Feb 27, 2016 4 min read

Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the high school wrestling hotbed was Washington and Greene counties, fans could count on complete coverage in the newspaper and on radio and television.

Television?

That’s right. Many matches could be seen on TV. The station was Channel 3, a cable outlet. The matches were on tape. Sil Passalacqua, who owned a local restaurant (Angelo’s) that is now operated by his son, Michael, a former Trinity wrestler, was asked to do play-by-play for the local cable outlet.

“We had great matchups. The gyms, unlike today, were packed,” Sil Passalacqua said. “The matches were taped, then aired on tape delay.”

“I had a chance to work with Stan Savarn at the Civic Arena doing the Old Newsboys Wrestling Classic. A good friend and former head coach at North Allegheny, Gus DeAugustino, helped out with the telecast. At the time we were doing something special and something different.

“Fans loved watching the matches,” he continued. “I enjoyed watching the replays … no commercials. We could do anything. I had fun with it. I invented a wrestling move, the ‘Kukamega.'”

What kind of move was that?

“Anything you wanted it to be,” Passalacqua explained. “Make no mistake, we had a lot of fun.”

So much fun that they did the telecasts for free.

“We never got paid; never thought about it,” he said.

Sil’s sidekick was Phil Eonda.

“We did a lot of work on WKEG (a former daytime radio station located in Washington),” Passalacqua recalled. “I remember at states we’d run into Pete Stanton and Doc Harris, the broadcasters for WJPA, before the matches started and had some great talks about the sport we all loved.

“Phil loved to agitate. He went up to (former Trinity coach) Joe Shook before the start of a big match with Mt. Lebanon and asked him if he figured out a way to blow the match tonight? That was Phil, always having fun.”

Sil was once the president of the Spartan Club, which was Trinity’s boosters club, and his son wrestled for the Hillers, which caused some interesting situations when calling a Trinity match.

“Yes, I was, and still am, a Trinity guy. I rooted for them when they wrestled Canon-McMillan. I went to Wash High but I rooted for Trinity when the two teams met.”

The telecasts were primitive. No fancy equipment was used.

“One cameraman for TV,” Passalaqua pointed out. “I recall we used a small tape recorder for the radio broadcast. Nothing fancy, but we got the job done.”

The Spartan Club was founded to reward the Trinity wrestlers.

“That was fun,” Passalaqua said.

“We would gather at the restaurant every Wednesday night and watch the TV replays. The club would have a banquet for the team. We would bring in athletes to speak to the kids. Bob Feller, the former Cleveland Indians, came to our dinner and spoke. Kids and grownups had a good time.”

Passalacqua , Bob Sensky and several friends who loved wrestling started conducting clinics for young kids who wanted to get into wrestling. They worked with Art Sandusky from the Brownson House and it became a great feeder system. The cost for each kid was only 50 cents.

“That 50 cents paid for the insurance,” Passalacqua recalled.

During his time calling wrestling matches, Passalacqua got to see some great talents, including John Abajace, Ronnie Junko, “Bimbo” Chatman, Scottie Miller, “Champ” Long and John Lattimore.

“I have another one memory, that wasn’t a bout in a high school match, that I’ll never forget,” Passalacqua said. “Avella had this great heavyweight, Ralph Cindrich, who was going to states. Ralph was a good wrestler and a really tough guy. He comes up to Trinity to practice. Now, who’s going to wrestle Cindrich? Coach Shook took him on. Big mistake for Cindrich, who was no match for Joe.”