April 10, 2008

Staten Island, NY - Three men with athletic ties to Wagner College, the late John Drennan, Richard Salinardi and Bob Schnurr, were honored at the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame Unsung Heroes Luncheon.

The luncheon was held on Sat., April 12 at Noon at the CYO/MIV Recreation Center on the grounds of Mount Loretto, in Pleasant Plains.

Drennan was a standout football player at Wagner from 1964-66 and was a member of the undefeated 1964 team that posted a perfect 10-0 record. He would go on to earn a large measure of renown and touched countless lives while serving a long tenure as the highly-successful head football coach at Tottenville High School.

He touched, saved, countless lives during a decorated career as captain in the New York City Fire Department. After tragically losing his life in a 1994 fire, a huge throng of family, friends and fellow firefighters paid their respects. The following is excerpted from a column written by Jay Price that appeared in the March 20, 2008 Staten Island Advance.

"Fourteen years after Manhattan came to a stop to pay tribute to the dead fire captain -- when 10,000 firemen stood at attention outside St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Fifth Avenue was so quiet you could hear the birds chirping -- the people who knew him can be divided into two groups:

The ones who just wanted to be around him.

And the ones who wanted to be him."

Bob Schnurr has been dispensing goodwill on the Wagner campus for nearly 40 years. Despite being born with spina bifida, which has deprived him of the use of legs since the day he was born, Schnurr has lived an independent life, driving himself to work and serving full-time in the accounting field since his 1974 graduation from Wagner.

Wagner athletes, fans and administrators have come to know Bob as an able and loyal statistician and contributor to Wagner athletics since first arriving at Wagner as a freshman in 1970. Schnurr, who returned to Wagner and earned a masters degree in 1978, has spent valuable amounts of his free time serving as a statistician with the Wagner basketball, football and women's volleyball programs. He currently serves as President of the Wagner Basketball Hardwood Club and Nominating Committee Chairman for the Wagner College Athletic Hall of Fame.

A 2000 inductee into the Wagner Athletics Hall of Fame, Schnurr has spanned the tenures of seven different head men's basketball coaches, including Chester Sellitto, P.J. Carlesimo, Neil Kennett, Tim Capstraw, John Goodwin, Dereck Whittenburg and current head coach Mike Deane, who introduced Schnurr at the luncheon.

Today, Schnurr, a passionate supporter of Seahawk athletics with an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Wagner, continues his level of commitment to these sports and can be found at all home games and has traveled with the men's basketball team for more than 25 years.

Richard Salinardi has also lived a life devoted to serving and inspiring others. A member of the undefeated Wagner football team of 1967, Salinardi starred as a two-way performer at quarterback and defensive back at Wagner from 1965-68. He earned his degree in education in 1969 and then served 10 years as an assistant football coach at Wagner. Salinardi was inducted into the Wagner Athletics Hall of Fame in 1992.

Salinardi has made his life's work championing the cause of The Special Olympics. He has been involved with Special Olympics since 1975 and has served the past four years as the chairman of Special Olympics New York, Inc. Today, thanks in large measure to Salinardi's efforts, Special Olympics New York is the largest program of its type in the United States, serving nearly 40,000 athletes with the support of over 25,000 volunteers.

Also honored at this year's Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame Unsung Heroes Luncheon were Verrazano Ruth League benefactors George and Maria Esposito; Dr. Robert Griswold, a local dentist who has volunteered his time to numerous sports-minded charitable causes through the years; CYO coach and administrator Joan Walsh; Bill Klapach, a long-time supporter of youth baseball and other community services here on the Island, and the late Vic Navarra, a former FDNY lieutenant and longtime New York City marathon start coordinator.