Pete Rossi

Pete Rossi
Times, The (Trenton, NJ) - Thursday, March 6, 2003

There might be several other legitimate claimants to the
title, but none could have any more right to any ''Mayor of
Chambersburg '' label than Pete Rossi, athlete/sportsman/
song-and-danceman/friend of everyone/and loving family man.
With his close ties to the Kent Athletic Association and
Roman Hall, it was difficult to go anywhere in The 'Burg
without sensing his presence. There was a time when clubs
like the Kents helped define sports in this town, when it
was those sons of immigrants who were the equivalent of
today's soccer moms, who formed the leagues and sponsored
the teams and gave the kids their first gloves and bats.
There was a time before video games, before television,
before Little League, when local sports leagues serviced
the recreation needs of the community. Baseball, soccer,
basketball, bowling, other sports, the leagues were there.
Leagues for kids and leagues for adults. Wherever there was
a field, wherever a gym, there were leagues. With groups
like the Kent AA, people like Pete Rossi, to nurture them.
There were Rossis all over The 'Burg, most of them athletes,
and it was natural for Pete to take up sports. Trenton High,
a shiny model for education and still only a few years old,
was a special place for athletes in the 1930s, when state
championships banners flew proudly. Pete Rossi, small enough
affectionately to be called ''Peter Rabbit'' because of the way
he darted among the taller players, became part of that basketball
championship era, while in baseball he had the distinction of
winning a berth from among the hundreds of candidates for the
American Legion Post 93 national-powerhouse Schroths. The son
of immigrants from Lavalle, a town near Rome, was among the
uncounted Chambersburg natives whose Americanization sports
helped facilitate. So much of Chambersburg 's population was
employed at the steel mills in those days when Trenton really
did make and the world took, so it was natural for young Pete
Rossi to look for work there. He hit the jackpot when John A.
Roebling Sons' Corp. hired him to set up recreation for its
workforce. With time out for wartime service in the Coast Guard,
he remained with the giant iron works until it closed, and for
years Roebling teams were to be found in a variety of local
leagues. ''The people who bought the company, Colorado Fuel
& Iron, wanted Dad to take a promotion, to move to Colorado when
they were closing here,'' daughter Lola remembers, ''but there
was no way he'd leave Trenton.'' As a close political ally of
Trenton mayor Arthur Holland, it was natural Rossi went to work
next as director of the red-ink-ridden Civic Center. Soon, he
had it booked with shows and sporting events. Just as it began
to turn a profit, a devastating fire destroyed the building and
almost broke Pete Rossi's heart. He continued to work for the city
as coordinator of special events, running parades and other
celebrations, until retiring at 72.But when I think of Pete Rossi,
it always centers around those wonder annual banquets the Kent
AA staged, where they honored the best athletes in the state.
The memory is bright of the day Joe Theismann was honored and it
was Pete Rossi leading the big crowd around the ballroom in a
wild march to the tune of the Notre Dame victory song.
Olympic pole vaulting champion Don Bragg was so smitten with
the warmth of the Kents when they honored him, he moved to
Trenton and made it his home for years. Bill Raftery, state
schoolboy basketball star, became my lifelong friend through
being a Kent honoree, an evening he still remembers fondly. Lola
Cariello accompanied husband Frank to Pittsburgh in the late 70s
to run a national Golden Gloves tourney and, when she phoned
Franco Harris hoping he'd make an appearance, he rolled out
the red carpet in recognition of the hospitality her father and
the other Kents had heaped on him and his family. Daughter Lola
the family calls her Junior because her very-visible mother is
the Lola everyone in The 'Burg knows _ loves to tell how Pete
Rossi raised his family with sports and music, how, ''We'd all
get together on Saturdays and just sing, especially the song
from High Society, the one called 'True Love.' And, of course,
my father's specialty was 'Mister Wonderful.' He sang that to
couples at hundreds of weddings, inserting their names.''
Pete Rossi just missed getting to see his beloved Yankees
bring their farm team to Trenton, but his daughter remembers
those classic ongoing backyard debates between Pete and close
friend Dominic Castaldo, a diehard Red Sox fan. And the man whose
dream of having the Civic Center rebuilt never was realized,
relished the construction of the Sovereign Bank Arena, taking
pride that the man behind the building, county executive Bob
Prunetti, played with his kids in the Rossi backyard as a child.
He moved from a changing Chambersburg some years ago to be
with his children in Hamilton, but as the priest said at the
funeral, noting how Pete Rossi could be found any day since at
the Kents, Roman Hall or another of The 'Burg social clubs,
''his tire marks are all over Hamilton Avenue.'' He left far
deeper, more-lasting marks than that. As an era ends, the
giants of that era should be inscribed, and the memories of
those good times passed down.Mister,they and you were wonderful.

NOTE: Harvey Yavener is The Times' staff columnist.