Coaches Mark Jordan and John Basile are among the fall 2024 inductees into the Delaware County Athletes Hall of Fame, it was announced Monday.
Thirteen individuals will be inducted at the 84th Fall Awards Dinner on October 20 in the Ballroom at the Phoenix. Also honored will be the Sharon Hill AA softball team from the mid-1980s.
The individual award winners are: coaches Dave Pauley, Paul Tagliaterra, Wendy Smith, Jordan and Basile; diver Gary Elder; football player Joe Meyer; softball players Pat Lancianese and Karl Friederichs; baseball player Jerry Morse; multi-sport star Frank McKone; race car driver Mares Stellfox and swimmer Kathleen Gannon-Janavel.
Basile served as a coach, teacher and athletic director at Academy Park for 40 years in sports such as volleyball, softball and wrestling. He was instrumental in the development of the Del Val League and influenced athletes on and off the field by teaching mathematics and computer science.
Elder, a graduate of Upper Darby and former Primos-Secane Swim Club participant, served as diving coach at Villanova University for 22 years. During his time, he qualified 18 divers for the NCAA and helped the Wildcats win the Big East Championships in 1993. Elder later coached at Episcopal Academy in the 2010s.
Friedrichs dominated slowpitch softball fields in the 1970s and ’80s, playing in the Chester Recreation and Ridley Township leagues, collecting 22 ASA tournament titles and eight MVP awards with travel teams that recruited him from as far away as New York and Virginia. After his playing days, he coached the Chariot women’s team for 10 years, winning five Delco Women’s League championships and the Daily Times Tournament of Champions.
Gannon-Javanel was a standout swimmer, first at the Nassau Swim Club in Ridley, then at Bishop Shanahan and Drexel University. She was a five-time All-American and four-time conference team champion at Drexel, where she was inducted into the sport’s Hall of Fame in 1990. She was named a relay All-American there as a freshman.
A baseball and basketball player at Marple Newtown, Jordan coached girls basketball at Sacred Heart and Radnor, as well as baseball at his alma mater and at Radnor. He spent 26 seasons on the basketball bench, winning Central League and District 1 titles with Radnor and appearing in eight state tournaments. In baseball, he led Marple Newtown’s team to Delco’s only PIAA baseball championship in 2018. The Tigers finished second under Jordan in his first tenure there in 2007. He appeared in five state tournaments and won two District 1 baseball titles.
Lancianese was a legend of the Delco slowpitch softball scene in the 1980s. A first baseman with tremendous speed, he led championship teams in the Ridley Township, Marcus Hook, Industrial Valley, Father Nall, Media, Aston Residential and Industrial of Delaware leagues and won two titles in his four appearances in the Daily Times Tournament of Championships. Lancianese also played in fall leagues and enjoyed success at the national level.
McKone excelled in basketball, football and baseball at Collingdale High. As a senior, he became the first player in school history to score more than 1,000 points on the basketball court, and his 1,091 points ranked him 19th in Delco history among boys players at the time of his graduation in 1970. An All-Delco who averaged 21 points per game as a senior, he was also a catcher for a Collingdale baseball team that won four league titles and a fullback/defensive lineman on the field.
Meyer was the starting quarterback for Penn Wood High for three seasons from 1990 to 1992, throwing for 2,400 yards and 26 touchdowns. The Colwyn Comets product was an All-Delco quarterback in 1992 and started in the Hero Bowl. He was also an All-Delco catcher in baseball his senior year.
Morse played baseball at Monsignor Bonner and Mount Saint Mary’s College before beginning a long career in the Delco League. He was one of the league’s best pitchers during a career that spanned 16 seasons from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s (with one interruption) and won five league titles. He pitched the first perfect game in Delco League history.
Pauley was the head coach of the men’s basketball team at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia for 20 seasons after serving as an assistant there for 18 years. The graduate of Ridley High and Temple University coached 5 NAIA All-Americans and made one national tournament appearance, reaching the program’s best national ranking of 18th at the end of the 2014-15 season. Pauley is a member of the Ridley Township Hall of Fame and the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame and is currently an assistant coach at Gloucester High in New Jersey.
Smith won five Central League titles in nine seasons as field hockey coach at Marple Newtown, compiling a record of 118-30-18. She also won a District 1 title with the Tigers and was named the school’s top girls coach three times.
Stellfox, nicknamed “Lady Outlaw” on the circuit, graduated from Springfield High School. She began racing micro sprints in 1984 before moving on to full-size sprints. She was the first woman to win the 250cc championship at Airport Speedway in New Castle, Delaware in 1987. She was the first woman named to the Tri-State Micro Sprint Outlaws Racing Club, the circuit’s first female Rookie of the Year and the first woman to win a United Racing Club feature race.
Tagliaterra was a key part of the Strath Haven football dynasty, spending 52 years in the Wallingford Swarthmore School District as a teacher, coach and administrator. For 48 years, he coached the offensive line and linebackers first at Nether Providence High and then at Strath Haven, with two students (Dan Connor and Steven Johnson) playing linebacker in the NFL. He helped the Panthers reach six consecutive Eastern Finals and four State Finals and win two state championships, a group that posted 94 consecutive wins against Pennsylvania opponents.
The Sharon Hill AA team won its first state championship in 1983 and repeated the next year, becoming the first team to do so. In that 1984 run, they went undefeated, outscoring their opponents 33-5. Led by Theresa Dunbar and Vicky Pecunia, both All-Americans, the team finished seventh at the ASA National Tournament in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and posted a 30-13 record in 1984. After skipping the 1985 state tournament to compete in the Shamrock Games in Ireland, the team won again in 1986. It was inducted into the ASA of PA Softball Hall of Fame in 2015.
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