The Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, was founded in 1992. The first class of inductees was inducted at the College of Staten Island’s Williamson Theater in 1995. The Hall of Fame moved into the CYO/MIV Rec Center, on the grounds of Mount Loretto, in 2002.
The Father of the Hall
Sal Somma was already a high school dropout and teenage runaway – separated from the Army, which he joined under an assumed name, on account of being a few years shy of the age of consent – when a high school football coach saw him playing in a sandlot game.
In Somma’s mind, Al Fabbri didn’t just change his life when he persuaded Anthony Somma to allow his son to quit his 27-cents-an-hour job and go back to school and play football; he saved it, allowing Somma to hand Vince Lombardi his most painful defeat as a collegian, and win eight New York City championships as a high school coach as much admired for his gentlemanly demeanor as he was for the victories and the titles.
Small wonder, then, that Somma held the games closer than most; or that he fanned the flicker of hope for a hometown Hall of Fame until a fire was lit among his neighbors. The old coach was an active participant in the efforts to establish a Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame until his death in 1993, at the age of 82. Two years later, when the Hall inducted its inaugural class, Somma’s name was the first one called.