York Area Sports Hall of Fame grows by three
The York Area Sports Hall of Fame's 2017 class features basketball's Parrish Petry, bowling's Don Smith and boxing's Julio Alvarez.
The hall of fame began in 1973, when its first class included Major League Baseball pitcher Ken Raffensberger and York Barbell and weightlifting legend Bob Hoffman.
Now, to meet this year's group ...
Parrish Petry
Petry, 53, gained notoriety first for his standout playing career at West York High and Shippensburg University, and then for stellar coaching runs at Red Lion High and Penn State York.
Petry, West York's all-time leading scorer (1,359 points), went on to coach boys' basketball at his alma mater before taking over at Red Lion. There, his teams won five division titles, a league title and made two appearances in the District 3 title game.
His teams won 20 or more games in five straight seasons, and he was twice named District 3 Class 4A Coach of the Year, according to his hall of fame bio.
He now coaches at Penn State York, where his teams won three straight PSUAC titles. This past season his Lions finished second in the United States Collegiate Athletic Association Division II National Championships.
Don Smith
Smith, 64, of New Oxford, already is a member of the York County Bowling Hall of Fame and a first-ballot member of the Pennsylvania State Bowling Hall of Fame.
His honors include a fourth-place finish in the 1979 USBC National Tournament in Florida with a 741 series. He also was a member of the D.J.'s Tavern team that finished sixth (out of 89 teams in 11 states) in the 1995 World Team Challenge at ABC West Lanes in Mechanicsburg, his bio states.
Smith has won five scratch championships (singles, doubles or team) in the Pennsylvania State Bowling Association State Senior Tournament and a dozen York County scratch titles.
Overall, he said he's bowled nearly 40 300 games and carried a 233 average in 2012-13. His high series was 843, set in 1997.
He's been a member of the Professional Bowlers Association since 2007.
Julio Alvarez
Alvarez, 65, of Thomasville, has been a local boxing promoter and training legend in the area for nearly 30 years.
He mentors and teaches youth at his Lincolnway Boxing Gym and has helped lead some to Golden Gloves titles and into the U.S. Olympic Trials. He already is a member of the Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic District Golden Gloves boxing halls of fame.
His most successful boxers include Stevie Weimer, Carney "Beeper" Bowman, Eric Nemo, Jose Alfaro and Britney Inkrote.