Don't know much about history.

The house was like another parent.

The house was someone that helped you develop your value bas and give you direction in life, as you were learnin and going through high school.

But I do know coming along the elementary school into Westinghouse.

Our family mixed from early on.

You can go back 40, 50, 60 years.

We had a special mix Prid with a capital P is what we had.

The house gives you things that you're going to use.

A real world and teaches you what you need to do.

He's got to have proud know we live here.

I mean, you got to have pride in our schools, pride in our colors.

Pride The house made me know that there were other things for a black woman to do besides housework.

A lot of good people came out of the house.

I just want to be one of those people.

Westinghouse.

George Westinghouse High School, as we call it.

The house has been throughout my career here, which is this is approximately my 13th year, has been more than I could have hoped for when I entered the teaching profession.

Don't know much about history.

Thousands of principals will come down here, watch Westinghouse getting morale.

It was nothing to sit upon.

And you'll see 5000 people, not hundreds, 5000 people We've all them down.

So I come out, go down.

And I know that if you love it too Is that bull boom beat bull boom beat.

Thats enough.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

I would be very proud to be a Westinghouse Bulldog.

Always a bulldog.

I feel in my bank.

If some strong.

I don't know.

I'm going to miss this school a lot.

The houses have done a lot for me to turn me into a man.

The house made a man out of me.

Let me put it that way.

And I learned time in that room.

Things that I would never learn anywhere else.

Nobody have ever had to experience as what we had done in that football room.

Well, I do know that all of you.

Oh, sure.

Westinghouse.

Forever.

That's that's always going to be Westinghouse forever, Lord.

Oh, land.

True.

Nothing will ever change our love for you.

Rah rah rah rah!

Westinghouse.

Forever.

We're true to you.

We love our colors.

Love gold and blue.

I'm amazed I still remember that.

But there are some things you never forget.

What is it about George Westinghouse High School, affectionately known as the house that evokes such strong feelings and memories.

Westinghouse was founded in 1922, named after the fame inventor who once made his home at what is now called Westinghouse Park.

On the board of Point Breeze and Homewood.

Mr.

Joseph Capone, who still lives in Homewood, is a graduate of the class of 1942, and he taught at Westinghouse for 33 years.

I look back on those with very fond memories.

Westinghouse over all those years has been like the heart and soul of this community.

And during during the years I was a teacher there.

Oh my goodness.

You know, you talk about it.

The heart and soul is the pumping.

You know, the heart was pumping, which was the house, and the community just got on board while I was a student.

It was a very proud school even then, way back, it always had that element of pride.

And, in the community, in the school, in the student population, in the faculty.

I will say that the faculty at Westinghouse High School, when I was a student, was one of the best teachers at Westinghouse, never left.

They stayed there until they retired.

In fact, when I became a teacher at Westinghouse, I was one of the first few that broke in because the teachers, there was never an opening.

You couldn't break into Westinghouse.

Teachers stayed there until they retired.

Back in those days, they put in 40, 45 years, some of them.

But, ironically, they had a reputation for a solid faculty that just stayed there all the time.

They stayed.

Westinghouse was know for its strong academic program.

The choirs, concert orchestra, and marching band all contributed to the school's pride and prestige, and everybody was so interested in what they're doing.

Hey, they're going to put on a program, you know, and can't wait to see it.

The band, the band under Carl MCVicker at the time was outstanding.

They used to put on spring concerts also.

Bernie Nichols, who wa the choir director at that time, she used to put on plays or, concerts in the assembly.

It's unbelievable what she would get out of those students.

There were championship basketball, tennis, swimming and baseball squads for both girls and boys.

But the real draw was football.

Probert was a coach befor who also had an enviable record, because he was there when I was a teacher and they won championships back then as a matter of fact, Westinghouse High School, I saw this in the paper not too long ago.

Westinghouse High School has the record for a city league leaders.

They have won 35 championships.

The next best is Perry was 13.

In 1965.

Regis Bobonis Senior the first black reported to work for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and channel 11, which was then known as WIIC TV, produced a documentary on the house's famed coach, Pete DImperio, who by then was a legend in Bulldog football.

Westinghouse is the team to beat.

It was an easy choice.

We were into the whole business of the cinema verité, eavesdropping and letting people tell their own story by acting it out, and we were all asked to submit names, and I submitted an idea piece on Pete.

Boys, we're starting a, 1965 season because he was on top of the world at Westinghouse winning any and everything, and I had the edge ther because I'd seen it all happen before when he was coac of the Herring Hill, big five, where I'd seen some of his talents and handling boys and make them believers in themselves.

And that was Petes real talent.

My view, for goodness sakes, put everything you have in every play.

And as I said before, regardless, I'm monotonous to this.

To run one play 50 times.

You say 50 times?

Yes.

What happens when you repeat something often enough?

What does it become?

Perfection.

The more you run a play, the more perfect it is.

And if you have five perfect plays, you can win the championship.

It was well-received because at that time things were still, Pittsburgh, very much about Pittsburgh was a house divided against itself.

And here comes this almost folk hero making winners at a. In some instances, people were calling losers.

But he was making them believe in themselves, by the way, in his style just turned their eyes inward.

And they did make contac and they did begin to believe.

And they began to act that out to achieving both in the classroom and on the playing field.

Lot of us right here, you're like going against the wall.

You have the excuse of, many former players worked under coach DImperial, nobody off side nobody like Joe Proozy Proelio and John G. Ordaddle who were Bulldogs in the 1950s.

But regardless of when they played, their stories all share a familiar ring.

Pete never taught us how to block for a simple reason.

We had no dummies.

The City League did not have any equipment, so we used human dummies.

And you can imagine trying to to lear how to block and tackle on that.

On the other person we had to one one dummy had one split in half.

You are the one of the remember it summer when your high jump on the pol I yeah, they have the pole vault and I have these two brackets here and a bar up top.

They used to hang a string and a dummy there and you used to run and tackle it.

It was so old.

I ripped it in half when I hit it and was driving back, wouldn't it?

No.

Damn it, we didn't have no dummy.

Then that's it.

We'd start and never got anything else either.

Football is a game of skill, incentive, physical fitness and teamwork.

Pete puts a great deal of emphasis on condition.

He says he likes his boys to be hard and hungry.

So this coach, he actually never taught you how to block, how to throw, how to do this, do that.

You follow the guy in front of you.

All right, everybody quiet.

We're going over every play.

Whatever I did, he taught me.

And it just filtered.

He used psychology.

If you one of the.

If he told you to go through that wall, brother, you would do what looks like this.

You're going to run the game today.

When I sent a boy in to sweat, when I send a boy into the.

To tell you that.

Do this, you do it.

I rewind it just like to see that.

In the early 60s, Marshall Ellison, Lloyd Weston, Hawthorne Conley and George Webb, who went on to become Westinghouse's coach.

We're also part of the imperial tradition.

That helmet man, I wonder, I have headaches.

We got the men together to watch the clock turned back to their days on the field at Westinghouse.

There's so many people out there who never experienced that, who swear they were a big part of it.

Oh, yeah.

Oh.

Good.

I mean, I had a guy stare me down and told me that he played on such and such a team and that they were undefeated and scored on.

I said, wait a minute.

I was coaching that too.

We lost three games.

Right?

And you weren't even on the team.

You know, you get all kind of story.

Oh, kind of story.

Oh, no.

No, it's about.

Yeah.

Exactly what you said.

Yeah.

So it's about attitude, perfection, hard work and effort.

And then we brought it t the field and then we took off.

I told him, I told many people we were we weren't, special or super athletes.

Had a couple of good, great guys.

But we were people who, we work for perfection.

There was speed and deception.

If you did that, you could do it all.

Well, look at the mud.

There.

Look at what you now feel.

Now we have grass.

What mud?

Hey, look there.

There is no mud out there.

Satisfied, my love?

Man, the grass look great.

That's a sea of mud.

But for worse for the house.

What is that?

Right?

It's grass and it's dry.

And it's been raining all day.

But for the Bulldogs.

What is it?

The starter is shining brightly.

The field is dry.

We're all set to go.

No excuses.

Today.

The grass is growing tall on the fields of the sun is shining.

The grass may have been growing tall, but it was only at the away games.

Hey, I was with the other team, our outside.

We went up there and I looked at my buddy and I says, what is that on the ground?

He says, it's grass.

We didn't have grass.

We had nothing but ashes and dirt.

Oh, the worse source The drone run into an pitcher's mound and run over the grass was, just something to us to use the land at us.

And I used to come across that field every day to go to school.

On the hot summer days, it was dust.

When you walked, the dust just kicked up.

Now, when I wanted to play the games, they sprayed.

They actually ha a truck in there and he sprayed some kind of tar or oil.

We don't know.

And that's what we played on.

And it became hard.

As a brake.

Equipment is not the most modern.

The team plays on a dirt field oiled to keep down the dust.

But in his 20 years there, Westinghouse teams have lost only five City League games, three of them in one season.

They won 116.

They've been city League champions 16 times.

Now, this is not this.

This.

I can appreciate this grass now, but what goes on here is this for half time.

Now, let us concession.

That's, that's the field house.

Oh, is that right?

Okay.

I remember in the springtime, you can always tell the football players after they all the fiel you get out, do the neck bridge.

You get a big, big ski right here on the forehead from doing neck bridges.

And on that field with your helmet on with the helmet.

When the helmets springtime.

Goodness.

Maybe the Grangers becaus you had the greens, right?

Yeah.

That was right.

That was early and rain.

It got money.

When you were running down the field, you would run into a manhole.

It was a sewer.

So you can imagine yourself running down a field and going down and back up again.

Now you're getting closer to a pitcher's mound.

You run up the hill and down again without even looking on the ground, so you don't know where you're at.

They come ou with those big rollers, right?

All right And they roll the field right.

Then they sprayed all on it, right?

Then they rolled it again.

So that was hard.

But that will keep the dust, the dust off dust.

Now and once you put the new uniform on you play in uniform, never get clean again.

Never clean.

They never clean again.

That deep in it, man.

Im gonna be in the classroom smelling that.

All you're saying.

It's time to go.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

You gotta let.

You don't want to go.

Another proud Westinghouse alum and former cheerleader is the Urban Leagu of Pittsburgh President and CEO Esther Bush.

It was unreal because the spirit came down off that field.

And that's when we were playing.

And they had oil on the field to keep the dust down.

The oil was on the field to keep the dust down.

And you had on black and white oxfords, hated black and white oxfords until I became a cheerleader.

So I have on these black and white oxford that I'm trying to keep clean, because you got to be cute the whole time.

And the oil was all over my shoes, but I'm cheering and jumping up and down trying to do cartwheels and splits.

Anything that made you hit the ground, you want to hit the ground fast and get up because you didn't want to get dirty.

Cheering is one of my most favorite memories and I believe cheering really helped developed me into being what I am today.

And I say that sincerel because cheering was something that made you get up and move and feel passionate about something.

So I was allowed to express my passion for how I felt about my football team, my basketball team, whatever it was, and cheering let me express myself.

I had a chance to yell and scream with nobody telling you to be quiet, because that's what a cheerleader does.

And even today, very seriously, I like to think that I'm still a cheerleader for footbal players and cheerleaders weren't the only one with something to be proud of.

Patricia Prentis Jennings, principal keyboardist for the World renowne Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, is also a former Bulldog.

We had a great football team.

There was as much, at least as much rivalry among the football teams as there were among the orchestras and other musical groups, with Pete D'Imperio as the coach.

And the call was this is th house and the house don't move.

I played the glockenspie in the Westinghouse High School band, and I had to memorize all my music.

Marcia Hoard and I played the glockenspiel together, and I think more than anything else we just wanted to get on the bus and go to Altoona or, you know, wherever.

But it was it was fun.

And it was another kind of an experience.

I didn't understand football then, and I still don't.

Football is a game of skill, incentive physical fitness and teamwork.

We practiced.

It was all da and day, every day of the week on our own, a lot of times on our own.

Because in them days you weren't allowed to be practice and we did it on our own.

In the summertime we go because a single wing is built all on deception and had to be synchronized.

When the fullback would turn, the two half backs would meet at the same time, the guards would pull out.

Everybody had a certain job and it was all on deception.

Nobody hardly ever knew who had the ball when that fullback was spinning to come, coming, run.

He would either take it or hand off the insid or hand it off to the outside.

It was all deception.

Each basic offense is the single wing.

It depends for its effectiveness on speed, precision, timing and savage blocking.

The pass is used as a supplementary weapon.

Only the bread and butter plays are the we fullback, spinner and variations on the reverse.

We had to hit the Scorpions at the time a major leagu football, Major league football, and we kind of, we admired Westinghouse because they were champions.

And every chance we get in the summertime when they've been out here playing, we'd be up here on top of the hill, watch them play football.

And when the season got started and we couldn't afford to get in here because we were kids.

You know, we'll go over the side of hill and we watch the game and that's in George Webb I want to be a fullback playing football for Westinghouse High School.

And I realized my dream.

This man was good.

He was he was a spinning king.

Well, spinner, you know, tha was a series we did in football.

The spider.

I'll tell you, Bruce Westo first started calling me back.

Calling me that back in 1960 or 61.

And, it was it wasn' because my last name was Webb, because I was a fullback.

And then in the spinner serie and a fullback, you had to spin and you had to stay low, and you got to fake your hand off here and you don't know who has the football.

So he said it was like having an eight, eight legs, you know, eight arms.

And he said, more like a spider, you know, we'd, tell each other on the line, I'm getting him.

You're getting him?

But on the line of scrimmage.

And we wouldn't kick extra points when we made a touchdown.

We ran him ove and told them where was coming in your face.

Sort of.

This is the house.

This is the house in your face.

This is peak time period topping.

And a couple of time we'd get on the line in, in the we get on a line, we talk.

Italian, I was next and I got we would set up our blockin assignments right up on the line and then they wouldnt know what we were talking about.

I'd hit this one.

If we're playing against Italia boys, we wouldn't say nothing.

A lot of football players went on to be professional people, doctors, lawyers and, you know, even in high school, they weren't just football players.

They're a member of the National Honor Society you know, their student council, you know they were good students, right?

They did it all.

I mean, it wasn't about just playing football.

Pete used to always say, if you want to do something, do be the best you can possibly be.

The final score Westinghouse 41, Gladstone 7, 1965 record nine wins and no defeats unbeaten in the past 25 games over 20 years 1 championships, 116 City League victories, five defeats, 21 college football scholarships, a return on an investment.

Students of the House excelled in many fields, and musically speaking, they're in a class by themselves.

Anthony Herb Eyma is the house's unofficial music historian.

So much to be proud of who stays and it carries on.

Today.

A lot of the children toda don't even look at what's going on.

They have no idea where hip hop and some of their music come from.

It's the elements of classic and the jazz.

We grew up in one great neighborhood.

We had a wonderful orchestr director and band director there at the time named Carl McVicker, who loved his students dearly and who made sure that we played the best in classical music and other kinds of music.

And I've always felt that the training and experience that I got there at the house, prepared me for my career as a symphony player.

Carl McVicker, wh was the music teacher back then, one of his students at the tim was Earl Gardner of Misty fame.

Now Earl was a musician, never studied.

a note.

of music never played the same song twice.

He was God's gift to music.

Ran around five foot two with a Manhattan phone book.

Arrived in New York in order on Art Tatum was playing me.

So I got thi cat from Pittsburgh coming in.

You at it?

Hear him?

He is a one man orchestra.

So after he got done, Art Tatum said, now this cat here cannot read a note in music.

And a guy ran up ther and he said, hey man, it comes.

You don't read.

And Earl said to him, you can't hear anybody read, man.

You know, I mean, but I'm telling you what, Earl Gardner was God's gift of music.

Vera Bennett Hubbard, class of 42, is an award winning poet and Westinghouse alum.

She's also a musician who in high school played with Earl Garner so he couldn't read music.

I used to play the score on my cello for him.

That's how we had a relationship.

Actually.

I lived on Hamilton Avenue and he would come to my house after schoo and I would bring my cello home, and I would play the score on my cello.

And the next day, there was no way that you would ever know tha Earl could not read those notes.

He was a genius, actually.

He was a genius.

He was.

I think that those who cam before certainly set a standard for us that we had to measure up to.

Many of them were jazz musicians, but they were they were giants in their particular fields with their particular instruments.

And I hope that I will carry on the tradition of excellent musician who have come from Westinghouse High School.

Then we had Mary Lou Williams, a mother of jazz.

I mean, how can you not love this?

I mean, the American Songbook on a Westinghouse.

I don't know what a tribute to the house and this music.

I just have to say, we had so much.

How could you ignore it?

How could you not know it?

How could you not want to know it?

The Homewood Reston community was made up of neighborhoods and neighbors the Irish, German, Italian and African American families that lived in Homewood integrated Westinghous long before government mandates.

Westinghouse was was well integrated.

I don't remember what the percentages were but it was something like 6040.

Which way?

I'm not sure.

But I thought we all got along very well, and maybe we were too stupid to to know that we shouldn't be getting along, but it seemed like a serene time.

We worked together, in the school yearbook and the band orchestra, all kinds of activities were very well, very well integrated, quite diverse.

And I remember that feeling, that atmosphere with great fondness.

I must Alger, the house back in the day was more of a camaraderie early on in friendships and coming out of the Armory Avenue Elementary School into Westinghouse, our families mixed from early on.

You can go back 40, 50, 60 years.

We had a special mix.

Pride with a capital P is what we had.

We knew how to walk together, work together, and if we had to, we fought together to walk to school with all your friends.

And you talked and, that was that was a great thing, I think about the kids now they're bussed to school and what they're missing, because it was a lot of fu to walk with all your friends, you know, and go to school.

Well, I lived in the Lincoln Avenue community, and yes, I did walk to school.

It was about a ten minute walk and we didn't mind walking at all.

It wasn't, you know we didn't have to get on a bus and go somewhere else.

So that was fun because we walked with our friends to and from school.

And, the atmospher I thought was quite wonderful.

You know I think of the 50s as days when all was well with the world.

I realize that's not true, but it seemed that way to us then, especially compared with so many of the stresses of today.

I'd lived on Verona Boulevard, off the top of Lincoln Avenue, so I was really one step over.

I would have lived in Penn Hills, but I was the last house in the city of Pittsburgh, which meant I had a very long walk down from the Boulevard Lincoln Avenue to get to Homewood, to Westinghouse High School, and I did it with a smile on my face because we would pick up friends as you went down Lincoln Avenue, you know, as soon as I hit the foot of Verona Boulevard, Gerald was there.

Pick up Jerry, go down, pick up Joe, pick up Marlon and go on down.

And all of us were actively involved.

And in Westinghouse.

I lived not too far from the school.

I lived on Monticello Street, which was a very prestigious street for black people then, and I was very proud to live on Monticello Street.

That was that was your, I don't know, your better class of people that lived on one the cellar.

So, you were looked on kind of different when you came from that era of Homewood.

We had, very outstanding black citizens in the community.

Long as I remembe from the time I was a little kid and before that.

So it's nothing new.

And, it was a, a community, ironically.

That's really your my my neighbor.

When I lived down on Cicero, Hannah Street, my neighbors on each side were blacks and across the street.

So I, I, I grew up in that environment and I never bothered me and never disturbed me.

We lived in together, we called it.

And I tell you, ghetto.

But the only the mixture, the main mixture there was like I say, next door to me was the Garnett's.

And then Doctor Ross was, was was another house away from me and across the street, the next to my grandmother in my, in my mother in law and father in law.

It was, it was it was a mixed neighborhood.

Even then in they back in the 50s, as far as I remember growing up, that's all it was.

It was Italians and blacks.

That's all that lived on our on our street.

No other nationality or nothing.

But when I say we all strive to get out of the ghetto, it was an Italian ghetto, actually, and we just all strived to get out of it.

Speaking of the Italians, there was a lady, I don't know her name now, but she was known lady and she used she knew my mother had five children and she used to make great big pots of spaghetti and bring them over to us, and we really needed them.

And it was great.

And to think how kind she was.

Larmer Avenue, if you were not Italian back in those days, you were a foreigner.

You were a foreigner.

Seriously, there was no Irish, German, nothing.

No, there were black families there.

They were accepted.

But you were a foreigner.

If you were white, you were not Italian.

You were a foreigner who was a well knit community overall.

And everybody seemed to stick together.

A neighbor was back in those days, you know, neighbor, your neighbor and everybody o the street knew everybody else.

Strong leadership was important to the success of Westinghouse High School.

Throughout the years, an array of administrators, principals and faculty have led the students.

Current principal, Docto Marlon Barnett, is no exception.

People think that I graduat from Westinghouse High School.

That's how excited I am about Westinghouse.

I didn't graduate from Westinghouse.

Everybody can't.

Catherine what's our enrollment right now?

The house, to me means everything high school should be.

It cannot be just academics.

It has to have a culture.

And I talk about that all the time.

We have to build a culture of excellence.

We have to look at the academics, but we also have to look at the social life of school.

When you put the two together, you have an educational environment that will actually support strong academics and a place where students feel that they're cared about, that people want them to achieve.

And we work together with our students and make sure they can achieve.

I see what you did.

All right, let's go back to it.

We actually just got shipments of 35 computers for our business in finance room.

And we also created two new there that we're going to get a year that weren't actually there.

This is wonderful.

This one.

And there's one on the third floor.

So we have about I want to say 300 computers or so now.

And we're trying to still get more.

So it comes down to the fact that we can have computers in every classroom.

Our whole goal i so that we can have each student be able to have and be able to use a computer so that they gain skills that they can use in life.

They've been incorporating what they've been learning in the classroom with a hands on technique, so that they've been troubleshooting problems throughout the building.

So anytime there are major problems throughout the building, the class goes, we saw them as a group.

They do it hands on.

I can actually pic any of these kids out of class and send them to a specific teacher or classroom and describe the problem to them.

Advance and they'll get it, and they can go and recruit.

So they've develope a reputation around the building as being pretty admirable people and trustworthy and good students.

The next thin that everything's going through will be robotics, and that' just another form of computers.

It's a big growing career field that stays growing no matter what happens.

So I found that that's always going to be a good career field to go into.

Another current Westinghous student who's deeply involved in IT classes is Kenny Ansel the one tech class I'm taking.

At the end of the year, I could be certified to fix computers, and if I go anywhere else, I would have to pay for that course anywhere else.

So I'm getting it for free here.

So this is a major accomplishment.

Kenny just happens to be the only white student currently enrolled in Westinghouse.

This is where I live.

This is where I go.

I like it here.

Westinghouse is one of the best kept secrets for technology.

We get, like, new computers, like, every other year.

This year we just got two sets of new computers.

We have a new teacher on board with our junior ROTC program.

I ain't trying to hear all this mess.

You don't want to do something.

You don't want to do whatever like that.

That's why you all in his class right now.

We lost some of our students, but, we're real proud of that program.

And in about a year is going to be where it needs to be.

Well, I think I got a great group of kids, you know, I enjoy working with them.

And it's a, you know, it's a challenge trying to get them used to, you know, doing army type stuff and especially, you know, at a school here at Westinghouse.

But the kids are right now is a great group of kids.

And I think we're going to go a long way, before I'm through at this program here.

My name is Tamara Noble.

I'm a sophomore at Westinghouse.

When I first came here, I figured I could go to the Army and stuff.

Then I started taking up the study habits and stuf that they teach in this class.

So that's why I'm here.

We have the food service progra outstanding program under, Mrs.

Hazel Jackson.

And our students are proud of that program.

This is the Westinghouse Bulldogs second win cafe.

Teachers come in here to get the second win.

She doesn't just teach for service.

She teaches a way of life.

Which means when the students step into that program, they take a great deal of pride, not just in cooking.

It's a program that's around service.

So when you step into our second win Bulldog Cafe, you are served with love.

You are served with respect and you have served with Bulldog pride.

We have another program, the cosmetology program.

That's another program that students exhibit a great deal of pride.

In fact, I can't wait to ge down there and get my hair cut.

Go!

The school has to be more than just football and band.

There has to be a strong academic program and we're continuin to build our academic program.

There's a whole agenda for action that the superintendent has.

So we're looking at reading, writing, arithmetic.

We're looking at relationships.

We're also looking at reasoning so that there's a level of rigor that can support everything that we do here.

And of course we want the athletics to we want the football.

We want the band.

We want it all.

That kind of desire.

Wanting it all is what has led so man Westinghouse grads to succeed.

It would take the rest of this progra to name them all individually, but just take a look at some of the peopl in the Westinghouse Hall of Fame business, law enforcement, music, acting, the military, politics and education.

Many of those graduates often come back to the House for Career Day to share both their memorie and their formulas for success.

Like former pro football player Gene Harrison, who's also CEO of Harrison Construction in Decatur, Georgia.

When I was traded from the Pittsburgh Steelers to the New York Giants, I got my masters at Hofstra University on Long Island, New York, attorney Charlene Coles Newkirk, who was also the dean of Prince Frederick Campus of the College of Southern Maryland.

Carole Coles Henry, director of the City of Phoenix Equal Opportunity Department.

Captain William Douglas, th chaplain of the US Coast Guard.

Stan Hudson, the first black referee in the NBA.

Each and every on a bulldog through and through.

We are the Bulldogs of Mighty, mighty for life.

Everywhere we go, people want to know what's John's last nam and what year did he graduate.

That kind of spirit and a willingness to give back to the school that has given them s much, has led Westinghouse alums Don Turner and Gwen Missouri to create a website first concept came to me when I was a, I guess a customer service rep at, National City, which was Integra when I first started there.

And, a lot of my customers that came and sat down in front of me were all, Westinghouse alumni, you know, and we get on, you know, the topic and talk for hours and hours.

And sometimes I have to, you know, sometimes my supervisor would say, hey, you know, that's enough.

Get them out of here.

But just knowing tha that that spirit still existed with past alumni, you know, and they're still, excited to talk about the school, let me know that there's something that we need to reconnect.

And because of that, I said, let me find a way to get the more, you know involved with the school again, and why not highlight, you know, what the current students that are doing well are doing, you know, allow them to see that so that they can just, pull it up on a website and not just have to rely on what the media portrays is, you know, our school.

But it was nice that I had an opportunity to graduate when my own brother, Don is Coach George Webb's daughter.

Even to this day.

A lot of the students I went to school with back the and still now call me Miss Webb, you know, and, you dont realize at the time that that was the respect level, you know, that I had, through the halls even some of the security guard.

Okay, Miss Webb, where are you supposed to be right now?

You know?

So, of course, I and mosey o to class and a lot of times, I wasn't able to get as many dates as I probably could have if, my dad wasn't a coach.

There were times that I ha to hear through the grapevine.

You know, so-and-so like you, you know, but he's afraid of your dad.

The Westinghouse Foreve website features interviews with former and current teachers, students, and administrators.

I would have to say my cousin Gwen is this is her element.

You know, you can tell when she's interviewing.

She's like the next Oprah.

She's really good at what she does.

Well, the interviews are really exciting because it's allowing us an opportunity to meet with anybody, maybe from 1951 to 1980.

And that's what I like about it.

We are able to meet with these people and, learn their experiences of being from the house.

And also it gives us an opportunity to, hear their story, which is pretty interesting.

So the key is empowering through educating them on what's really happening, you know, again, highlighting accomplishments, telling our own stories, not allowing the media to paint the picture we want.

We have to be in charge of telling the story ourselves and letting them know exactly what Westinghouse alumni are about.

I've interviewed Keith Gardner, who's the controller of all the Applebee's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Most people wouldn't know that when they go step in Applebee's restaurant, you know?

But here, guy from Westinghouse High School who play football is actually right now that everyone's check, you know, so it's things like that that we need to to highlight an let people know you know what?

Wait a minute.

We have some really successful people coming out and that are still coming out of the school.

There's a certain mystique about many Westinghouse graduates.

They may not have always had the best equipment in the classroom or on the playing field, but they seem to know or have been taught that they could and would succeed.

Our cheerleader advisor, some of the teachers that we had, if we were a cheerleader, they would always tell us, underscore the leader part you are a leader.

Therefore your grades should be a certain way.

You should present yourself a certain way.

You should carry yourself a certain way because you're supposed to be a leader at all times.

Well, I think we had excellent teachers at Westinghouse High School of course, once home training helps a great deal, but we had teachers who cared about the students.

I think that might have been the most important thing.

And of course, there were som teachers that we were scared of, like Miss Jones, because she was tough, but she expected the best from us.

And I think that we all did quite well because of Miss Jones and Miss Edgar and Mr.

Learn and many of the teachers that we had.

But the one that I remembe most fondly, of course, is Mr.

McVicker, because he he really did love his students and it didn't matter what color they were.

He he really loved us all equally.

I will never speak badly of the house.

If there is something wrong with Westinghouse, then let's all get together and be a part of fixing it and not talk about how we got torn down.

I think that I keep referring to it as a parent.

You would never speak badly about your parents.

The way I was raised, I wouldn't, you know, that's the way that you respect, hold and homage honor.

And so there is an honor tha I have there, for Westinghouse.

I think that's a good word, to us because it gave so much to me.

And the house continues to give.

This is the girls championship basketball trophy, 2003.

And we're going to get it again this year because we have an outstanding girls basketball team.

They work hard.

And it's not just about basketball.

They make sure their grades are up too, and I think that helps them.

First shot.

First shot.

Oh.

Angie have a game today.

She made all city last year.

We want to make sure she get tuned up.

And I'm glad you came to notice your jump here but I'm glad that you're here.

So di you can get yourself warmed up because we expect you to have a good game.

Hey, everybody give Angie a nice round of applause and it makes me better wheneve I get people stronger than me.

So then when I play female, a lot quicker than.

No.

So you like playing against the boys?

Yeah.

And then fail bad, I like that.

What do you like going to the house?

None of my family really went there.

But I think it got a nice, rich history to it.

A lot of good stuff.

A lot of good people came out of Westinghouse.

And I'm trying to be one of them Well, at least some of the Bulldog teams are carrying on with that winning tradition.

But Bulldog football has fallen on hard times.

On a rainy autumn Saturday Westinghouse took on City League rival Shin and go go go go house played hard, but it wasn't enough.

Westinghouse is always been sittin and talking about city football.

Well, yeah, and the rivalry between these two teams goes way, way, way back.

You'd like to think that the rivalr would supersede the record or.

But at this point, I mean, it's just been out there just two times.

Yeah.

The house is not the football power it once was.

And Principal Barnett knows why.

We have a number of student that no longer go to Westinghous They choose to travel to othe high schools, especially Perry.

Right now.

Perry's doing quite well on football.

So we have they're tracking a lot of our students from homewood.

What we can do about them, we can strengthen our academic program.

So it's extremely strong.

So people will want to come back to the House on this day.

The Bulldogs lost, but it wasn't for lack of effort.

Good.

Go go go go go go go go go go go go.

And perhaps more importantly, there's the obvious love and care that both Principal Barnett and Coach Moor have for their student athletes.

All right.

Keep your hands up.

I'm not mad at you.

The staff is not mad at you.

You gave 100%.

And when we start winning, we'll never look back.

We will never look back.

I want you guys understand I love you.

We stand behind you, and we are family.

Dont you ever forget that.

All right.

Two line lets go.

All right.

Youre playing.

You just have to get some more experience.

Its not you, Its not this team We just need some more experience.

Those kids and yeah, it's hard to teach.

You got to be throwed in on this.

The only way to learn.

We'r going to get better.

All right?

Most days, the trolley station sits quietly on Franks Town Avenue, where it serves as an oral history center, collecting the memories of Pittsburghers.

But on the Friday after Thanksgiving, it's home to one of the most spirited parties of the year, the Westinghouse High School all class reunion reunion organizer Valeria Williams helps to keep it all together.

It was not only a class reunion, but it's a family reunion as well.

Its like a neighborhood reunion, it has spanned into so much more than what it originally took off to be, but it i good to see people come together with love and unity, something needed to happen that would bring about.

And besides the love the people in this community have for each other.

But you hear so much of the other stuff, and I know that there is a lot of love and camaraderie and appreciation for each other in this community.

You are good.

This place holds 1700.

We had said people complain about it being too crowded.

You're on the inside looking out.

It's too crowded, right?

If you're on the outside looking in, they got more room for this reunion.

This is what we do.

Alumni, teachers and friends come from far and wide for a night of music and memories.

I am a retired, network engineer for Gourvitz Communications.

I've been retired a couple of years.

Came back from Thailand.

My wife is a diplomat.

Westinghouse people are not just confined to Homewood.

Westinghouse people are citywide people, and everybody across the city love the graduates of Westinghouse.

So when they come to party, I come to party.

The way they relat to one another is so beautiful.

As long as you say you're a bulldog and you're from Westinghouse high School, there's an immediate connection.

I'm here because all of the people.

Have you been in there?

Yeah.

It is like wonderful.

It is so happ and positive and up and honest.

The Si-Dog is here.

So he love us.

Time.

Other time I was here was last year and I smiled for like four hours, two weeks after one season.

After that, we star preparing for the next season.

So we work here around.

Stockman stuff.

And there's all these people who look a lot like me.

Yeah.

And and you know, some of them have more hair or less and some of it is gray and some are not so large, but it's people who we're all family, even if we don't want to be weird, like in this.

And that's why we're here.

We want them to connect.

The old Bulldogs need to be connecting with the young Bulldogs because we wan Westinghouse to stay up there.

We want Westinghouse to really go back to the days when Westinghouse was all of that.

Don't know much about history, don't know much biology.

It's nice to know that for th better part of the last century, Westinghouse High School is persevered through good times and bad, producing nothing short of a legacy that will live longer than an average pile of bricks and more.

When I was a student here, they used to, almost have to chase me out of this building.

After school, I'd be in the gym, shooting basketball or working out, running, doing sample custodians chased me out all the time.

You know, when I became a teacher here, my wife used to tell me you had to get a bit and live here because you're never home.

Yeah, I'm at the spill you know, you love this place.

You know, it's such a big part of my life that, you know, I can only say whenever I think Westinghouse fun memories.

Westinghouse, forever We're true to you.

We.

We love our colors of gold and blue Ruff, ruff, ruff.

Westinghouse forever.

That's it.

You got it now I have a couple of people apart from mine that I love.

And, we today we're doing some things.

We're walking now.

We're not running.

Yeah, well, we enjoy.

We we have good memories.

Yeah, we were always a run oriented team.

We.

If very seldom, very seldom passed.

What have you got behind?

We've been you know, I still keep in touch with some of the peopl from from, from the orchestra.

I'm from Westinghouse.

And I'm.

We have memories that we can share that we can't share with anybody else.

That's true.

Westinghouse forever, Westinghouse forever Yeah.

You dont know it?

loyal and true.

Nothing could ever take our love from you.

Take our love for you.

Rah rah rah or something like that.

Okay?

Don't show that.

Please.

I can't say that any more strongly than I do.

I love my students, and I. I think I feel a lot of them coming back every once in a while.

We even get to make the statement.

I feel a lot of love in this room.

I wouldn't remember most about the house is its faculty, because even though they want to make you ma sometimes you gotta love them.

You do.

I plan on graduating here and being proud of it when I do graduate, and the extracurricular activitie I love because I love the band.

And there's other things that I'm like, I like one at a basketball game than a football game or anything, so I like working out.

Whenever you watch the news, there's always something negative about something going on down here in is that not only is Westinghouse known for their band, but there's other things that we do here.

Program of Aliquippa, 1955, in which John was a participant in and on the inside here, along with John's name right opposite on the other side, happens to be Mike Ditka, the old coach of the bears.

He's a big guy, but John, handle them easy.

I think the George Westinghouse will be very proud individual because right now his cup has to be running over.

I think he's been very overwhelmed with everything that's happene in this community, and his name has been like a beacon in this particular community.

And the school has done everything to make it shine.

Westinghouse forever loyal and true.

That's all.

Who said that?

Kramer 62.

Chris.

And we'll talk about.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's hard to talk.

Yeah, he can't catch it, Bumble bee is that Bulldog beat Bumble bee.

You got enough sting.