Joes Anthony Gonzalo

• Post by: mcalibrary
• January 11, 2024
• Comments off

INDUCTEE

He never scored the winning touchdown, never hit the game winning basket, and certainly never hit the “walk-off” home run to win the game in the league championship. However, like Ed Romance, he has been a great supporter of area athletics – male and female alike – and a positive influence on them. He has guided and counseled kids who were ready to quit our teams and “kept them in the game.”

Gonzalo began his 29 year stint as the MCA statistician in 1976 when then-statistician Ed Kaczmarek decided that he wanted to concentrate on baseball. Gonzalo agreed to do the job until they found someone else. In his first game against Tamaqua, Jose saw Bob Zavarick return 2 punts for TD’s. That sent him to the library to find out if anyone else had done anything similar. A year later, Gonzalo published his first “Football Guide” – complete with every game ever payed since 1893 and top ten lists in most statistical categories. He followed that up with revisions in 1979, 1997 and 2000 – the last 2 in corroboration with his buddy Phil Gergen, MCA’s Sports information Director. Gonzalo has now worked 357 games from the sidelines and has seen 468 consecutive MCA games since 1966 and 558 out of 559 since 1958.

Football players ear all state honors on the field, but a little help from the sidelines never hurts. While Mount Carmel has had 36 first-team all state players from 1939, 27 of those have been named since 1976. The Tornadoes also have been represented with a first team selection in every year since 1994. He has been on the field for each of MCA’s 5 state championships.

Gonzalo’s support of the program is obvious off the field as well, notably his involvement with the Breakfast/Supper Club since its inception in 1983. The Club has donated weight equipment, clothing, shoes, video equipment as well as provide a venue for student athletes to improve their communication skills.

In 1979, Gonzalo was one of the original founders of the Ed Romance Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame and served as its first secretary and ghost writer. He continues in that capacity today as well as the Historian and Board Member. His work has been recognized in articles in the Shamokin News-Item, Pottsville Republican, Bloomsburg Press Enterprise, Hazleton Standard Speaker, Harrisburg Patriot News, The Reading Eagle, and Pennsylvania Football News.

He has served his community as a member of the Mount Carmel Area School Board for 8 years, the Mount Carmel Area Education Foundation since 2000 and currently acts as the banquet chairman for the Mount Carmel Rotary Club’s annual football banquet. He and his wife Rose live in Shady Acres and are parents of 3 children, Jill, a pharmacist with Rite Aid, Joel, a pharmacist with CVS and Jed, a third year medical student at Penn State Hershey.