April 6, 2025
Serving the Western Suburbs of Pittsburgh
The young and the not-so-young shared the spotlight Saturday at the 14th Athletes of Action Memorial Scholarship Luncheon, held at VFW Post 148 in McKees Rocks.
The nonprofit group is in the business of building community and honoring legacy, but its main beneficiaries each year are high school students who are chosen to receive scholarships to help continue their education.
This year, two students from Montour – Brayden Davin and Joelle Ludwick – and Sto-Rox students Ciana Mason and Khayyam Smith were selected to receive $2,000 scholarships. The AOA holds several fundraising events through the year including the scholarship luncheon and its associated drawings, and an annual bocce tournament that will take place this year on Sept. 13.
In addition to the soon-to-be graduates, three longtime former coaches and educators took the stage and were recognized as this year’s lifetime achievement award recipients in Dick Cetrone, Ron Skosnik and Bill Palermo.
Approximately 250 people packed the VFW hall to take part in Saturday’s luncheon, and all four scholarship recipients were given the opportunity to thank the AOA and to address the group at large.
Davin, who played four years of soccer and football and three years of baseball at Montour, said he considered it a true honor to become part of the AOA legacy. He said the scholarship funds would help him financially as he continues his academic and athletic careers at St. John Fisher in Rochester, N.Y., where he plans to play soccer and study sports management and analytics.
“It’s not about the banners you put up or the trophies you win,” Davin said before he took the stage. “It’s about the impact you make on your community.”
Ludwick said she hasn’t yet made her college decision but she knows she’ll be studying biochemistry wherever she lands as a stepping stone to a career in health care.
Ludwick said when she learned of the scholarship opportunity, she pounced on it because the whole idea of legacy and community truly resonated with her, given the experience she had with Montour’s track and cross country teams.
“I’ve witnessed first-hand the power of community and how these programs bring together and foster a sense of belonging,” she said. “I’m grateful to have been part of teams that not only pushed each other to succeed but also built lasting friendships and showed support to one another every step of the way.”
Mason said she overcame “so many trials and tribulations” while growing up but managed to carve out roles on the volleyball, cheer and softball squads and also achieved several leadership positions – captains of the volleyball and cheer teams, student council president and serving as a mentor in a program called Steel City Impact.
“Having multiple leadership roles within the school has given me influence within the school, and I use that to help others, whether it’s lending a helpful hand, a listening ear or even giving advice,” said Mason, who plans to study nursing at Cheyney University.
“With sports there are so many ups and downs, whether with the sports themselves or with your teammates and coaches. But the great memories and the bonds created, and learning to love and understand the sport are the things that you’ll never forget.”
Smith, who played football and ran track for the Vikings, also spoke of his role as a leader, saying that being a leader on the football team helped him take on leadership roles elsewhere in the school. He said going through some of the ups and downs that the Sto-Rox football team experienced in the fall “helped me to become a better person.”
“I wanted to show everyone under me on the team that just because of what we were going through and where we were coming from, you can still get good grades, achieve in the classroom, and still become whatever you want to be in your life,” said Smith, who plans to play football and major in sports studies at West Virginia State University. “You just have to make your goal and work for it.”
Bob Zitelli, who served as master of ceremonies and has been a driving force in AOA since its inception, shared with the crowd that these scholarship luncheons were inspired by get-togethers that once took place at various church social halls in and around the area. One longtime McKees Rocks area booster, the late Lenny Cersosimo, was a regular at these gatherings and at one point he recognized it was time to pass the torch to Zitelli.
“He had an old program and he handed it to me and said, ‘Bobby, it’s your turn now. I want you to promise me you’re going to do this,’” Zitelli recalled. “I told him I would. So here we are. Those who are up there looking down, I know they’re smiling.”
Zitelli asked the scholarship recipients to stand at one point and recited a phrase to them that Cersosimo had told him: “We were what you are. We are what you will be.”
Those in attendance also honored three men at the other end of the spectrum in Cercone, Skosnik and Palermo – all three longtime educators and coaches and “life’s winners” as Zitelli put it.
Cetrone, who played basketball at the University of Cincinnati with the legendary Oscar Robertson, coached Sto-Rox boys basketball teams to 10 section championships, five WPIAL championships and one state title along with six other WPIAL championship appearances and three other PIAA final four appearances. His PIAA championship squad put together a 32-0 season. The Stowe High School graduate amassed a lifetime record of 280-82, won five WPIAL Coach of the Year awards and was inducted into the Pittsburgh Basketball Club’s Legends Hall of Fame last month.
Cetrone spoke about the toughness that athletes from the area have always had and recounted an episode that took place during his freshman year at Cincinnati when his team was scrimmaging the varsity. A varsity player for no reason took a cheap shot at Cetrone and when he questioned it, Cetrone was told that as a freshman, he had no choice but to take it. Cetrone bristled at that notion and later on he said he got the opportunity to knock that player “completely off the playing surface, on his back, and I was never bothered by him again.”
Skosnik, a three-sport standout at McKees Rocks High School, played quarterback at North Carolina State and for several semipro teams. He also spent time in several NFL training camps. He later taught health and physical education for 35 years at Sto-Rox and coached at various high schools, including Sto-Rox.
Zitelli said that while Skosnik was serving as an assistant for the first Sto-Rox football team created after the merger of former rivals Stowe and McKees Rocks in the fall of 1966 – a team that Zitelli played on – Skosnik addressed the team’s seniors one day after a particularly lackluster preseason conditioning session.
“’Look, you guys are going to have to learn to get together,’” Zitelli recalled Skosnik saying. “’We know Stowe and Rocks, you’re arch-rivals, you guys hate each other. But if you don’t come together, this isn’t going to work. You’re going to have to learn in your own way to make it work. If you do come together, there’s so much talent on this team, you’re going to be unstoppable. You’re going to have to stop getting after each other and get on board with each other.’
“So we did. That year, we won a WPIAL championship because we had good leaders. They showed us the way. And I’m forever grateful for that.”
Skosnik praised the AOA folks for the work they’ve done over the years and offered some advice for the scholarship recipients. “You’re going to go to school and meet new people,” he said. “What’s going to make you happy in your lifetime is not power, and it isn’t money. It’s who you know – the people you walk with. I’m so happy I was able to walk with many of you here.”
Palermo coached Sto-Rox basketball to a WPIAL finals appearance but made his real mark at the helm of the Vikings softball program, where his teams won a staggering 28 WPIAL section titles, 11 WPIAL championships, one state title and 19 other state tournament appearances.
Palermo called Cetrone and Skosnik “two amazing people that I’ve always looked up to in different ways. I could tell you a billion stories about them. But here’s the bottom line. It’s about their legacy. Did you ever talk to any of their former players? Did you ever talk to any of their former coaches? You’d have thought they invented basketball. You’d have thought they’d invented football. Because (their players) had such high regard for them. I don’t know one person who ever had a bad word to say about them.”
Palermo joked, “Now if those are the credentials you need to get honored here today – no one ever having said a bad word about you – what the hell am I doing here?”
Palermo talked about how special the community is, not only in the sports arena but in life in general, noting many individuals who became successful in business and other professions. He said that when he was inducted into the WPIAL Hall of Fame last year, someone asked him what he attributed his success to. In addition to family, friends, hard work and God, he mentioned one more factor.
“Most of all, I told him, it’s the community I came from,” Palermo recalled. “This community made me tough.”
Palermo referenced a column in the old Gazette 2.0 written by David Ficarri, essentially a love letter to The Rocks. “This town wrapped its arms around you and never let you walk alone,” Palermo said. “We were poor in money, but rich in love, pride and friendship. … I truly wish these kids of today got a real glimpse of how and when we grew up. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the perfect place for me to grow up.”
Partner | Editor – West Hills Gazette
Published in Features and Sports
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