Menlo-Atherton High introduced its latest Hall of Fame class amid a celebration of athletic achievements and memories.
Long-time water polo and swimming coach Rick Longyear, who passed away in July, has already been officially inducted.
Six others will join him on Oct. 13: Casey Beckstrom, Robert Crumpler, Alec Haley, the late Marino Mangiola, Shaun Paga and Diane Seeley.
In addition, the 1965 men’s swimming team and the 1985 men’s soccer team are also being honored.
The inductees will also be honored at the Homecoming football game on Oct. 12.
Beckstrom, a softball pitcher, was in attendance along with Sally Longyear, representing her husband Rick, Dennis Nugent representing the swim team and both Matt Faure and John Shenk representing the soccer team.
Athletic Directors Steven Kryger and Paul Snow served as hosts and M-A icon Plato Yanicks was also in attendance.
Beckstrom emphasized gathering great memories as she listed her teammates from her time.
For Faure, being a part of the team was most special.
“It was really an honor for me,” he said. “It doesn’t happen very often.”
Shenk spoke of lessons learned.
“It was really about all four years and 1985 was the culmination,” he said. “The experience of learning how to listen, how to play with your teammates. The sidelines were full of spectators. It was neat.”
Shenk recalled watching Mangiola do his version of a cartwheel and recalling later what the championship meant to him.
“How cool for him,” Shenk said. “It was sweet.”
The 1965 swimming team didn’t win a title but Nugent recalled how talented the team was, which included Olympian Dick Roth, among others.
“Sometimes we had to surprise and shock,” Nugent said. “Santa Clara was coached by George Haines and he had this guy Mark Spitz swimming for him. Palo Alto was also a tremendous team. Pulling upsets over those two teams was fun to be a part of. That whole experience had an influence on me becoming a teacher.”
Sally Longyear recalled how passionate Rick was in his job and his approach.
“Even when he was sick, he’d get out of bed and went to class,” she said.
A celebration of Rick Longyear’s life will be held on Saturday, Sept. 8 at 10 a.m. in the Menlo-Atherton High Performing Arts Center. Casual wear is encouraged, especially if M-A or Stanford athletic gear.
The Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take take place on Saturday, Oct. 13. For information, contact Steve Kryger at skryger@seq.org or Paul Snow at psnow@seq.org.
I might be a little off the mark here so correct me if I’m wrong — and this is based on an article on another local news site — but the 1985 CCS champion Menlo Atherton team featured a game-winning goal by Nacho Navarette who probably still and certainly very recently did a lot of local coaching. I believe I met him in 1993 when he played for the semi-pro Palo Alto Firebirds, who played at Maloney Field at Stanford.
There’s a Jose Nararette who coached or coaches for Palo Alto Soccer club, who played for Canada College and Sac State a couple years earlier who I’m guessing is his brother.
I guess he (Nacho) is being inducted as part of a team and not individually.
There should be a Peninsula Soccer Hall of Fame. Or somebody write “History of Soccer in Palo Alto and vicinity”.