While working on my current project, converting the 1965 Monongah High Black Diamond yearbook from the print to the online album version, I noticed that it’s not uncommon for a small school like Monongah to have boys who play in more than one sport.

Bernie Shelosky and Charles Cooper, starters on the football team, also played basketball for the Lions.  Roy “Jaybird” Murphy played basketball and baseball, for a Monongah team that made the state baseball tournament in Parkersburg. Roger Duckworth played baseball and started in football in 1963 and 1964. Bernie started on the gridiron in 1963 and 1964, too.

Larry Rankin and Dennis Jones were in the starting backfield for the 1952 Monongah High state football champs, and were the key players in the game-winning play in the title game, and also started on the basketball team.

Henry “Dinkle” Martin and George Martello were on TWO Monongah High state championship teams, in 1955 – football and baseball. Dinkle kicked the game-winning point after touchdown in the title game. Pitchers Frank DeMoss and Bernie Vingle were the stars of the baseball state tournament triumph. Dinkle’s brother, Joe Martin, is married to Monongah’s No. 1 photographer, Chris Martin. Paul Goush was Dinkle’s long-time golf partner.

Merlin Davidson was quarterback of the 1955 Monongah High state champ football team, and the 1956 state runnerup team. And was on the basketball and baseball teams for 4 years. The 1955 baseball team won the state title.

In 1968 and 1969 Kerry Marbury was the best football player, maybe in Monongah history, and also the star of the track team. Monongah won the state football titles both years, with Alabama football coach Nick “Brother” Saban the quarterback on the 1968 team.

Bob Fox, Class of 1948, was a starting fullback in football and the starting center in basketball.

Big Jim Lipinski, Class of 1944, may have been the best three-sports athlete in Lions history: football, basketball and baseball. He also played with Worthington Merchants’ Central West Virginia League sandlot champs after his Monongah High days. And in the National Football League and the Canadian Football League.

Former Maid of Marion Judy Lipinski, Jim's niece, lives on Pike Street in Monongah, within a block of where I was born in my grandparents' home on Walnut Street (at the Pike intersection). The Jim Lipinski name lives on in three younger generations, including Jim’s son, a leader in Scouting in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

Eddie Lusczyinski, Class of 1947, comes close to Big Jim. Eddie, married to Mary Lee Evans, was the starting quarterback in football, the top scorer in basketball and the No. 1 pitcher in baseball for the Lions. And still played a pretty damn good game of golf almost up to the day he passed away. I remember seeing him out-do me by a ton at the Green Hills Monongah High Alumni scramble that faded into extinction for lack of sign-ups.

Jay Feltz, quarterback of the final, 1973 Monongah High state football champs, was a pretty fair athlete, too – good enough to be named West Virginia Athlete of the Year in 1974. Jay had an 80-yard punt for the University of South Carolina in a victory over a Clemson coached by former West Virginia University coach Jim Carlen.

Jay’s father, Jim Feltz, coached the first MHS state football champs, and the 1955 team. Jay quarterbacked the last MHS state football titlists. Monongah ceased to exist after 1979, morphing into North Marion with Farmington, Barrackville, Fairview and Mannington.

I’m sure I haven’t covered all of the multiple-sport athletes of Monongah High. But this tribute to those I mentioned are a tribute to all of them, from 1918 to 1979.