St. Peter’s Hosts 3rd Annual Hall of Fame Dinner for Cross Country and Track & Field Alumni

Since the beginning, St. Peter’s Boys High School has had a rich history in cross country and track & field. In conjunction with St. Peter’s 100-year celebration, we honored Hall of Fame inductees and presented the Vic Navarra ’71 Monumental Eagle Award and the de La Salle Christian Brothers Award this summer.

Pete Whitehouse (’60) was the guest of honor for the dinner on June 20 at LiGreci’s Staaten. After completing an outstanding high school career in track and field, he attended Notre Dame and earned the first team All-American honors when he took second place in the 110-meter high hurdles in the NCAA championship meet in Eugene, Oregon. Later that summer, he qualified for and ran in the 1964 Olympic trials.

The invocation was delivered by Msgr. Peter Finn (’56) and our pledge of allegiance was led by Bill Jochym (’68). Sean Lynch (’06) read aloud the names of our deceased brothers from St. Peter’s track & field over the years.

Mr. Cosentino thanked everyone for their support and spoke highly of the tradition that track & field brings to St. Peter’s. Mr. Fodera also expressed his gratitude to alumni and wished everyone a wonderful evening.

John Tobin (’56), who was the head coach from 1960-1968, introduced two of his athletes who were inducted into the Hall of Fame: Mike Glynn (’62) and Kenny Brown (’68), both who had distinguished careers in track & field. They were presented with commemorative paper weights from St. Peter’s Centennial celebration.

Teammate and friend Michael Johansen (’62) was in attendance to honor the history of St. Peter’s track & field, providing a digitized color photo for the journal.

Danny Carroll (’68) presented an honorable introduction of Pete Whitehouse (’60) and his acceptance speech was filled with appreciation and wisdom.

The Vic Navarra ’71 Monumental Eagle Award, named for the St. Peter’s track alum who created many local races in the community and served for decades as the start coordinator of the NYC Marathon but died in 2007 as a result of illnesses incurred from the effects of 9/11 was presented to Billy Bates (’67).

The de La Salle Christian Brothers Award honoring St. Peter’s Boys First Track & Field Coach Brother Francis Bowers, F.S.C. – Coach, Mentor, Jogging Partner was presented to John Tobin (’56).

Talk a walk down memory lane and browse our event gallery below, which features news clippings and snapshots of past and present St. Peter’s track & field team members.

Hall of Fame inductees included:

  • Michael Solebello (’56)
  • J. Brennecke (’56)
  • Pete Whitehouse’s 1964/65 team
  • 1965 Freshman “A” and “B” CBA Division team titles
  • 1969 Penn Relay DMR (Don Gavrity, Harry Minall, Vince Waite, Dan Carroll)
  • 1965/66 Freshman Island champs
  • 1964 Penn Relays 1st place 4×880 yds Emerging Elites (Bob Brown, R. Minall, Bill Gregor,
  • C. Molloy, G. Mangiero)
  • 1965 Varsity XC CBA Division Title at VCP (John Byrne, Artie Schmitt, Bill Bates, Jack
  • Demyan [in memory], Ed Grippe, Carmine Ragucci, John McClean)
  • 1996 relay team (Pascal Gambardella, Greg Meyers, Don Radigan, Chris Fodera)
  • 1999 Penn Relays team (Mike Acanfora, Greg Mason, Ali Abiola, Rolando Ortiz)
  • 440yd ~ 400m category: 1954 Bill Wilkie, 1965 Bill Ennis, 1996 Chris Fodera, 2007 Lionel Williams
  • 2005 NYC Mayor’s Cup Varsity 3rd place champs (James Mauro, Billy Dowd, Lionel Williams, Sean Lynch, Kevin Buell, Vinny Gangemi, James Weisner)
  • 2016 NYC Mayor’s Cup Varsity 1st place team title Best in the City (Ryan Tierney, Nick Martello, Marc Carrera, Dom Boccia, Ryan Holland, Christian Martinez, Sean Kalikas)
  • 2016 VCP 2.5 mile Five Man Average 13:28.9 (Ryan Tierney, Dom Boccia, Marc Carrer, Nick Martello, Christian Martinez)