Gateway welcomes newest class of Sports Hall of Fame honorees

By: Michael Love
Sunday, November 12, 2023 | 11:01 AM

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Four years separated the opportunities for the Gateway athletics family to honor its own.

More than 150 people gathered together Nov. 4 at Edgewood Country Club to again celebrate memorable sports accomplishments with the enshrinement of the Gateway Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2023.

Celebrated this year were Shayla Scott (Class of 2007), Cameron Saddler (Class of 2008), Luke Nosbisch (Class of 2011), Rob Kalkstein (Class of 2010), Dan Schmitt (Class of 1986), Gateway teacher and coach Ralph Guzzo, and the 1967 state champion boys cross country team.

“It was a very special evening,” Gateway Sports Hall of Fame chairman Tony Petrocelli said.

Petrocelli said the inductees did well to walk everyone down memory lane and reminisce about the special moments and people who shaped their journey.

This year’s class is the 17th to be honored since the hall of fame began in 1999.

After the 2019 class took its rightful place in November of that year, covid scuttled plans for the 2020 induction.

The hall of fame decided in the spring of 2021 to induct classes every two years. Logistics issues extending from the pandemic pushed a planned 2022 induction to this year.

Scott, Gateway girls basketball’s all-time leading scorer with more than 1,400 points, was childhood friends with Saddler, and graduating just one year apart, they were witness to many of each other’s Gateway accomplishments.

She said it was special to share the evening and the honor with Saddler and Kalkstein, two of the more dynamic players from the resurgence of Gateway football in the 2000s, along with the other inductees.

“It took a couple of days for everything to truly sink in after the (induction banquet),” Scott said.

“It was such an exciting experience and an honor to share it with family and friends who have meant so much to me. I have sat back and tried to take it all in. I wish I could’ve talked more about not just the thank yous but also all of the wonderful experiences of being a Gateway Gator.”

On the same day the 1967 cross country team was inducted, current senior Kefimba Cisse continued the distance-running tradition at the PIAA Class 3A championship meet in Hershey.

Cisse finished his standout high school cross country career with back-to-back state berths.

Gateway cross country coach Tom LaBuff, who accompanied Cisse to Hershey, was a young runner on the 1967 squad.

Ten members of that team were on hand to celebrate and reminisce, some coming from several states throughout the country.

Co-captain Jack Anderson said getting a number of the team members together brought back a lot of fond memories.

“Probably two or three of the guys I had kept in contact with a little bit,” Anderson said.

“It was terrific. I hadn’t seen most of them in 56 years when we were 15, 16 or 17 years old. We were the first team to win a state championship for Gateway, and we’re very proud of that. We were the underdogs. We beat our friends over at Penn Hills after they had beaten us in the WPIAL finals the week before. There are all kinds of wonderful memories. Tony (Petrocelli) had it right when he said it will probably be the last time we all get together like this. That’s just reality. But it was just so much fun to see all of them again and tell stories. It was just a great time.”

Anderson said he was thankful for the banquet ceremony because it afforded the team members the opportunity to honor the memory of the team’s coach, the late Walter Donnellan.

Gateway 2011 graduate Luke Nosbish, a WPIAL champion and record holder and an Olympic Trials qualifier in the breaststroke who also swam for Pitt, did not attend the banquet.

But accepting on Nosbisch’s behalf was his coach at Gateway, Jason Kunkle, who himself is a Gateway Sports Hall of Fame inductee (2006).

“Luke was reserved and quiet. As a captain, he led by example,” Kunkle said.

“He was the ultimate competitor and like all great athletes, he had an internal drive that pushed him to win. He was a great teammate. Luke was humble and kind to everyone and encouraged others to do the same.”

Nosbisch joins a prestigious list of more than a dozen individual swimming and diving inductees, including Mel Nash and Michelle Chow from the original 1999 induction class, as well as Melanie Morgan (2000), Anne Spaeder (2003), Celeste Makiel (2006) and Katrina Streiner (2019).

Three girls swim teams also have been inducted.

Swimming and diving has the most inductions in the hall of fame’s 17 enshrined classes.

The decade of the 1980s continues to lead the way with 29 total inductions. Dan Schmitt, a 1986 graduate, excelled at Gateway in football, track and wrestling.

As a senior, he made the Tribune-Review’s Fabulous 22 football team and was selected to the Big 33 Classic.

Education and athletics both molded Schmitt at the next level as he enjoyed his journey to graduation from Yale.

Guzzo is no stranger to the Gateway athletic campus and the various sporting events. The Gateway graduate and baseball player served the school district as a teacher and coach.

A Class of 2023 banner will hang in the concourse at the Furrie Sports Complex, and the inductee plaques will join those of the former inductees in the hall of fame room also at the complex.

Petrocelli said the Gateway Sports Hall of Fame website — gshof.com — will be updated in a couple weeks to reflect the addition of this year’s class.

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

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