10/24/2024
Delco Times article by the great Terry Toohey (bottom left) on our Fall 2024 Delco Athletes Hall of Fame inductees::
SUBMITTED PHOTO – JOE TOWNSEND
The Fall 2024 Delco Athletes Hall of Fame inductees include:
(First row, left to right) Karl Friedrichs, Kathy Tagliaterra (accepting for late husband Paul Tagliaterra), Mares Stellfox, Kathleen Gannon-Javanel, Wendy Smith, Jeannie McCandless.
(Back Row, left to right) Mark Jordan, Dave Pauley, Gary Elder, Pat Lancianese, John Basile, Jerry Morse, Joe Meyer. Missing from photo: Wilbur “Zain” Shaw and Frank McKone.
UPPER CHICHESTER — Today, it’s not uncommon to see a female driver in the sport of auto racing at all levels. That wasn’t the case 40 years ago.
Women were a rarity in all divisions of the sport.
Mares Stellfox helped change that by racing micro sprint and sprint cars on and off from 1984-2014.
“I opened a lot of doors,” Stellfox said. “But I also found out about discrimination at its finest.”
It took a while for Stellfox to be accepted in the male-dominated sport but eventually she was, earning the nickname “The Lady Outlaw” when she was the only woman in the Tri-State Micro-sprint Outlaws in 1988.
Sunday, the Springfield native was honored for her extraordinary career when she was inducted into the Delaware County Athletes Hall of Fame in a dinner at the Phoenix Ballroom.
Sharon Hill A.A., which dominated the Del Val Women’s Fast Pitch League in the 1980s and ’90s, was honored with the Team of Excellence award.
Stellfox said there were a number of times she wanted to quit because of the blatant sexism she faced on a regular basis, but didn’t.
“I persevered,” Stellfox said. “I’m glad I did because if you look around now there are so many women in racing.”
Stellfox never set out to be a trail blazer, it just worked out that way.
She got the racing bug early, at age four or five, when her grandfather built a go-cart for her and her four sisters to share.
That was it. Stellfox was hooked and pursued a career as a driver after graduating from Springfield High School.
She entered her first micro-sprint face in 1984 and three years later was the first woman to win the Airport Speedway 250cc championship in New Castle, Del. In 1989 she moved up to full sized midgets and was the first woman named Rookie of the Year by the American Racing Drivers Club. She raced continuously from 1984-93, then on and off again until 2014.
“I didn’t walk away because I loved it,” said Stellfox, the director of plant operations at Eastern University. “It’s hard to walk away from something you love. It’s tough going to races now. My feet are going a mile a minute. I can’t sit still.”
• • •
Most athletes miss the games when their playing days are over. Not Meyer.
Having earned All-Delco honors in football and baseball, he misses the time he got to spend with his teammates at practice.
“I loved being around the guys, the team camaraderie,” Meyer said.
“If I had to pick something that I miss the most or I liked the most it would be practice.”
Meyer, who works as a steamfitter, threw for more than 2,400 yards and 26 touchdowns in his career at Penn Wood. He also is the only athlete to earn All-Delco honors in football as a quarterback and as a catcher in baseball.
“I loved football because it was more of a group trying to achieve a goal. Baseball can be a little more individual. You can get the ball on the mound and win a game by yourself. Obviously you have to score runs, but it is more individual. I always liked football the most.”
• • •
Lancianese’s father is the one who got him into softball. His father was a member of the Green Ridge Rec Club in Aston and the club had a softball team that played in the old Aston Residential League.
Lancianese decided to give the game a try when he was 20 or 21. He went on to play in the Ridley Township, Marcus Hook, Industrial Valley, Father Nall and Media leagues.
It didn’t take him long to become one of the most feared home run hitters in the county. No field with a fence could hold him.
“Every league I played in we won the championship,” said Lancianese, who retired from Amtrak in 2016. “That’s what I’m most proud of. This (Hall of Fame) is nice but I couldn’t do it without my teammates. I was blessed with good teammates, talented teammates who became lifelong friends.”
• • •
Smith had a four-year plan when she took over for Debbie Bonder as the field hockey coach at Marple Newtown in 1991.
Her timeline was perfect.
In 1995, the Tigers won the first of what would be five Central League championships in her nine seasons as the head coach, including four in a row from 1997-2000. MN also won a District 1 title in that span and went 130-30-18.
“To me, this is recognition of something I did and did well,” Smith said. “At the same time I realize that I was just lucky. I was in the right place at the right time with the right group of kids. We used to say that we could take the bus driver and win games. It’s a great honor and I’m very humbled by it.”
• • •
As good as his teams were on the floor, former University of the Sciences men’s basketball coach Dave Pauley is most proud of what his players accomplished off the court.
That’s saying something since his teams won 261 games in his 18 seasons at the helm.
“The nice thing for me is to see how someone like a Sean Gorman, who played for me, has turned into such a tremendous leader,” Pauley said of Gorman, who went on to become superintendent at Gloucester City (N.J.) School District. “I’m just so pleased. The place I was at, the academics came first. Second of all, you have to make them better men and the third thing is that they become living trophies. I have living trophies. We graduated everybody. And they’re all doing very, very well. I’m very proud of that.”
These days Pauley works with autistic children at Gloucester High School and helps out the boys basketball team as an assistant coach.
• • •
Chester has produced many of the county’s greatest basketball players, few better than Zain Shaw (bottom right)
He helped Chester win the PIAA Class 4A title as a sophomore in 1989, went on to become the Daily Times Player of the Year in 1991 and still ranks as the leading scorer in program history with 1,993 career points.
He went on the play at West Virginia and professionally in Europe for several years. His playing days may be over but he is still involved in the game.
Shaw served as the coach at Delaware County Community College and operates NDO, which stands for No Days Off. It is a basketball training center that also teaches life skills. He does that in addition to working as a home inspector in Chester.
“This is something I never thought I would see,” Shaw said of his induction. “I was telling the kids that I was training today that I didn’t play basketball for this stuff to happen. It’s a great honor, a blessing. And I have so many people to thank. Coach (Alonzo) Lewis and Coach (Fred) Pickett and our trainers got us ready for the season. And I can’t say enough about my teammates. Guys like Mike Johnson, Keith Wood, Larry Yarbray helped me become the player and the person I am.”
