Around the Valley: Another local basketball legend dies; Rich Baker returns to Stroudsburg as athletic director; Becahi has new AD

It is has been a tough year for losing sports legends on both the national landscape, with the recent deaths of Bill Walton, Jerry West and Willie Mays, and on the local scene.

During the winter, the area lost Dieruff High multisport star Ross Moore and now it has lost a contemporary of Moore’s who was also part of a magical 1968-69 boys basketball season in Allentown.

In that season 55 years ago, Allen went 23-2 and won the East Penn League title thanks to the exploits of Tim Schmeidel, Dick Zelickson, Mark Schultz, Jay Haines and Daryl Tollinche.

Dieruff went 21-6 and won its fourth consecutive District 11 championship led by the incomparable Moore, Jim Booros, Lou Benson, Dan Joseph, Bob Stellar and Bob Racosky, among others.

But not to be overlooked was Allentown Central Catholic, led by coach Mike Koury, who would go on to become an Easton district judge. The 1968-69 Vikings went 19-7 and won the Meadville Elks Tournament to start the season. Since they were not in District 11 or allowed to compete in the PIAA playoffs at that time, they went on a different postseason path and won the Allentown Diocese title and then beat Scranton Prep and Bishop McDevitt in the PCIAA playoffs before losing to Pitt Canevin at the Pitt Fieldhouse in the PCIAA state final.

Leading the way was sharpshooting Bobby Neff, who was voted co-league MVP with Bethlehem Catholic’s Jim Chassar.  Neff joined Moore, Chassar, Zelickson and Hazleton’s Tony Kinney as first-team all-league and Neff was a UPI all-state honorable mention selection. Chassar was first-team all-state, Moore second-team and Zelickson third-team.

It was a glorious time in local basketball that was remembered fondly by Neff’s teammates and friends after his death June 16 at the age of 73.

Neff finished his Central career with 1,098 points, the second player in Vikings history to reach 1,000.

Neff averaged 17.1 points per game as a senior with a high of 28 against Freedom. He also had 12 field goals in a game against Allen. He also led ACCHS in scoring as a junior with 16.6 points per game.

“Bobby was a great player, a great shooter,” said Booros, who played for two seasons at ACCHS before transferring to Dieruff.

“We were able to witness some of the area’s best athleticism in our era,” Mike Ciocco said. “I was the manager of Central Catholic’s basketball team in addition to being the captain of the football team. Ross Moore was a great athlete and so was Bobby and they were great competition for each other. Bobby was a league MVP when Ross was having such a great year himself. They were great athletes everywhere and Bobby was one of them. He could jump and get up over everybody to get off his shot.”

“I grew up with Bob and we went to Sacred Heart Elementary School together,” said Tom Reichl. “Bob was a legend at the Herbst playground and he went on to have a great career. I remember one night he had a great game against Allen, and [legendary Morning Call sports columnist and editor] John Kunda went into the Central locker room to congratulate him. He went to college out in New Mexico for a short time, but wanted to come back home.”

He went on to work for  Allentown and retired in 2006 after 35 years in the Parks and Recreation Department.

Glen Klein, who runs the summer basketball league and the Cedar Beach Showcase, worked with Neff in the city:

“I know him through basketball,” he said. “He went to Central Catholic, I was an Allen guy, but I do remember him play and he was a great player. He could shoot.”

Baker returns to Stroudsburg

Rich Baker was a star boys basketball player at Stroudsburg and later coached the Mounties boys team for three seasons.

He has spent the last seven years on the staff at Executive Education, including the last three as athletic director. But now it’s time to go back home to where it all started for him. He will succeed Sean Richmond as the school’s athletic director.

“I was proud of my time at Executive and learned a lot there,” he said. “It was about helping kids and developing programs. We had a lot of success and I hope that success continues for them. But this is surreal for me to get to go back to Stroudsburg.”

Baker, though, said he bleeds maroon and white and he’s excited about going back to Stroudsburg, which is a school he knows better than every other. The Mounties are still dealing with the tragedy of former athletic director Sean Richmond dying in May when he was hit by a tractor-trailer on Route 380 while trying to get to the school’s prom.

“Sean was a big help to me in my job at Executive and I will never the impact he had on me and what I learned from him,” Baker said. “It’s tough to get this job under these circumstances and we all definitely miss him, but I am excited to be back at Stroudsburg and in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference. It’s going to be a challenge, but I learned a lot about challenges at Executive. Just putting together a football schedule was a challenge at Executive where you had to find an opponent and then you had to figure out when and where you were going to play them and at what kind of facility. It wasn’t always easy.”

Steve Tomaszewski gets Becahi post

Steve Tomaszewski had a stellar baseball career at both Bethlehem Catholic and Moravian University and now he’ll get the chance to oversee the entire Golden Hawks athletic program as he replaces Chris Domyan, who resigned and will be leaving the area with his family.

Tomaszewski is a 2001 Becahi graduate and got his diploma from Moravian in 2005. He has a great sports background and is excited about his new opportunity.

“I have been Chris’ assistant AD for the past three years and before that I coached baseball at Moravian for six seasons and also coached with Mike Grasso from 2011-2016,” Tomaszewski said. “Just being around our coaches I feel we’re in a great spot with good people inside and outside the building. We have great individuals our kids want to be around be coached by. We have awesome coaches who are just awesome people. Whether they’re first responders [softball coach Kayla Paszek is a member of the Allentown police force], educators or business owners, we have great people who want to give back.”

There are always challenges in local scholastic sports and Tomaszewski and his coaches will strive to keep the Golden Hawks in an era where numbers of students and athletic participants are a concern.

“There’s always new challenges in taking on a new role,” he said. “I have to learn how to manage different people and continuing to meet the standards and expectations of different programs. It’s a challenge across the board to keep up student engagement and the spirit aspect. That’s not just at a school like ours, but it’s a challenge at many different schools. We want to have people to come to our games and enjoy watching our student-athletes participate.”

Domyan spent a decade as Becahi’s athletic director and Tomaszewski learned a lot from him.

“I saw his patience and his ability to understand where an individual stakeholder is coming from and just the professionalism he showed along with the mediation aspect,” he said. “Chris was a master at doing that. I tried to absorb every single opportunity to sit and listen and discuss those kind of things with him. Chris put me in position to succeed and make it as seamless a transition as possible as he pursues a lifelong dream in moving to Arizona.”

Tomaszewski also is pleased with be working with principal Dean Donaher, who is starting his second year in charge.

“Dr. Donaher loves to be out and about and supporting the kids,” Tomaszewski said. “He’s also always courteous, professional, open-minded. Having a person with his experience around is priceless.”

Other moves

Highly successful Emmaus girls soccer coach Sarah Oswald is the new Salisbury athletic director. Oswald went 130-61-12 in nine seasons at Emmaus and led the Green Hornets to a District 11 tournament in all nine seasons. Her teams reached three district finals. Oswald replaces Monica Deeb, who had been the school’s athletic director since the 1999-2000 school year.

Northampton Community College athletics director Troy Tucker announced the hiring of Carly Gallagher as the new women’s basketball coach at  NCC.

“We are extremely excited to get a passionate, successful, coach like Carly to lead our women’s basketball program.  I am looking forward to working with Coach Gallagher and her staff on building a championship program,” Tucker said.

She takes over the Spartan program following 10 years of coaching experience at the high school level. Gallagher began her coaching career at East Stroudsburg South as a varsity assistant and then accepted her first head coaching job at East Stroudsburg North in 2016. Gallagher returned to her alma mater, East Stroudsburg South, as the head coach in 2020.

Gallagher was a standout player for the Cavaliers, earning first-team all-league honors four times. She was also a Morning Call all-area choice three times and a two-time all-state selection. She finished her high school career as the all-time leading scorer at East Stroudsburg South High School and also scored over 1,000 points as a four-year starter at Millersville.

Her sister, Kelsey, recently resigned after seven seasons in charge of the Emmaus girls basketball team.