Published: September 12, 2008 03:59 pm            

THE ISLE FILE: Grand Island: Home to pros

When punter Brett Kern trotted onto the field at Oakland as the holder for Denver’s first extra point in Monday night’s 41-14 rout of the Raiders, he became the first “native” Islander ever to compete in a major-league sporting event.

Many from sports’ stratosphere live among us, notably hockey’s Larry Playfair and baseball’s Bill Scherrer. But Brett is the first from any “Show” raised between the bridges.

Kern punted for a 40-yard average and kicked Isle File into motion on a long-pondered project: To compile a roster of Islanders who have earned money playing a game. The guidelines: The player has to have been born here or attended Grand Island schools, and has to have made a salary or won prize money.

An exception was made for the late Barbi Lare, who achieved the ultimate in a widely-recognized sport with no professional outlets.

The search took us to places we never imagined. GIHS Athletic Director Jon Roth, Brett’s father Cal Kern and the transplanted Tassys in the Carolina earn assists for helping round up these strays. Roth had several pro baseball offers and Cal actually earned $250 playing soccer, but both were native mainlanders.

Now, in alphabetical order, let the games begin:   

• Jimmy Arias has earned nearly $2 million in tennis prizes and in his teens was ranked fifth in the world. He’d have graduated GIHS in 1982 but left in middle school to upgrade his game in Florida. Old friends say he has never forgotten them and seems almost totally unaffected by his accomplishments between the baselines, the same delightfully mischievous brat they went to school with.

• Dan Carroll was among GIHS’s first graduates, in 1967, and went on to play professional baseball at least two years as a first baseman in the Detroit Tiger chain.

• Jim Dunlop is one of the most accomplished long-distance runners in Western New York, winning some cash prizes along with enough trophies to open his own store.

• Carlin Hartman anchored a golden age of Viking basketball in the late 1980’s. He played college ball at Tulane and was named Rookie of the Year with Rapid City, SD, in the Continental League, premiere “minor” league of its time. He worked the 2007-2008 season as an assistant basketball coach at the University of Richmond, VA, which described him as a graduate of “Grand Island High School in Buffalo.”

• Barbi Lare, whose shutter closed in April, was a member of the 1960 American Olympic fencing team at a time when her gender was restricted to one weapon, the foil. Her turn never came in the actual games, but she’s enshrined in the Rochester Institute of Technology Hall of Fame.

• Mike Rodriguez played professional baseball in the Oakland chain after his GIHS graduation in 1974 and had briefly, as a teammate, the legendary Rickey Henderson, who later publicly credited Rodriguez with teaching him the fine points of the head-first slide.

• Josh Sankes’ heroics in basketball’s 2001 “Big Dance” are chronicled in the inspirational book “The Last Amateurs.” After graduation from St. Joe’s Collegiate Institute and Holy Cross, Sankes prospered with pro teams in Turkey, Belgium and Italy. When the Boston Celtics signed him to a contract, “he took a pay cut,” according to dad Gary. His career terminated by a torn tendon, he now works as a financial consultant in Florida and recently presented his parents a new little dribbler, their first grandchild.

• Rich Samplinski, GIHS Class of ’86, was selected by the Oakland Athletics in baseball’s professional draft. We searched several record sites trying to determine where this then led, but struck out swinging.

• Cliff Scott, Viking football star through 1992, went on to the University at Buffalo, then had a productive career as the sport was introduced to Europeans. He was inducted into UB’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002.

• Bill Schultz has reached the “money round” on the American Volleyball Players Crocs doubles circuit. Current men’s volleyball coach at GIHS, he holds virtually every D’Youville College record and received a two-page spread in the April 2004 issue of Volleyball Magazine.

• “Jake” Tassy (only his mother calls him Jean-Rene) and brother Chris Tassy both played pro soccer after graduation from Messiah College, Jake for the Charlotte Eagles in the USL-2 Soccer League and Chris for the Hershey Wildcats of the USIS A-League.           

• J. J. Tutwiler, Viking quarterback through the year 2000 and a pretty good punter himself, graduated from Cortland State and went on to play two years of arena football with Manchester, NH, of the developmental Arena League2.

Also “drafted” for baseball out of GIHS were Glynn Lipp and Brian Sullivan. As with Samplinski, we could not determine whether they ever had signed or played. We got conflicting information as to whether Anthony Scott had ever cashed a paycheck for football. We considered John Gast, who took up stock-car racing when he was old enough to know better, but that seems closer to “amateur” in the best sense of that word.

Then there’s hydroplane racing. The name Howie Benns keeps skipping along the surface, but was he local or do we have him confused with somebody else? There’s no mention of Benns’ origins in any of the Web sites that we located. Somebody mentioned track’s Margie Bessell but our calls were not returned.

And did Rick Kustich or Joe Ognibene ever win any money fishing?

When you cast a net this wide, a few invariably get away. Please attribute any omissions to incompetence, not malice. Oh, and Denver next plays Sunday afternoon at 4:15 p.m. On his uniform and in our hearts, Brett Kern’s number is “1.”



Isle File additions? E-mail pollyndoug@hotmail.com.

        

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