George Guido: Chuck Gugino was a coach to remember

By: George Guido
Saturday, December 10, 2022 | 5:50 PM

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One of the area’s most successful basketball coaches has passed away, soon after hitting age 100.

Chuck Gugino, who guided Har-Brack and Highlands to seven section titles in 15 seasons, died in Bartow, Fla., on Monday.

Gugino served during World War II in the Army Air Force as a flight engineer. After the War, he attended and played basketball at Geneva College. After graduation from Geneva, he got his coaching start at Har-Brack as an assistant under Ray Hudson in 1951.

Gugino and the Tigers curtailed Ford City’s 40-year stranglehold on old Section 1-A, then the largest enrollment classification. In those days, only section winners were admitted to the playoffs.

Section-wise, Gugino’s teams compiled a 138-38 record (.784) at Har-Brack for 11 seasons and the first four years at Highlands.

From 1965-70, Gugino’s teams finished the regular season in first place, winning five section titles and finishing in a tie for first with Valley in ’68, losing a tiebreaker game. Taking those six seasons alone, his teams had a 71-7 record (.910).

Perhaps his top accomplishment was uniting Har-Brack’s and Tarentum’s basketball programs. Usually, merged schools have trouble getting combined programs off the ground, but Highlands made it to the WPIAL semifinals in 1969, losing to a Penn Hills team that included future NBA coach George Karl.

Here’s something our readers might not realize about Gugino: Only one of his 15 teams at Har-Brack/Highlands finished below third place. In other words, if today’s playoff qualification procedure had been in effect then, 14 of his teams would have made the WPIAL postseason.

Gugino left the coaching ranks in 1973 and came back to coach Freeport in 1979 when the WPIAL relaxed rules requiring coaches to work at the schools they coached.

The Yellowjackets made a playoff appearance during the three seasons he spent there before retiring and heading to Florida in 1982.

Gugino was inducted into the Alle-Kiski Valley Sports Hall of Fame in 1995.

He is survived by his wife of 75 years, Janice, and four children, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Chuck Gugino turned 100 on Nov. 12 and Janice on Dec. 1, five days before Chuck’s death.

Funeral arrangements were handled by the Oakridge Funeral Home of Winter Haven Fla.

Bartha gets his court

Veteran Apollo-Ridge girls basketball coach Ray Bartha is getting the school’s basketball court named after him.

The formal dedication will take place at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 19, prior to the Vikings game against Riverview at 6:30.

Bartha has been an educator, coach and athletic director at Apollo-Ridge for more than 50 years. His basketball teams have won 639 games, and this year’s squad has a 3-0 mark. The Vikings have made the WPIAL playoffs 25 times and have won 11 section titles.

Bartha’s 1991 team won a WPIAL title, a feat no A-K Valley girls team has accomplished since.

He is a graduate of Leechburg and Slippery Rock University and was inducted into the Alle-Kiski Valley Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.

Girls wrestling

The state is coming closer and closer to getting girls wrestling sponsored as a PIAA sport.

There are 85 high schools either sponsoring a team presently or committing to sponsor the sport. If 100 schools sign on, the sport will be sanctioned by the PIAA.

According to the most recent National Federation of High School Sports Association, there were 21,124 girls participating in wrestling at 2,890 schools.