South Fayette basketball coach Dave Mislan to receive Musial Award for sportsmanship
SOUTH FAYETTE TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) -- South Fayette's boys basketball coach Dave Mislan is getting national recognition for sportsmanship after allowing a player on an opposing team to clinch a milestone.
Mislan is being honored as a recipient of the Musial Awards, named after Donora native Stan Musial, given out annually "to encourage kindness, integrity and civility in sports and society."
Going into a Friday night game earlier this year, South Fayette's Michael Plasko needed just 24 points to hit the 1,000 mark and he got it with just seconds to go in the contest.
West Allegheny's Brandon Bell was sitting at 998 points himself, just two shy of the 1,000 mark.
A timeout was called by West Allegheny and that's when Mislan realized that Bell was only two points shy of the century mark.
"I said don't worry about it," Mislan said. "I said, basically 'We'll take care of it.'"
Mislan is a man of his word and all Bell had to do was make it.
"It was just running through my head to just make the layup," Bell said.
"It was a sense of relief for me that Brandon and his family had a chance to celebrate that," said West Allegheny coach Ben O'Connor.
It was a moment that's been amplified and Mislan says he's blown away by the attention it's received.
When he found out he was going to be receiving a Musial Award, Mislan says he didn't think much of it and then realized that it's a much bigger deal.
"I was like, uh oh, this is bigger than South Fayette," Mislan said.
This big honor serves as a reminder for Mislan that sometimes moments like these are bigger than the game.
"I better live up to the standard of just being humbled and honored that I'm even getting any kind of award that has Stan Musial's name on it."
"I've always appreciated him as a coach and as a player, but it made me appreciate him more as a person," O'Connor said.
"I made sure that I thank him" Bell said. "You don't see this type of sportsmanship nowadays. You really don't."
Mislan says it was all very simple to him, just telling his players to let him get his honor.
That 'simple' response from Mislan is emblematic of an attitude where sportsmanship is an expectation.
The Musial Awards ceremony will take place in late November and will air on KDKA-TV as a one-hour special on December 29. It will also be streaming on Paramount+.