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The early 1970s was a great time to be a high school basketball fan in Altoona.
For a dozen years beginning in late elementary school, I witnessed some amazing basketball.
Not every season brought a championship, but you could count on seeing many more wins than losses. One got to see great players coached by legendary coaches before packed houses of fans.
Who could forget a thousand-plus people jammed into the toasty Pleasant Valley Gym or the standing-room only crowds at the Jaffa watching the best teams in Western Pennsylvania?
This notable era came vividly to mind when I heard of the passing of Steve Cordova. Though not among the most legendary of past Bishop Guilfoyle stars, he was one of the most memorable to me.
The photo that appeared with his obituary featured the same big smile I first saw when he came to Saint Leo Grade School in the mid-60s.
Though we shared some Altoona Fifth Ward roots, it would have otherwise seemed unlikely we would have shared much else.
Steve and his family were not well-off financially, but that never affected their pleasant demeanors.
When he went off to Keith Junior High School after sixth grade, it seemed unlikely our paths would ever cross again.
But when Saint Leo's unexpectedly closed at the end of my sixth grade year, I, too, ended up at the junior high school on the hill.
The transition from the small Catholic elementary school to Keith (with three wings and 1,000 students) was traumatic for me.
A dreadfully inept athlete at that stage of my life, I still loved the game of basketball and became a student manager for Coach Ted Thompson.
I didn't realize it before the season began, but one of the stars of the team was Steve Cordova, the half-brother of Altoona standouts Billy and Johnny Moore.
Like much of the rest of my daunting seventh grade school year, however, the basketball manager job had its difficult moments, too. A foot shorter and at least 50 pounds lighter than the biggest players, a couple of them saw me as an easy target to bully.
One began knocking me around on the floor between a bench and locker after a home game early in the season.
As my life passed before my eyes, I sensed someone else was moving across the locker room toward me and my assailant.
Fearing the worst, I was relieved to see it was Steve.
"Hey, that's not cool," he calmly stated to his misguided teammate.
I'm not sure I ever thanked Steve for that simple but gallant gesture.
Though it would have been easy for him to turn the other way, the popular, African-American, athletic ninth grader stepped in to rescue the shy, skinny, virtually unknown white kid.
Cordova went off to Altoona High School the next year, but transferred to Bishop Guilfoyle his junior year.
When I did the same the following year, we found ourselves back together for the third time in six years. And though a championship season eluded them, Cordova and his teammates won 30 games over those two seasons against a very rugged schedule.
His sincere smile, jovial spirit, inclusive demeanor and basketball talents distinguish him as one of the most memorable characters of an eventful time.
He left the world and all who knew him in a better place than they would have been without him.
I trust that spirit will live on in all of us that had the pleasure of knowing him and that unmistakable laugh.
John Frederick is a Bishop Guilfoyle basketball historian and former head coach of the Lady Marauders. For Steve Cordova's obituary, please see Page A4.