Carl Crawley’s favorite sport? Whichever one was in season.
“I played volleyball and we won the state championship,” said the 1957 Monessen graduate. “I was a baseball player and could knock the ball out of the park. Basketball, football, I ran track. My favorite was the one I was doing at the time.”
Crawley couldn’t have known it then, but after he was done excelling in a wide variety of sports, he would also go on to become the first person to coach future NFL legend Joe Montana in youth football.
This weekend, Crawley will be among the members of the 2024 Monessen Wall of Fame class.
Started by 1999 Monessen graduate Sarah Graby, the second annual induction ceremony highlights the accomplishments of school alumni. Last year’s inaugural class included former heavyweight champion Michael Moorer and Academy-Award-winning actress Frances McDormand.
Crawley, 84, of New Eagle lettered in five sports while in high school. After college, he had football tryouts with both the Steelers and Eagles, and a baseball tryout with the Pirates. While he did not reach the NFL or MLB, he did play pro football with the Wheeling Ironmen in the Continental Football League.
He was the first Black referee in the Big East football conference, and went on to referee at least once in nearly all of the major college bowl games. He has also shared the field with fellow Mon Valley native and NFL ref Gene Steratore.
In fact, the Oct. 12 event will be his fourth Hall of Fame induction, having gone into the Minor League Football Hall of Fame in 2012 as well as the former California University of Pennsylvania and the Mid Mon Valley halls of fame.
“It means a lot,” Crawley said. “They’re looking back at what me and others were able to accomplish. It makes me feel like I was born a little too soon. You see so many Black players in all the leagues now, and in prominent positions like quarterback. Back then, it wasn’t nearly as prevalent.”
Crawley will be inducted alongside:
• Virginia Dudas, a Monessen native and 1945 graduate who taught music in the city’s school district for 46 years. Dudas was also advisor to the school’s Glee Club.
• Jeff Imbrescia (A’73), a certified public accountant who started his own business in 1980 and in 1989 purchased the Douglas School of Business where he developed multiple career training programs including internationally recognized programs like the Tom Savini Special Make-Up Effects, George Romero’s filmmaking course as well as other skilled trades. Under Imbrescia’s leadership, the school’s campus has grown to 10 buildings.
• Melanie “Taylor” Monaghan Bradburn (A’92), who has spent the past three decades in Pittsburgh media at radio stations like WESA, B-94, and WBZZ, and as a former WTAE traffic reporter. She is co-host of The Bubba Show on WBZZ, which has won a Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters Award for Best Top 40 Morning Show, and a National Association of Broadcasters Award for Top 40 Station with the Best Community Service. The show is also up for a 2024 National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Award, one of the most prestigious awards in radio.
• Bishop Edwin Bass (A’67), retired senior vice president of sales and marketing for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Missouri. Bass became a bishop in the Church of God in Christ while living in St. Louis in 2012. He is the pastor at The Empowered Church, in St. Louis’ Spanish Lake community. He has served as a White House liaison, a representative to the United Nations and currently serves as prelate in the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Spain.
• Albert Lexie (A’99) who got his degree a bit later than usual. Born in 1942, Lexie attended Monessen city schools until eighth grade, when he took the shoeshine box he’d built in shop class and went to work. Lexie left Monessen every morning around 6 a.m. to head to what is now UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh to start shining shoes at 7:30 a.m. Lexie donated his tip money to the hospital’s Free Care Fund, donating more than $200,000 over his lifetime. In 2010, Lexie was chosen by People Magazine as one of its “All Stars Among Us,” and has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Jane Pauley Show, CBS Evening News and ABC World News.
The induction ceremony is also a fundraiser. Proceeds from the $15 tickets will be donated to the school district. It will be at 6 p.m. Oct. 12 in the Monessen High School auditorium at 1245 State Road.
Tickets are available at MHSwalloffame.eventbrite.com.
Patrick Varine is a TribLive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. He is a Western Pennsylvania native and joined the Trib in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor with the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at pvarine@triblive.com.