Marco Mangieri is this year’s recipient of the Alle-Kiski Valley Sports Hall of Fame’s Courage Award, the organization announced Thursday.
The Deer Lakes School District student, 11, has battled leukemia and has been in remission from the disease for five years.
Mangieri was named honorary captain for the Lancers varsity football team in a home game against Derry this past season and took the field with his older brothers, Dante and Luca, for the pregame coin toss.
Marco, who enjoys playing baseball, basketball and flag football, will be celebrated along with this year’s class of athletic inductees and award-winning student-athletes at the 55th A-K Valley Hall of Fame induction banquet at 7 p.m. May 16 at the Pittsburgh Shriners Center in Harmar.
Tickets are $40 and can be purchased by visiting akhof.com.
This year’s inductees include Billy Callahan (Valley and Pitt football, Steelers draftee), William ‘Billy Jo’ Clarke (Ken High wrestling), Dick DeVenzio (posthumous, Springdale and Duke University basketball), Jeff DeSantes (Burrell and Geneva College football), Dave Fortun (Springdale soccer with a 55-year coaching career), Crystal Heder Kosecki (Kiski Area and IUP soccer), Scott McKillop (Kiski Area, Pitt and San Francisco 49ers football), Cecil Smith (posthumous, Valley track and football), the 1965 Arnold High School WPIAL champion baseball team, and the 1985 Deer Lakes WPIAL and PIAA champion girls basketball team.
Highlands’ Tevin Owen-Cratsenberg and Plum’s Landen Eikert, the Valley News Dispatch’s offensive and defensive football players of the year; the soccer players of the year, Deer Lakes’ Collin Rodgers and Fox Chapel’s Emily McKee; as well as the VND boys and girls basketball players of the year; and the four Cager Classic MVPs also will receive awards and recognition from Trib Total Media.