The Morning Call has a poll of the top sports story of the decade, and included in the list are two related to Nazareth, the closing of the Nazareth Speedway and Rob Rohn’s incredible come from behind victory to earn an NCAA Gold Medal in wrestling.
You can read the list and vote here.
If I were to rank order the list mine would look like this:
- The closing of Nazareth Speedway.
- The stunning victory by Rob Rohn (Nazareth/Lehigh) to win the 2002 NCAA wrestling title
- Lehigh Valley native Marty Nothstein wins Olympic gold in cycling in 2000 in Australia
- Saucon Valley Country Club hosts the 2002 Senior Open and 2009 Women's Open
- The 100th meeting in the Phillipsburg-Easton football rivalry
- The arrival of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs
- Central Catholic wins all 10 District 11 titles and four straight state girls basketball titles
- Emmaus wins all 10 District 11 field hockey titles and four state titles
- The formation and dominance of the Lehigh Valley Conference
- Donnie Roberts becomes the first black head football high school coach in the Lehigh Valley
- The state high school football dominance of the Lehigh Valley fueled by Liberty, Wilson and Parkland
- Austin Scott stars at Parkland and Penn State before falling from grace at Penn State
Okay, everyone knows I’m partial to Nazareth, but here is the thinking – the Nazareth Speedway event for IndyCar drew a world-wide audience on an annual basis. To lose that is significant.
Rohn and Nothstein is close, you’d give the nod to Olympic over NCAA gold, but Rohn’s pin was considered one of the top moments in NCAA finals history, so that plus my natural inclination toward Nazareth and wrestling gives him the nod.
The US Open for men, women, or seniors is very prestigious and brings the world’s eye to the course for a full week.
Regardless of the number, the Easton-Phillipsburg football rivalry is unique among high school sports and few can even rival it on the collegiate level. The fact that we have Lehigh-Lafayette as well is amazing. The schools ability to keep this game going, playing Thurs and Saturday of the same week to make it happen (and often three games in ten days) and the communities’ support of the game is unbelievable. This year’s replay game and the recognition it received should also be included.
The IronPigs were important similar to the Speedway, in that it brings attention to the area over time, but AA is not nearly as recognizable as MLB, or the top level of other sports, so it slots in here.
Regarding the rest, the championships are impressive, but after that the significance drops off substantially.
In addition to what you think about the rankings, I also wonder what event was over-looked that should be included.
What do you think?
3 comments:
Regionally, the Iron Pigs has to be the biggest story of the decade because its a positive one. The back and forth, on again, off again flirtations... Will they build it? Who will pay for it? Where will it go? All of those questions strung out over a period of years against a backdrop of ambivalence towards the independent Allentown Ambassadors and the half built ball park in Williams Township. Once everything was said and done, affiliated baseball in the Lehigh Valley proved to be a home run (pun intended) and in my opinion improved the quality of life in the area.
On the flip side, the closing of the Speedway was just sad. They we're certainly hampered by bad weather, poor race weekends and proximity to Pocono which drained attendance. I also fault the management. They priced tickets way too high for their own good. Went to some races there and the place was maybe 1/3 full. They should have halved ticket prices, even given tickets away for that matter, made the whole thing an event and build upon it year after year. Having more than two events there a year also might have kept it fresh in peoples minds as well. I know NASCAR/IRL/CART at the time had limited schedule availability, but they couldn't have done a few local or regional races too?
To tie the two together, the Lehigh Valley has proven they can and will support minor league sports. They should take the old speedway property and build a 10K seat multipurpose arena for AHL hockey and other events. I know it was kicked around at one point. Frankly I'm not sure why Sand's in Bethlehem isn't putting one up right now, seems like a no brainer to have something like that drawing 5-10K crowds to your property 150 nights or so a year...
The speedway - what a waste of space and more. All that work and money put in that acreage, and it lasted (what?) 15 years? And what is happening to that land now? It should go back to Sunday night dirt racing...for locals.
Reminds me of how Stabler/Allentown Fair used to get all the top bands and concerts...and then Reading/Wilkes-Barre put an end to all that. So we have none of that now.
As LowNazScott said, thank goodness the Iron Pigs brought some kind of good recreational activity back to the Valley, and lets hope for some minor league hockey to hit here as well, for there ain't much else.
While I would really love to see an arena up there, the problem with that property is relatively poor traffic access. 248 & 191 would be an unholy mess before and after events.
Retail opportunities would seem limited since 248/33 appears to be where the action is for the near future. I'm sure it'll eventually be high density housing...
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