Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame
Relive It All Again
Mary Outerbridge, the Mother of American Tennis, introduced the game to the United States in 1874, after watching British army officers play in Bermuda.
Outerbridge and her family erected a court on the St. George grounds of the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club, which hosted a national tournament in 1880, leading to a standardization of rules and creation of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association.
Bob Bosley, a prolific scorer in an era of low-scoring games, led the Curtis High School basketball team to an undefeated season in 1949, when he won the inaugural Warren Jaques Award as Staten Island’s top schoolboy player. Bosley was an All-Met player at Wagner College, where he led the Seahawks to three straight winning seasons, and remains among the all-time leading scorers.
In Dennis Barrett’s 14 seasons as the football coach at Monsignor Farrell High School, the Lions went 103-13-6, a record that included six undefeated seasons, a 33-game winning streak, and a victory in New York’s first Metro Bowl.
Barrett moved on to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, where he took over a program that hadn’t won a game the year before he got there, and left as the winningest coach in school history.
The 1983 St. Peter’s High School team, winner of the CHSAA city championship, is the only Stten Island boys’ basketball team – public or parochial – to win a city championship.
Led by coach Howie Ruppert, do-it-all guard Greg Pedro, and a core of determined blue-collar players – Scott Fitzgibbons, Mike Dunn, John Walsh, Ed Conroy and Mike Sanborn, who replaced the injured Danny Mills in the lineup – the Eagles won three of their last four tournament games against CHSAA heavyweights Power Memorial, Bishop Loughlin and Archbishop Molloy, by two points; and the other – a semifinal victory over Monsignor McClancy, by a single point in overtime.
Lou Marli, a onetime baseball and track star – city champion in the 300-yard dash and leadoff hitter for a championship baseball team at Monroe High School in the Bronx– had his competitive career ended by an injury.
After becoming a West Brighton pharmacist, Marli spent the rest of his life sponsoring neighborhood baseball teams, track meets, benefit games and the Island’s longest-running event, the Turkey Day Trot on Thanksgiving, renamed the Lou Marli Run in his honor.