high school
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...
in
Rochester, Pennsylvania
Rochester is a borough in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Beaver and Ohio rivers northwest of Pittsburgh. The population was 3,472 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Pittsburgh metropoli ...
, United States. It is the only high school in the Rochester Area School District. Athletic teams compete as the Rochester Rams in the
Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League
The Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL, pronounced ) is an interscholastic athletic association in Western Pennsylvania. It is District 7 of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association.
History
The Western Pe ...
.
Campus
Rochester High School is housed in a K-12, all-grade academic complex. The elementary school is separated from the middle and high schools by a common area that includes the district library, a little theater and several cafeterias. This design enables faculty, administration and students to interact with one another on a daily basis.
Extracurriculars
Rochester High School offers a wide variety of clubs, activities and an interscholastic sports program.
Clubs and activities
Rochester Area High School offers many extracurricular activities to students. The most popular activity is the Cultural Diversity Club, which sponsors an annual Cultural Diversity fair. Other club offerings include "Hometown Hi-Q", Bowling Club, Student Council, Students of Service, Art Club, and National Honor Society.
Music
Rochester Area High School is well known for being the first high school in the United States to show the musical ''
My Fair Lady
''My Fair Lady'' is a musical theatre, musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story, based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play ''Pygmalion (play), Pygmalion'' and on the Pygmalion (1938 film), 1938 film ...
'' in 1964. The musical was directed by Chorus and Musical director Mr. Philip Inman. It was reported that the high school auditorium was standing-room only for the musical's opening night.
Athletics
Rochester Area is well known for its success in athletics, particularly
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
. The high school football team won the WPIAL Class A Championship in 1916, 1991, 1992, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2004, and went on to win the PIAA Class A Championship in 1998, 2000, and 2001. The 1998 season is best remembered, as the team finished the season undefeated 15-0. Mr. Gene Matsook has served as head coach since 2000, and his brother, Daniel Matsook, served as the head coach from 1985–1999. Matsook is now the superintendent of the Central Valley School District. The Matsooks have established a well known football legacy throughout the state of Pennsylvania.
Rochester Area, whose mascot is the
Rams
In engineering, reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS)South Side Beaver High School. Since both schools use the ram as a mascot, the annual football game is known as the "Battle of the Rams".
The school is known as the home to Olympic track star Lauryn Williams, who set many school and state records in track.
The school also won the 1983 PIAA Class AA Men's Basketball Championship.
Battle of the Bridge
The football team played in one of the most notable rivalries in
Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania is a region in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the Unite ...
Ohio River
The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...
. The two schools played in the annual Battle of the Bridge, in which the winner had their name listed first on the Rochester-Monaca Bridge for a year. The rivalry was so well known that it was featured at the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum.
The rivalry also led to the two schools meeting in the playoffs on several occasions. In 1998 and 2000, both schools met at
Three Rivers Stadium
Three Rivers Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, from 1970 to 2000. It was home to the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL) ...
to determine the WPIAL champion, with Rochester winning both times. When the two teams did meet in the postseason, the Rochester-Monaca Bridge was not on the line, as that year's results were already determined.
On occasion, the football rivalry would spill into other sports. In 2001, the two schools met in Rochester for the first of two men's
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...
matchups for the season between the two schools. Near the end of the game, a fight erupted in the stands, with several people arrested. To prevent another incident for the second game at Monaca, only school administrators were allowed at that game, as fans, cheerleaders, and even parents of the athletes were not allowed at the game. Fans were allowed at future games after that season.
With the merger of the Monaca School District and Center Area School Districts into the new Central Valley School District, the year 2009 marked the final season that Monaca High School existed. Consequently, 2009 was the last season in with a "Battle of the Bridge" game. This contest took place on Saturday, October 31, 2009 and the Rams won 28-0. The game was given national attention by the
Great American Rivalry Series
Great may refer to:
Descriptions or measurements
* Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size
* Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent
People
* List of people known as "the Great"
* Artel Great (bo ...
, with Rochester Stadium reportedly having a
standing-room only
An event is described as standing-room only when it is so well-attended that all of the chairs in the venue are occupied, leaving only flat spaces of pavement or flooring for other attendees to stand, at least those spaces not restricted by occup ...
attendance of 11,000 fans witnessing the final game of a great rivalry. Since the end of the 2009-2010 school year, the permanent name of the bridge is "Rochester-Monaca" on the Rochester side and "Monaca-Rochester" on the Monaca side.
Notable alumni
*
Babe Parilli
Vito "Babe" Parilli (May 7, 1930 – July 15, 2017) was an American football quarterback and coach who played professionally for 18 seasons. Parilli spent five seasons in the National Football League (NFL), three in the Canadian Football League ...
- 1948 graduate, former
American Football League
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, AFL–NFL merger, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Foot ...
player and
Arena Football League
The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 Arena Football League season, 1987 season, making it the third longest-runnin ...
linebacker
Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and typically line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and so back up the defensive linemen. They play closer to the line ...
of the Kansas City Chiefs and
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. The Browns compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team is named after ...
, member of the undefeated 1998 state championship football team.
* Lauryn Williams - 2001 graduate, Olympic silver medalist in the
2004 Olympic Games
The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece.
The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...
in
Athens
Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...
. Competed in the
2008 Olympic Games
The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fr ...
in
Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with ca ...
2007–2011. Moye was signed to the practice squad of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2012 and made the starting roster in 2013.