Obituary: Dick Devenzio / Basketball star at Ambridge High, Duke
Tom Sukitsch
Obituary: Dick Devenzio / Basketball star at Ambridge High, Duke
Tuesday, May 22, 2001
By Rich Emert, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
Walt Ostrowski remembers meeting Dick DeVenzio and walking to
Ambridge High School with him from Harmony in Beaver County.
"He had his books in one hand and was dribbling a basketball with the
other,"
Ostrowski said. "To Dick, that was wasted time, walking to school, and
he
wanted to take advantage of it. So he dribbled a basketball to work on
his
ball-handling.
"That was Dick. He always was always ahead of the game."
Mr. DeVenzio, a former star basketball player at Ambridge High School
and
Duke University, died Saturday at his home in Charlotte, N.C. He was
52.
He had been diagnosed with colon cancer.
He and Ostrowski, now the boys' basketball coach at Hatboro-Horsham
High School in Montgomery County, Pa., were starters on one of the
best in
schoolboy teams in Pennsylvania history -- the undefeated Ambridge
team
that won PIAA and WPIAL Class A titles in 1967.
Ambridge won 27 consecutive games by an average margin of 25 points.
The
Bridgers defeated Chester in the PIAA final in Harrisburg, 93-61.
Mr. DeVenzio averaged 21 points a game that season, after averaging
30 the
previous year at Springdale High School. He transferred to Ambridge
when
his father, Chuck, was brought in as the coach.
At 5 feet 9, he was an outstanding shooter, but handling the
basketball was
his strong suit. He was Duke University's starting point guard for
three years.
"Dick was the best high school point guard I've ever seen," Ostrowski
said.
Ostrowski remembered Mr. DeVenzio's greatest performance. "The game
was at Sharon, and they had everybody trying to stop Dick," he said,
"and
Sharon was a good team. But he would just dribble around and through
everybody. He scored 32 points and would have had 60 had there been a
3-point line at the time. And I'm there on the court just watching him
do it. He
was amazing."
A Parade All-American, Mr. DeVenzio wrote five books on sports and
motivating young athletes. He was a proponent of paying college
athletes.
One of his books is "Rip Off U: The Exploitation of College Athletes."
"My oldest son, Huck, knew about the cancer but he and Dick were the
only
ones," his father said. "I'm an old cry baby but I've gotten through
this OK
because of the way Dick handled it. He wouldn't let anybody break
down.
He always used to say, 'Life isn't always fair.' He was right."
A memorial celebration will be held Saturday in Matthews, N.C. There
will
also be a memorial celebration June 2 in the Pittsburgh area.
Arrangements
are incomplete.