Welcome to part two of my Lehigh Valley Mount Rushmore of Lehigh Valley sports. Part one was last week and discussed several worthies who did not make the list. These are my four who did make it, and they were selected with the help of two Allentownians who are familiar with the sports scene, Charlie Marcon and Ted Lyons. And remember, this my list. Don't blame Charlie and Ted if you have problems with it, and I'm sure you will.
Before we get into, we have to establish what makes a Lehigh Valley Mount Rushmore. Athletic accomplishment matters primarily, of course, but the four Rushmores must absolutely scream Lehigh Valley. They had to make their rep here, they had to settle here. They are and always will be quintessentially Lehigh Valley.
The first and easiest pick is Larry Holmes. I covered some of Larry's early fights while at the Bethlehem Globe Times and I can tell you, he did not have an easy climb to the top. He dropped out of school in the seventh grade, he took all kinds of odd jobs, he was not an incredibly highly ranked amateur boxer. He worked his way up, partly by being a sparring partner for Muhammad Ali and Joe Frasier, and he boxed in those bucket-of-blood arenas like the Scranton YMCA. He finally won the WC World Championship in 1978, and in typical Holmes fashion, needed the fifteenth round to beat Ken Norton to win it.
His greatest moment was also one of his worst; his pummeling of Muhammad Ali in 1980 for the World Heavyweight title. Afterward, Larry was equal parts elated and distraught about beating his idol.
Larry retired, he unretired, he retired, he unretired, he got beat by Mike Tyson, he beat some other no-accounts along the way, and he didn't have his final bout until 2002, at least a decade after he should've hung it up. But that's how it is in boxing. Speaking in relative terms, Larry was an honorable champion.
Number two is another Larry — Larry Miller. I wasn't around here when Larry was terrorizing opponents all around the Lehigh Valley and in points beyond, but when I started covering basketball for Sports Illustrated and told people where I was from, I heard it a million times: "Oh, that's Larry Miller country."
Larry was a first-team All American at North Carolina and then a star in the ABA, where in 1972, he set the league's single-team scoring record with 67 points for the Carolina Cougars. In an area that takes its high school hoops very seriously, and which has had many terrific players, Larry Miller stands way, way, way above them all.
I don't need to say a lot about the third Mount Rushmorian, in fact, I already did in my essay naming Philadelphia's Mount Rushmore. "Concrete Charlie," the late Chuck Bednarik. Star at Bethlehem High School, star at Penn, the last two-way player, Eagles legend, World Champion in 1960, and probably this area's first nationally known athlete.
We thought long and hard about the fourth and final Mount Rushmore candidate. It wasn't easy, but we decided upon — well, sort of, ultimately it was my decision — on Ty Stofflet, the southpaw softball pitcher for the Allentown Patriots who was born in Coplay and graduated from Whitehall High School. Ty was not just the best softball pitcher around here, or in the state, or in the country. For much of the decade of the 1970s and even into the '80s, Ty was the best softball pitcher in the world. When his playing career was over, he coached a couple area high school softball teams. Ty, who died in 2021, was to softball what Larry Miller was to basketball.
So, that's my Lehigh Valley Mount Rushmore — Larry, Larry, Chuck and Ty. Let me know if you see it differently at info@wdiy.org.
