Whitehall grad McFetridge honored
Former Emmaus coach Neff still revered
Mike McFetridge said being inducted into the Millersville University Hall of Fame in 2012 was a huge honor, but a new honor he has received may be even bigger.
The Whitehall High graduate has been selected as one of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference’s 150 contributors.
He will be honored at Saturday’s Marauders home game against West Chester.
In recognition of College Football’s sesquicentennial season, the PSAC is recognizing a group of individuals who have been distinguished as the PSAC’s 150 Contributors with various league and on-campus celebrations planned during the season.
Each of the individuals being honored were identified by each institution as individuals who had made significant contributions to college football.
“The opportunity to celebrate the 150th anniversary of college football with our member institutions is exciting,” PSAC commissioner Steve Murrya said. “Recognizing many of the key contributors who are synonymous with the PSAC is a great way to highlight our great history.”
McFetridge, nicknamed “Mr. Mc-Go-To,” won the 1998 PSAC East offensive player of the Year award and was the most productive pass-catcher in school history at the time of his graduation.
By the end of the 1998 season, McFetridge, a three-year starter, owned school records with 27 touchdowns, 2,783 receiving yards and 222 receptions, which broke the previous record by 58. He remains the only player in school history with at least 70 catches in three different season and owns three of the top 10 single-season performances in receiving yards including one of just five 1,000-yard seasons.
He was a walk-on at Millersville after playing quarterback and running back at Whitehall.
“My years at Whitehall were rough in a couple of different ways and I really wasn’t getting recruiting anywhere,” McFetridge said. “Millersville was the one school that gave me a shot. I had to take the long road. When I got to Millersville I had to show them I was an athlete. It took me a year to show them I could do it. They found a spot for me at wideout and that was my thing. My calling was to be a wideout.”
McFetridge was a part of two championship teams and reached the NCAA Division II playoffs as a freshman.
“Gene Carpenter was my coach and he was awesome,” McFetridge said. “I had the best time ever at Millersville. What made it even more special was that we had a lot of Lehigh Valley guys. … players like John Flamish and Lee Rizzotto who were Dieruff guys and Dave Ibarra, who played at Pen Argyl.”
McFetridge had a tryout with the Eagles, but at the time slot receivers weren’t as prevalent as they are in today’s NFL.
He had been a health and phys ed teacher for several years, but is now an estate planner for United Integrity Group in Quakertown.
“This was just a great honor for me and I’m very humbled to be included among all the great players and coaches in PSAC history,” he said.
East Stroudsburg’s honorees include: Denny Douds, Pat Flaherty, James Franklin, Jeff Johnson, Kevin Nagle, Evan Prall, Mike Reichenbach,
Jimmy Terwilliger and Ray Yakavonis.
Kutztown’s selections include: Dave Borden, Bruce Harper, John Mobley, Jordan Morgan, Kevin Morton, Andre Reed and Mark Steinmeyer.
Happy birthday to the coach
More than 50 years since he coached them, Al Neff still commands the respect of his former Emmaus High football players.
Last week about 15 former Green Hornets got together as they have for several years to salute their coach on his 97th birthday. One of his former players, Ron Montz, arranged it for a man who has always meant so much to him.
Neff, a member of the National Football Foundation Lehigh Valley Chapter Hall of Fame, was an assistant coach from 1953 to 1962 under Luke Lobb and then was the head coach from 1963 to 1967. His Green Hornets were a Lehigh Valley co-champion in 1963 and won the title outright in 1967 with a 7-0 league mark.
He finished with 32-17-1 record but his legacy extends beyond win-loss records.
“It’s wonderful to see all of these guys again,” Neff said. “I look forward to it every year. It’s very gratifying to me to know I meant a lot to these guys.”
Neff said he wanted his student-athletes to be good students and good gentlemen first and then work hard to become talented athletes.
“Winning was important, but there were other things more important,” Neff said.
Neff didn’t forsee Emmaus rising up to be a perennial title contender as it is today in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference.
“When I was coaching at Emmaus we had 180 to 200 kids in a graduating class,” Neff said. “Today they have about 800 in a graduating class. It’s a very different school.”
Another difference is the size of the coaching staff. Neff said he only had a line coach and a backfield coach to work with and then a JV staff.
“We only had six or seven guys altogether,” Neff said. “They have more coaches today and they do a good job. The more things change, the more they stay the same. We had some of the formations at Slatington High in 1940 that they have today with three men out on a pass pattern.”
Neff said he still follows the sport as much as possible and enjoys it.
His former players still love to hear his words of wisdom.
“I learned so much from this man that carried through my life,” said Dave Dennis, who became a state-championship winning youth softball coach in the 1980s. “I used to tell my girls that we’re here to work hard and to win. But if we don’t, it’s not the end of the world. You have to keep your head. Keep things in perspective. Those are the kind of things I learned from Coach Neff. We played hard, but we always had fun.”
Golf for a special young lady
Dakota Ann Almeida is a 10-month-old young lady battling B Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
She is already four months into treatment and has had to undergo several hospital stays and time at the PICU. Her mother has had to quit her job to care for Dakota and the family has had to make several sacrifices to continue treatment.
On Saturday at the Fox Hollow Golf Club (2020 Trumbauersville Road in Quakertown), the Dakota Strong Golf Outing will be held with a luncheon to follow at The West End at 750 N. West End Blvd. in Quakertown.
For information on how you can help the family either through the golf tournament or with a donation, contact Kevin Parfitt at 215-669-0269 or email him at kparfitt73@gmail.com.