Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame

Relive It All Again

John Franco

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John Franco was born and raised in Brooklyn and played for Lafayette HS, winning the PSAL City Championship. Franco was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1981 in the 5th round of the amateur draft. Before reaching the major leagues, he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds. Franco was a star reliever for much of the next two decades. Franco debuted with the Reds in 1984. Franco was a traditional relief pitcher with a “90-mph fastball and a change-up that breaks away from a righthanded batter like a screwball. Throughout his six seasons with the Reds, Franco was a successful closer, winning the National League Rolaids Relief Man of the Year Award in 1988. He helped the Reds finish second four seasons in a row (1985–1988).
In 1989, at the age of 29, he was traded to the Mets. He remained with the Mets organization until the end of the 2004 season. During his time with the Mets, he won the Rolaids Relief Man of the Year Award in 1990, became the team captain, and remained the closer. He led the league in saves for the 1988, 1990, and 1994 seasons. He reached the postseason for the first time in 1999 and the World Series in 2000.
Baseball
Class of 2008

John “The Heat” Verderosa

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John “The Heat” Verderosa, Rooney and Al Tobe’s P.A.L. stablemate when the three Stapleton teenagers won New York Golden Gloves titles at Madison Square Garden on the same night in 1975, was 16-2 and a three-time Gloves champion as an amateur, 28-3 and a one-time USBA Super Featherweight champion as a pro, and a promoter’s dream.

True to his nickname, the 2022 New York State Boxing Hall of Fame inductee brought the heat every night, most famously in the 1983 TKO victory that ended former Featherweight champion Sean O’Grady’s career.

Boxing
Class of 2024

Rodney Stilwell

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Rodney Stilwell has won all of Staten Island’s amateur golf tournaments, most of them multiple times, including five Staten Island Amateurs, six Staten Island Classics, and a combined 14 Senior Amateurs and Senior Classics. But there was a time when all that seemed impossible.

As a young boy, Stillwell was run over by a city bus, his right leg crushed, the knee ruined. In the years after college, the pain only grew worse, and by 1988, when he was unable to walk the courses, his competitive career seemed over.

Over time, advances in medicine provided a glimmer of hope. After several complicated surgeries and a three-year rehabilitation program, Stillwell returned to competitive play at the age of 46, his game as good as ever; adding to his string of titles and, in 2013, becoming the only man to complete the “Staten Island Slam” – winning the Staten Island Amateur, Staten Island Classic, Senior Amateur and Senior Classic in the same year.
Golf
Class of 2024

John Skronski

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John Skronski was a High School All-American quarterback in the fall of 1978, throwing for 1,940 yards and 19 touchdowns for an undefeated Monsignor Farrell team, and one of three quarterbacks recruited by Notre Dame in its search for Joe Montana’s successor. (The other two were Dan Marino and John Elway; you might’ve heard of them.)

When Elway demurred, and Marino stayed home to play for Pitt, it seemed the job was Skronski’s, until a new coach decided he wanted an option quarterback to run his offense. He could’ve transferred, but Skronski remained loyal to his school, content to go through life as a Notre Dame man, and a Staten Island icon: the best there ever was in the old neighborhood.

Football
Class of 2024

Duane Singleton

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The Island has had other high school athletes who excelled in baseball and basketball, but only one, Duane Singleton, who scored 1,000 points on the hardwood, and then became a Major League centerfielder.

Drafted straight out of McKee/Staten Island Tech by the Milwaukee Brewers in the fifth round of the 1992 amateur draft, when he was 17, Singleton played 33 big-league games with the Brewers and the Detroit Tigers when he was still a teenager.

He hit .258 over parts of eight minor-league seasons, stole 30 bases five times, and went whole summers without committing an error, before finishing his career in the Independent Atlantic League, where the early promise of his speed and athleticism was still evident to anybody watching him play

Baseball, Basketball
Class of 2024