Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania will be well represented as the Croatian American Sports Hall of Fame Committee welcomes 11 new members at a banquet ceremony Saturday evening at the Pittsburgh Marriott City Center hotel Downtown.
Legendary Pitt athletes Bill Fralic, Ralph Cindrich and Tim Grgurich will be joined by Penn State football standout Jim Laslovic of Etna, Pittsburgh softball star Paul Tomasovich, and boxing world champion and Lawrenceville native Fritzie Zivic as local inductees who highlight the class of 2024.
Others to be inducted include Youngstown, Ohio, resident Frank Sinkwich, a former Georgia Bulldog football star who won the 1942 Heisman Trophy.
He was the first foreign-born player and first from Georgia to receive the award.
Johnstown native Frank Solich made a name for himself in football coaching, most notably as the head coach at Nebraska and Ohio University.
Rudy Tomjanovich, an NBA World Champion coach who also won gold as the head coach of the U.S. men’s basketball team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, also will be inducted.
He will be joined by two other Olympic medalists, silver-medal winning track star Kara Grgas-Goucher; and John Mayasich, a U.S. hockey team member who won gold in 1960 and silver in 1956.
The ceremony is sold out.
The Croatian American Sports Hall of Fame was created to honor elite athletes who excelled in their respective sport as well as in their local communities while bringing pride to Croatian people everywhere.
Fox Sports, CNN and Atlanta Hawks/Braves sports announcer Jerome Jurenovich and Steve Rukavina, president of the Croatian American Sports Hall of Fame committee, will host the induction ceremony.
Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.
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