Pat Devine, former head coach of the La Salle College High School track program, and the 1966 Bishop McDevitt High School boys’ cross country team will each be inducted into the Belmont Plateau Cross Country Hall of Fame on Saturday, August 24 at Belmont Plateau Park in Philadelphia following the annual one-mile youth and 5K Open Race at 9:00am.
The Hall of Fame is “a tribute to those selected runners, coaches and administrators who have made outstanding contributions to the long and strong history of Philadelphia distance running (road, track, cross country),” according to the announcement. One outstanding cross country team is inducted each year.
Coach Devine’s biography can be found here. He was also a member of the 2013 Class of La Salle’s Hall of Athletics.
The 1966 Bishop McDevitt High School boys’ cross country team’s biography is below:
Coach Jim Gibbons assembled one of the strongest cross country teams ever to come out of the Philadelphia Catholic League at Bishop McDevitt High School in 1966. In 1966, the Bishop McDevitt boys (one of the smaller schools in the PCL) were undefeated and shut out all of the PCL teams in their weekly meetings at Belmont Plateau as well as all of the local Invitational weekend meets during the season, such as the Catholic War Vets, Bishop McDevitt Invitational and the Phila Catholic/Public Invite at the end of the season. This team would win the Eastern States, Philadelphia Catholic and Philadelphia City Titles.
During this historic season, the only blemish for the was a 2nd place finish by 15 pts to Fox Lane School at the NYU Invite at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. McDevitt would return to Van Cortlandt a few weeks later to become only the 2nd team in history from the Philadelphia area to be crowned “The Best in the East” by winning the Eastern States Interscholastic Championship over a strong 32 team/250 runner field. Pat McKenna (3rd), John Devlin (8th), Pete Ebert (18th), Tom Nelson (24th), and Joe Brady (26) would pace Bishop McDevitt to the Eastern Championship. Future Villanova star, Marty Liquori (Essex) would win the 2.5 mile race.
The Bishop McDevitt team would return to Philadelphia and dominate the area the rest of the season winning the Catholic War Vets by over 80 points over 2nd place Pittsburg Central and ending the 5 year reign of powerhouse Cardinal Dougherty and winning the Philadelphia Catholic League XC Championship for the first time. McDevitt defeated 2nd place CD by over 30 pts, placing 3 in the top 10. The Lancers would go on to totally dominate the Phila Public League Champ, Overbrook HS for the City Title. McDevitt would place 9 runners in the top 10 and Pat McKenna broke the meet record for the Strawberry Mansion Course. The team was led all season by Pat McKenna, John Devlin, Joe Brady, Tom Nelson, Pete Ebert, and Dave Bennis and coached by Jim Gibbons, who would go onto to become head coach at Lehigh University.
Pictured below: First Row: J. McCann, T. Dunn, J. Chimarys, T. Dirkin, J. Heck, S. Rothrock, M. Connors, D. Bennis, Second Row: P. McKenns, T. Toole, W. Ward, J. Mee, T. Nelson, G. Hersch, J. Brady, J. Rothrock, R. DeCarlo, 3rd Row: F. Jamison, P. Ebert, M. Rapp, J. Schumacher, T. Walsh, T. Rahn, J. Devlin
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