George Guido: Willie Thrower Award finalists announced

By: George Guido
Saturday, January 29, 2022 | 5:55 PM

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The five finalists for the second annual Willie Thrower Award, recognizing the top quarterback among WPIAL and City League schools, have been determined.

The finalists, selected by a panel of two coaches from each conference and various media members, are (listed alphabetically) Brad Birch of Gateway, Jared Brickner of Beaver Falls, Joey Daniels of Mt. Lebanon, Cadin Olsen of Armstrong and Devin Whitlock of Belle Vernon.

The five have been invited to a luncheon April 9 at the New Kensington Quality Inn. The winner will take home a 29-pound replica of the Willie Thrower statue that stands inside of Valley High Memorial Stadium.

Willie Thrower played for the former New Kensington High School and became the first Black quarterback in NFL history while playing for the Chicago Bears in 1953.

No Armstrong banquet

Sadly, the Armstrong County Sports Hall of Fame banquet was cancelled for a third straight year because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The banquet was scheduled for April 24 at Freeport’s Laube Hall.

The decision was made by the 27-member Board of Governors.

An unfortunate part of the cancellation is the recognition of a male and female student-athlete from each Armstrong County High School and the issuance of scholarship money for several recipients.

Aliquippa situation

While it was nice to see the PIAA Board of Directors grant Aliquippa its appeal of being advanced to Class 5A football for the next two seasons, it points out a slight tweak needed to the state association’s competitive balance rule.

The rule was set up as a result of complaints from schools with geographic boundaries about the competitive advantages for nonboundary schools.

A school is moved up in classification if it acquires “success points” determined by the number of transfers the team receives and advancement to district and PIAA playoffs over a two-year period.

In Aliquippa’s case, the school’s football team, Class A in size, already voluntarily played “up” two classes and was placed in 4A two years ago for its success playing 3A football. After the team’s success in 2020 and ‘21, the PIAA assigned Aliquippa to Class 5A.

The school appealed, citing a number of issues, including the Quips’ average roster size of about 30 to larger 5A schools with as many as 80 rostered players.

While I support 99% of that PIAA rule, a school that played “up” shouldn’t necessarily be locked in and have that status used as its baseline for advancement under the rule.

After all, each school has to declare every two years if it wants to continue playing in a higher class.

Busybodies

Because of weather- and covid-related postponements, the Leechburg boys and St. Joseph girls will be playing plenty of basketball over the next two weeks.

Leechburg has only played four of its 10 section games. The Blue Devils have three games this week and three games next week.

St. Joseph has only played five of its 10 section games.

Before the season started, the WPIAL mandated that all section action needs to be finished by Feb. 12.