Carl Roland “Rollie” Stichweh, a Mineola High School graduate and West Point football star, will be one of three inductees in the second class of the Mineola Athletic Hall of Fame.
Stichweh, who grew up in Williston Park, won three Nassau County championships during his high school tenure in basketball, football and lacrosse.
A recipient of the Thorpe Award as the best player in Nassau County for football, he went on to play for the Army Black Knights at the U.S. Military Academy at quarterback and other positions. Stichweh is also a member of the Army Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2012.
Stichweh’s college highlights include winning back-to-back MVP awards during the Army-Navy game — one of the most highly anticipated each year — in 1963 and 1964. In those two games during his junior and senior years, Army went 1-1 against Navy with Stichweh under center opposite Navy quarterback Roger Staubach, who went on to a Hall of Fame NFL career with the Dallas Cowboys.
Stichweh had the talent to play in the NFL but instead opted for the service, becoming a member of the 173rd Airborne Brigade during the Vietnam War, earning a Bronze Star during his deployment, according to Dan Guido, another Mineola High School graduate who currently coaches the school’s wrestling team.
Also included in the upcoming Mineola Hall of Fame class are Bob Young, the former lacrosse coach that graduated in 1959, and the 1983 girls softball team, which won the New York State championship that year.
The second group of inductees comes four years after the inaugural class in 2017, which included the 1967 Nassau County Rutgers Cup-winning Mineola High School football team.
The decision to resume hall of fame inductions primarily came from Guido and Frank Massaro, Mineola High School alumni and friends who have been long involved with the district.
Guido was the football coach from 1987-2019 and is currently the head wrestling coach, a post he assumed in 1980. Massaro was a girls lacrosse coach and assistant coach with Guido on the wrestling team before becoming a teacher.
Guido, who wrestled with Massaro as a student, said Massaro approached him about resuming hall of fame inductions after Massaro’s retirement. He thought it was a great idea.
“We’re gonna try and do every year from now on with at least two or three inductees,” Guido said.
The 1983 girls softball team notched a record of 22-4 lead by captains Lisa Petersen and Mary Beth Fenick. In the championship game against Peeksill’s Panas High School, the team staged a four-run rally in the bottom of the seventh inning to win 6-3.
Bob Young graduated from Mineola High School in 1959, earning 11 varsity letters in basketball, football and lacrosse during his tenure. He later became a physical education teacher and coach at Mineola, winning 170 games during his 18 years as lacrosse coach.
“He was my Little League coach when I was younger, football when I got to high school and he was the assistant varsity coach when I started working here,” Guido said of Young. “We’ve been kind of connected quite a bit my whole life.”
The induction for the 2021 Mineola High School Athletic Hall of Fame class will take place Friday, Oct. 29 during halftime of the school’s football game against Hewlett. After the game, each of the inductees will gather at Cornerstone Irish American Bar and Grill on Jericho Turnpike for anyone that would like to attend, Guido said.
