Agape Freedom Sports LLC

By: Jeric Yurkanin

Saturday at Valley View High School was one of those feel-good, heart-full events you don’t forget — Coaches vs. Cancer: Faculty vs. the Valley View Girls Basketball team — and it was all for something bigger than the scoreboard. The money raised is going to the Cure for Cancer Foundation, and let’s be honest… every one of us knows a name, a face, a family, a friend who’s been touched by cancer. That disease doesn’t “visit” quietly — it storms in, takes up space, and changes everything.

I know that personally.

I lost two of the closest people to me: my mom, Gail “Smith” Yurkanin, in 2018 at 69 — a proud Archbald girl — and her older brother, my uncle Thomas “Jerry” Smith, in 2022 at 83. Uncle Jerry had a million stories about growing up in Archbald and all the chapters that came after, and I could listen to him talk for hours. I’m a 2002 Lakeland grad, so I didn’t get to run the Valley streets as a kid the way some people did — but my parents did. My dad’s a Blakely Bears guy, and those hometown roots always meant something in our family.

So yeah… this wasn’t just fun. It meant something.

And here’s what made it even cooler: a bunch of the faculty out there weren’t just “teachers playing a charity game.” Some of them were legit Valley View athletes back in the day — and they still had it.

One of the standouts was longtime Cougar faculty member Jason Munley (Physical Education teacher), who showed up like he thought this was the Olympics. Jason started off a little quiet — like he was just warming up and letting the moment breathe — but by the third and fourth quarter, he flipped the switch.

He was making bank.

Rebounds? ✔️

Free throws? ✔️

Finishing at the rim? ✔️

Big buckets at the perfect time? Oh yeah. ✔️✔️

And the funniest part? Jason never even played basketball in high school… but you wouldn’t know it watching him. The form was clean, the confidence was there, and once he got that hot hand going, it was like, “Alright… who told Munley he’s not allowed to hoop?”

Most people know Jason as a gym teacher now, but he was a serious baseball talent. He played at Lackawanna College, then Marywood in the early 1990s — the kind of player who had pro teams paying attention. He even had a tryout with the San Francisco Giants, and teams like the Detroit Tigers showed interest during his college days. He eventually took that path into education… but clearly, the competitive fire never went anywhere.

Another awesome moment was seeing Valley View Principal Larry Pegula back on the court. Larry’s senior season as a Valley View basketball all-star was cut short in 1990–1991, just four games in, when he tore a cruciate ligament and missed the rest of the year. But he still kept hooping — and later continued his career at the University of Scranton.

On Saturday, he looked like he could’ve stepped out of the early 90s, laced up, and gone right back to work — smooth release, a couple buckets, and a big smile the whole time. I even caught him for a few minutes on the bench, and he said it straight up: he was just having fun out there.

Then there was Corey Castellani, a key Valley View administrator and an all-state football linebacker for the Cougars in the late 80s/early 90s — and a 1,000-yard rusher in a season, too. He went on to play linebacker at Bucknell, where he had a strong career until a neck injury cut it short his junior year. In a game against Dartmouth in October 1992, he had 13 tackles — the kind of stat line that tells you exactly what kind of player he was. He ended up student-coaching the rest of his college career, and later came back home in the early 2000s to serve Valley View as the Business Manager. And just as important as anything he did on the floor — you could tell Corey was genuinely enjoying being part of it and helping support a great cause.

And Mike Barrett, the elementary principal, was out there too — still in good shape, knocking down some nice shots and showing he’s still got that athlete gear. Mike was also a standout football player for Valley View back in the early-to-mid 90s, and you could see that competitive DNA pop up the second the ball went up.

And then there was Mia Collarini Wascura — another Valley View name that carries weight. Mia played on Saturday and is now back home again, working at Valley View as a school counselor and serving as the Cougars’ softball coach, returning in the early 2020s to the place where so much of her athletic story began. Her journey is the perfect example of a local athlete who never stopped representing where she came from. A standout at Valley View in multiple sports, she kept showing up in the headlines — from all-star recognition to big-game moments — and she carried that same edge, leadership, and “team-first” presence long after her playing days in the maroon and white.

That competitive fire translated into a historic coaching run at The University of Scranton, where she became the winningest softball coach in program history. After taking over the program prior to the 2012 season, Collarini Wascura piled up 172 victories in eight seasons, compiling a 172–120 (.589) record, earning four Landmark Conference playoff appearances, and guiding the Royals to five 20-win seasons — including back-to-back 30+ win seasons, the only such stretch in program history.

Her signature moment came in 2019, when Scranton made a tournament run for the ages as the No. 4 seed and captured the program’s first Landmark Conference title, punctuated by a 7–2 win over Susquehanna in the championship game. The Royals knocked off nationally-ranked Moravian twice in two days and won three games on the final day, then advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1983. And back at Valley View, she’s still building — in 2025, she guided the Cougars to their third state title in school history, and she’s not done yet. Valley View is still loaded with talent heading into this spring, and you get the sense the standard isn’t changing anytime soon.

What made Mia’s presence even more meaningful is that she was playing with love in her heart, too — she shared that two of her grandparents on her father’s side passed away from cancer, and she took the floor Saturday in their memory. In a game built around purpose, that kind of personal connection reminded everyone in the gym why this day matters so much.

That’s what made Saturday so perfect: laughs, competition, community… and purpose. For a few hours, it wasn’t just Faculty vs. Players — it was all of us vs. cancer, showing up together, remembering the ones we’ve lost, and fighting for the ones still battling.

And at the end of the day, that’s what it was really about: having fun and raising money for a great cause. It wasn’t about wins — even if the faculty did sneak out a 69–66 victory. It was about community, memories, and showing up together for the fight. 💙🏀🎗️

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