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Hopewell Junior High Basketball

The Pittsburgh Basketball Club Adds Doug Biega to Their Hall of Fame Class of 2023

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The Pittsburgh Basketball Club is a tremendous organization and is the leader in Pittsburgh in terms of promoting high school basketball in Western Pennsylvania and the Tri-State area.

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It was started in 1994 and it organizes, directs and promotes youth and college basketball in Western Pa.

Those efforts are led by Pittsburgh Basketball Club director John Giammarco, who has picked up what Basketball Hall of Famer Sonny Vaccaro started years ago with the Roundball Classic, the Five Star Basketball Camp at Robert Morris and various other events for high school and college players.

The Pittsburgh Basketball Club started a Hall of Fame in 2011 and it was just announced that their latest class of inductees will have a Hopewell flavor.

Hopewell junior high basketball coach Doug Biega will be a member of their 20-person class. 17 of those inductees are players as Biega is the only coach being honored. While serving has head coach at Beaver Falls High School, Biega compiled a career record of 385-115, winning 4 WPIAL Championships (2005, 2012, 2013 and 2016) along with two PIAA Championships (2005 and 2013).

Biega is also a member of the Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame.

“Honestly, these sorts of things are not super important to me, but it is a reassurance and a validation of what we did was, for at least a certain time and certain place the right way to do it,” Biega tells HSN. “I don’t seek the attention but if the teams that I’ve coached get recognition for what we’ve done in the past, it could maybe help me out if I choose to coach one day again in the future. When you walk into a room and can say you’re in a couple of Halls of Fame, then maybe you can command some respect and can maybe handle a difficult group of players that maybe others can’t handle. But me personally, it’s not a big deal, probably more for my son, who can say his dad is in a Hall of Fame.”

For any coach to be successful, it first starts with them having talent, but it has to be more than that. I asked Biega to self-reflect and pick out something that made him a winning coach.

“Two things, I’d say that I was good at identifying talent. I’d tell and I tell the kids now at Hopewell, if I saw the way a kid walks around the hallways at Beaver Falls, I’d say, boy he moves like a basketball player, he’s smooth just the way he handles himself. Then I’d fast track them if they decided to play basketball. For example, a kid like Donovan Jeter, he never played junior high basketball. As a 7th and 8th grader, he played 9th grade basketball, then when he was in 9th grade, he played varsity basketball. I fast tracked a kid if I saw talent, which is done to accelerate their development.”

“The other thing is that I was able to mesh with my teams and get them to play really hard,” said Biega. “I get them to buy into the good of the order not just the individual talent. I did it at Aliquippa for 6 years as an assistant coach, I did it at Beaver Falls for 18 years as a head coach. People told me you can’t coach that way and play that style with Hopewell kids. I don’t know exactly what they meant but I said yes you can, and we do. Our teams look like Aliquippa and Beaver Falls. We are in your face, that’s the way we play. I had a guy tell me one time, you can’t teach toughness, I said yes you can.”

The Pittsburgh Basketball Club Hall of Fame Ceremony will take place on February 3rd at the Chartiers Valley Country Club.

Other inductees include:
-Dan Bonner- Avonworth High School, went on to play at Virginia.
-Ruben Montanez- Bishop Boyle High School, went on to play at Duquesne.
-Brandon Fuss-Cheatham- Blackhawk High School, went on to play at Ohio State.
-Sid Bostick- Jeannette High School, went on to play at West Virginia.
-Hal Bentley- New Brighton High School, went on to play at Kansas State.
-Mark McCloud- Valley High School, went on to play at Robert Morris.
-Chad Calabria- Aliquippa High School, went on to play at Iowa.
-Hank South- South Hills Catholic, went on to play at Cornell.
-Larry Anderson- South Hills High School, went on to play at Point Park.
-Marvin Woods- Aliquippa High School, went on to play at DePaul.
-Tom Parks- Belle Vernon High School, went on to play at Robert Morris.
-Larry Harris- Lorraine, Ohio, went on to play at Pitt.
-Jack Wojdowski- Canevin High School, went on to play at Duquesne.
-Brian Generalovich- Farrell High School, went on to play at Pitt.
-Mike Williams- Allegheny High School, went on to play at CCAC-Sante Fe.
-Stew Johnson- Clairton High School, went on to play at Murray State.
-Larry Young- Sto-Rox High School, went on to serve in the military.
-Don Yates- Uniontown High School, went on to play at Minnesota.
-Larry Scirotta- Game Official.
-Chuck Pruss- Game Official.

 

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