George Guido: 50th anniversary of the Great High School Disappearing Act

By: George Guido
Saturday, June 26, 2021 | 9:08 PM

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Great High School Disappearing Act.

Six Mon Valley high schools — most making up one basketball section — vanished overnight to become part of mergers.

Here’s what happened: Braddock, North Braddock Scott, Rankin, Homestead, Munhall and East Pittsburgh high schools all officially went out of existence.

Their demises were actually in the works for years, but it became reality July 1, 1971. School district fiscal years typically go from July 1 of one year to June 30 the succeeding year.

Braddock, North Braddock Scott and Rankin merged to become General Braddock High School. Homestead and Munhall joined forces to form Steel Valley, and East Pittsburgh was absorbed by Turtle Creek.

That created a problem for sports teams with open dates on their schedules. Nowhere was the effect of the closed schools more present than in WPIAL basketball. The alignment for the 1971-72 season was released April 3, 1971. It included Section 13-B with Braddock, East Pittsburgh, Edgewood, Homestead, Rankin and West Mifflin South.

At the time, there were two basketball classifications — Class A and B. All sections were numbered consecutively, no matter what the class. To avoid renumbering sections and a mountain of paperwork, the WPIAL simply moved Edgewood and West Mifflin South to Section 14-B, where one took over East Pittsburgh’s schedule and four more section playing dates had to be added there. Section 13-B was, thus, eliminated.

General Braddock was listed in Section 5-A, taking over Scott’s schedule, and Steel Valley simply took over Munhall’s schedule in 5-A.

Those six weren’t the only high schools that vanished. Locally, Verona and Oakmont formed Riverview. Also, Etna and Millvale were consolidated with Shaler.

Shaler, overnight, went from Shaler Township High School to Shaler Area High School.

Highlands on top 50 years ago

Also 50 years ago this month, the Highlands Golden Rams stood atop the WPIAL baseball world.

On June 14, 1971, the Golden Rams defeated Ellwood City, 5-4, in the first WPIAL baseball title game played at Three Rivers Stadium. At the time, there were no enrollment classifications and no PIAA playoffs. Therefore, the WPIAL was able to arrange the playoffs according to the Pirates’ schedule.

It was just the third season of baseball at Highlands, and only the section winners made the playoffs. Highlands opened the postseason at the then-Freeport Borough Field with a 4-3 win over Apollo-Ridge, followed by an 11-2 victory over Mars.

In the semifinals, the Golden Rams trailed Penn Hills, 2-1, in the bottom of the seventh at Munhall’s West Field. Ed Kush’s single drove home Mark Urbanski, who reached first on a strike three passed ball. Urbanski then singled home Dave Virag to win it in the eighth.

In the finals, Highlands faced Ellwood City and ace pitcher Jeff Potter. But Highlands had an ace of its own: sophomore Doug Bubash.

With the Golden Rams trailing 2-1 in the fifth, Mickey Kolwicz’s single drove in two runs to give Highlands the lead for good. Bubash tripled home a run and scored in the seventh.

The Wolverines scored two in the seventh and had the tying run on base, but Bubash struck out Potter and Ellwood’s top hitter, Ed Prence, to win it and go 11-0 on the season. The Golden Rams finished 18-1.