Price from second base with the winning run for Everett (21-2), which won the District 5 championship and also captured the first state baseball title in the program’s history. Seniors Calvin Iseminger and Trenton Mellott teamed to shut out Neshannock on two hits over nine innings, with Iseminger tossing eight shutout frames.
Two District 6 softball teams in the Mirror’s core coverage area, Glendale and Claysburg-Kimmel, reached the semifinals of the PIAA state tournament before coming up one win short of a berth in the state championship game. Glendale dropped a 9-0 decision to Montgomery in the PIAA Class 1A semifinals, while Claysburg-Kimmel lost, 7-2 to Conwell-Egan Catholic in a PIAA Class 2A semifinal matchup.
Penn State names new AD
The year 2022 bought a changing of the guard in Penn State’s athletic administration with the retirement of Barbour last summer and the appointment of Kraft to the position.
Kraft, 45, who spent the past two years as athletic director at Boston College after having served in the same role at Temple University, was formerly a member of the football team at the University of Indiana during his college days there.
Kraft told ESPN.com that he was very excited about taking on the Penn State opportunity when he was hired there on April 22.
Barbour, 62, came to Penn State in 2014 and became the university’s ninth athletic director. During her eight-year tenure, she oversaw the construction of new facilities, and the success of Penn State’s championship programs in wrestling and women’s volleyball.
Before arriving at Penn State, Barbour had worked with athletic administrations at Notre Dame, Tulane, and the University of California.
The Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference will be taking on an expanded and exciting look that will rekindle many local sports rivalries beginning with the 2023-24 school year.
Midway through this past year, the Laurel Highlands Conference unveiled its plan for a 20-team, four-section league for football.
Among the league’s new additions will be Bellwood-Antis and Tyrone, which will compete in the league’s “East 1” section with Central, Bishop Guilfoyle Catholic and Huntingdon.
The former Mountain League is holding its final sports season in the 2022-23 school year, and programs from those schools will be joining the new Laurel Highlands Conference in football and other sports.
Hollidaysburg will not be a member of the new Laurel Highlands Conference in football, but will continue to play an independent schedule.
Hollidaysburg will be joining the Laurel Highlands in all other sports beginning in 2023-24.
Along with rekindling many local rivalries, decreased travel for schools with teams in the new Laurel Highlands Conference will be an added bonus.
Pfeffer takes reins at Altoona
Doug Pfeffer, who has a long coaching history of coaching basketball in the Altoona Area School District, was named the Mountain Lions’ new boys varsity head coach on May 16.
Pfeffer, 50, who served as Altoona’s ninth-grade coach for the past six seasons and had previously been coach of the school’s seventh-grade team for three years, succeeds Jarrod Klausman as varsity coach.
Citing family commitments, Klausman resigned after last season. In his three years as coach, he had led the program to three appearances in the District 6 Class 6A championship game, and two district titles.
PSU wins another wrestling title
Penn State extended its dynasty in the NCAA Wrestling Championships this past year, running away with the team title in the event, which was held in 2022 at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit March 17-19.
Five Penn State wrestlers reached the finals, and all of them won championships there, with four defending individual titles at their weight classes.
The Nittany Lions rung up 131.5 points to roll to their ninth team title in the last 11 contested NCAA tournaments. Michigan was a distant second with 95 points, and 2021 team champion Iowa was third with 74.
Repeating as champions at their weight classes for Penn State were Roman Bravo-Young (133 pounds), Nick Lee (141), Carter Starocci (174), and Aaron Brooks (184). Max Dean, a transfer from Cornell, won the 197-pound title for Penn State last March.
Greg Kerkvliet also achieved All-American status for Penn State, finishing fourth in the heavyweight division.
In a rematch of the 2021 NCAA championship bout at 133, Bravo-Young edged Oklahoma State’s Daton Fix, 3-2.
At 141, Lee rolled to a 10-3 title win over North Carolina’s Kizhan Clarke, and in a battle of former national champions at 174, Starocci edged Virginia Tech’s Mekhi Lewis, 6-5 in overtime by establishing a 15-second riding time advantage.
At 184, Brooks topped Michigan’s Myles Amine, 5-3, avenging a loss to Amine in the Big Ten Conference Championship match. Dean won the title at 197 with a 3-2 championship verdict over Iowa’s Jacob Warner.
Max Murin, a Central Cambria High School graduate now wrestling at Iowa, and Justin McCoy, a Chestnut Ridge High School product competing at Virginia, both finished one win shy of All-American status at 149 and 165 pounds, respectively, in last year’s NCAA tournament.
Pitt’s Cole Matthews earned All-America status by finishing fifth in the 2022 NCAA tournament at 141 pounds.
Red Devil runners earn gold
The 2022 calendar year was a very memorable one for both the Central Cambria cross country and track and field programs.
In track, the Central Cambria girls 3200-meter relay team captured a gold medal by winning the PIAA Class 2A state championship in its event on May 28 at Shippensburg University’s Seth Grove Stadium.
The Central Cambria team of freshmen Alaina and Abigail Sheehan, along with juniors Annaliese Niebauer and Abigail George, carded a time of 9:30.53 to best the second-place finish of 9:43.97 put up by the second-place District 10 Greenville team.
The Central Cambria boys cross country team won that program’s first-ever PIAA team championship on Nov. 5 at the Parkview cross country course in Hershey. Led by senior Aiden Lechleitner’s ninth-individual finish in 17:30.4, senior Cody Roberts’ 11th-place showing in 17:34.6 and junior Evan George’s 14th-place finish in 17:40.1 — each all-state efforts — Central Cambria won the PIAA Class 2A boys team championship with 98 points. Runner-up Jenkintown finished with 108 points.
Also at the PIAA state track and field meet last spring, Altoona senior Jake Adams won a second-place silver medal in the PIAA Class 3A boys long jump with an effort of 22 feet, 2.75 inches.
Bedford Area High School sophomore Leah Shackley, who is also a member of the Blair Regional YMCA TigerSharks swimming program, won gold medals in national and PIAA competitions last March.
Shackley, representing the Blair Regional YMCA, won the 200-yard backstroke at the YMCA National Swim Meet held March 29 in Greensboro, N.C. Shackley registered a personal-best time of 1:54.91, while New Jersey’s Sarah Rodrigues finished second in 1:55.91.
Shackley also won two gold medals in the 2022 PIAA Class 2A Swimming Championships held March 18-19 at Bucknell University.
Shackley won the 100-yard butterfly and the 100 backstroke events to earn recognition as the PIAA Swim Coaches Swimmer of the Meet.
Shackley was the second seed going into the backstroke and swam a PIAA Class 2A record time of 53.63 seconds in the prelims. Seeded first for the finals, she broke her own record with a 52.42, which was the best time for that event in either the Class 2A or Class 3A divisions.
Shackley won the 100 butterfly in 53.98.
In 2021, Shackley finished second in the 100 backstroke and sixth in the 100 freestyle at the PIAA Class 2A Swimming Championships, and later that year, she went on to qualify for the Olympic Team Time Trials in Omaha, Neb.
Three reach PIAA hoops semis
No boys or girls basketball teams from the Mirror coverage area reached the PIAA State Championships at Hershey’s Giant Center last March, but three — the Bellwood-Antis girls, Williamsburg girls and Portage girls — made it to the PIAA semifinals, where their respective seasons ended.
In the Class 2A semifinals, the Bellwood girls dropped a 61-53 decision to Neshannock of the WPIAL, while in the Class 1A semifinals, Williamsburg lost, 62-54 to Northumberland Christian and Portage dropped a 51-45 decision to Kennedy Catholic.
Portage girls coach Lance Hudak was named the PIAA Class 1A girls basketball Coach of the Year for the 2021-22 season.
The Bellwood, Williamsburg and Portage girls basketball programs all have a solid nucleus returning this year, and each team could very well make another strong run at a spot in their classification’s respective state championship games.
Former Pittsburgh Pirates infielder Dick “Ducky” Schofield, 87; Long-time Altoona Area High School board member Dick Lockard, 86, who was one of the greatest advocates for the school’s athletic programs … Former Bellwood-Antis High School football player Albert “Chub” Dillen, 85; Former Altoona High School athletic director Jack Ray, 84; Former Altoona High School football and basketball player Ralph “Sonny” McGirk, 82; Former Tyrone High School assistant wrestling coach Earl Harris, 81, who was a 1958 state wrestling champion at Philipsburg-Osceola … Long-time AAABA Executive Director and Altoona Greater City Baseball League/AAABA president John Austin, 79; Sue Taneyhill, 79, wife of former long-time Altoona Area High School girls basketball coach Art Taneyhill and mother of former Altoona Area High School athletic standouts Steve and Debbie Taneyhill … Former Penn State football lineman Dick Barrett, 78, who also served as a football coach at Tyrone … Former Tyrone High School football coach Tom Miller, 77; Tom McGee, 77, who was an assistant coach on the 1970 Bishop Guilfoyle Catholic High School boys basketball team that won the Pennsylvania Catholic Interscholastic Athletic Association Class A state championship … Former Bishop Guilfoyle and University of Mississippi basketball player Eddie Miller, 75, who was posthumously inducted into the Blair County Sports Hall of Fame this past April … Former Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Gene Clines, 75, who was a member of the Bucs’ 1971 World Championship team … Former Pittsburgh Steelers and Penn State star Franco Harris, 72; Former Bishop Guilfoyle Catholic basketball player Steve Cordova, 68; Former Altoona High School and Purdue University football player Gary Pheasant, 67; Former Chestnut Ridge High School wrestling coach Jim Clark, 67; Former Altoona High School basketball player Todd Little, 55, who is also the father of current Bishop Guilfoyle girls basketball coach Kristi (Little) Kaack … Former Bishop Guilfoyle football and basketball player Dave BonGiorno, 55; Former University of Pittsburgh and National Football League player Tony Siragusa, 55; Former Bishop Guilfoyle and Edinboro University football player Charles “Chip” Conrad, 53; Former Penn State running back Gary Brown, 52; Former Tyrone Area High School wrestler and football player John Supina, 51; Former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Charles Johnson, 50; Former Penn State linebacker Bani Gbadyu, 34; Steelers quarterback Dwayne Haskins, 24; Northern Cambria High School football and baseball player Maverick Baker, 16, who also played hockey at Bishop McCort High School and was recognized with a moment of silence by the Pittsburgh Penguins at their Feb. 26 game.
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