Peter L. "Pete" Cherocci Jr. remembers the first time he set foot on the turf at Cougar Stadium as a member of the Charleroi High School football team. And his next visit to the storied venue nestled along the Monongahela River is likely to be as memorable.

"It's certainly nice to be recognized," Cherocci, of Fallowfield Township, said of his impendingvinduction into the Charleroi Area High School All Sports Hall of Fame. "I'm grateful for this, but I'm also very humbled by it."

Cherocci, a 1952 graduate of CHS, will join legendary coach R. James "Rab" Currie and athletes Shellie Cotton, Jack Green, Darrell Harding, Dennis Laskey and Stan Kemp in the Class of 2007. They will be honored at the season opening football game between Charleroi and Monessen on Friday evening.

"It's an honor to be included among those outstanding individuals," Cherocci said in his typical unpretentious manner.

Currie was Cherocci's coach during his three-year varsity career at Charleroi.

"He was an excellent coach," Cherocci said. "I was blessed with great coaches -- Mr. (George "Beans") Chacko in junior high school and then Rab and his staff of (Jim) "Toots" Fillingham, Frank Lee, Frank DeCoster and Henry Pennline on the varsity. These men were more than coaches, they were teachers of the game. You learned to understand why you were doing things on the field, what the plays were about."

Cherocci said his football experiences at Charleroi High School were "very beneficial" when he played in college and also with a U.S. Army team in Europe.

"The training and coaching (at Charleroi) was unbelievable," he recalled. "I could see the difference when I went to college and then overseas. Our (Charleroi) coaches were way ahead of the game in the ways they prepared us. They helped us develop skills and they instilled confidence in us."

Cherocci got his first taste of the Currie and Company methods of coaching as a sophomore in 1949.

"I was 16 years old and really didn't know what to expect," he said. "The coaches were talking to us about a variety of subjects and getting us ready for practice. Rab finally said, 'OK, let's see what we can do,' and he called out names to be on offense. When he called my name to be one of the halfbacks, I was stunned. There were a lot of senior and junior running backs there and I could see their faces drop. It was obvious they were surprised, but no more than I.

"But I was ready to give it a try," Cherocci continued. "I thought to myself, 'We'll see how this works out.'"

Cherocci, who stood 5-9 and weighed "between 145 and 150" pounds, was not an unknown quantity in making his debut with the Cougar varsity. He had enjoyed a productive tenure with Chacko's junior high teams.

"I was very fortunate to be have great teammates," he said of his junior high career. "The same thing held true in high school. No one accomplishes anything on his own in football. I know it's a cliche, but it is a team sport. I was blessed with great linemen and quality backs, players who were committed to the game and to each other. They were hard workers."

Still, Cherocci caught the eyes of the varsity coaches while playing in junior high.

"Rab was always there as we were coming out of the dressing room," he said. "He would stop me and say, 'Nice game, keep it up.' I thought that was really something."

Although reluctant to discuss personal achievements, Cherocci fondly points to a treasured moment involving his junior high career and his late father, Peter Cherocci Sr.

"He died in 1974," Cherocci said of his father. "Later, when we were sorting things out at his home,

I found his wallet. Inside the wallet was a neatly folded newspaper clipping from The Charleroi Mail. It was a story Johnny Bunardzya had written about me when I was in ninth grade and scored 170 points in seven games. To think that my dad carried the article in his wallet all those years, well, it was very emotional."

Cherocci's mother, Marie Cherocci, is 94 and lives in Dunlevy. His sisters, Shirley Uhlman and Norma Metzner, reside in Lover and Long Branch, respectively.

Working out of the T formation as the left halfback with the Cougar varsity, Cherocci did well enough to become one of only four players in Mon Valley Conference history to be named to the All Conference first team three straight years (1949, '50 and '51.) He won the conference scoring championship with 79 points (13 touchdowns, one extra point) as a junior in 1950 and finished second to John Thomas of Donora in 1951. Jim Ralston of Monessen ran away with the scoring title with 149 points in 1949.

Cherocci also garnered All WPIAL and All State honors as a junior and senior.

After graduation from Charleroi High in 1952, Cherocci, who also played basketball for the Cougars, chose to continue his education and football career at California State College. It was a brief stay.

"I blew out my knee and played only five or six games at California," he said. "I also learned that I was going to be drafted into the military, so I withdrew from school."

Not long after that move, Cherocci was on his way to the U.S. Army. And an eventual return to playing football in 1954 while serving with the 12th AAA (Anti-Aircraft Artillery) unit in Germany. Playing both ways, as he had done throughout his career, Cherocci toiled as a halfback on offense and as a defensive back and helped the 12th AAA Rams win the United States Army Europe championship in 1954.

"My knee held up well during that season," Cherocci said. "But I began having problems again with rib cartilage I injured as a sophomore in a game at Clairton. This occurred just before the league championship game in Germany and there was some question as to whether I would play. I wasn't even able to practice. One of our trainers said he could take care of the problem, but I was skeptical. But on the day of the game, he taped me up. He completely wrapped my upper body and it felt good."

It didn't take long to put the tape job to the test.

"We were on defense to start the game," Cherocci said. "On the very first play, they sent their fullback, a big, big guy, up the middle. He bounced off some of the linemen, broke loose and started running toward me. I knew I had to tackle him, pain or not. I brought him down and nothing hurt. I was able to play the entire 60 minutes. Most of us played both ways."

Cherocci was named Back of the Season and was selected to the Western Conference All-Star team in the European league. He averaged 6.8 yards a carry in 15 games in leading his team in rushing.

After his discharge from the service in 1955, Cherocci accepted a scholarship to Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C.

"Fred Sisley's son had told the Catawba coaches about me," Cherocci recalled. "Our quarterback with the Army team in Germany was from Lilly, near Johnstown, and I talked to him about going with me. We took part in the tryouts and both made the team."

Cherocci, who was inducted into the Mon Valley Sports Hall of Fame in 1977, married his school-days sweetheart, the former Marie DiGiacomo, of North Charleroi, in November 1952, and she was pregnant when they moved to North Carolina.

"To be honest, we were both homesick, we missed our families," Cherocci said. "It was really difficult on Marie because she was expecting. She never complained, but I knew what we had to do. My father had a service station just across the river and I knew I had a job waiting back home. So we left Catawba and came back."

Cherocci, 74, is a Monessen native who moved to Charleroi when "I was in the third or fourth grade." His father owned and operated a service station for several years at the southern end of Charleroi where the Charleroi Water Co. is now located.

After returning from Catawba and working with his father, Cherocci was hired by Westinghouse Corp. at its Waltz Mill plant in Westmoreland County in 1960. He operated a crane that refueled nuclear reactors and his work took him to assignments in the United States and overseas. He retired in 1991.

Cherocci's passion for antique cars has kept him busy for a number of years. He currently owns a classic 1985 Mercury Cougar.

"I used to restore (cars), but now we just go to the car shows in the area," he said. "It's a lot fun."

Pete and Marie, who was a majorette at Charleroi High School, are the parents of daughter, Sherrie Lynn Gogol, of North Charleroi. Sherrie and her husband Frank are the parents of three children -- Frankie Gogol, Kelly Pendo and Kristen Large. In addition to their grandchildren, the Cheroccis also have three great-grandchildren, Kelly's son and daughter and Kristen's son.

"We're blessed with a great family," Cherocci said.

Frankie Gogol, 29, is still recuperating from a severe spinal cord injury suffered on Dec. 2, 2004 when he fell from a tree stand while deer hunting at North Charleroi Recreation Park. He requires 24-hour-a-day care and Pete and Marie Cherocci devote much of their time to helping provide that attention for their grandson.

"Frankie's a fighter, a young man with a big heart, a lot of spirit and a very positive attitude," Cherocci said. "He's determined to make a complete recovery. Sherrie and the rest of the family have made a lot of sacrifices in caring for him. Marie and I help in any way we can, we do whatever is necessary. That's what family is all about -- working together."

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