Large hall class ruled by women

WEST CHESTER >> With 16 individuals and one team, the 2016 class of the Chester County Sports Hall of Fame is a large group. But the organization’s president, Jerry Schneider, isn’t at all worried about running out of quality candidates any time soon.

“We’d prefer fewer inductees,” Schneider admitted. “If we had 12, that would be good, but there are so many that are deserving, you can’t complain.

“It’s another great class. We aren’t having any trouble finding great candidates for the hall of fame.”

The ninth group to be inducted, the 2016 class is filled with coaches who earlier starred as athletes, like longtime high school lacrosse coach Kim Jackson, who won three District 1 titles and seven Ches-Mont crowns in 28 years at West Chester Henderson. Seven of the inductees either attended and/or coached at West Chester University, like

football’s Danny Hale, who played for the Rams and later amassed a 40-13 record at his alma mater as head coach from 1984-88, and then added 191 wins at Bloomsburg.

But the most noticeable aspect of this group is that nine of the honorees are women, including Tora Suber and Amanda Brown Streeter, two of the best high school basketball players to come out of Chester County.

“I think it’s great,” Schneider said. “This shows how important Title IX was when it became law in the early 1970s.”

Suber won four district titles and two state championships at Downingtown High School, playing for coach Bob Schnure (Class of 2012). She scored 2,420 career points, went on to star collegiately at Virginia and played for two teams in the WNBA. Brown played at Unionville for coach Dennis White (Class of 2013) and is the program’s career scoring leader (2,266). She went on to be a two-time All-Big 10 performer at Penn State.

Coatesville’s state championship girls’ basketball team from 1994 becomes the fourth team to be enshrined, and the squad’s coach, Renee Talley, is also going into the hall of fame individually. Talley had a 322-102 record in two stints as the Red Raiders’ mentor.

The sizable WCU contingent also includes former women’s basketball coach Dierdre Kane, who is No. 2 on the all-time list in the PSAC with 447 wins, and basketball player Ramzee Stanton. The Coatesville native was a four-time all-conference performer and became the first WCU player to grab Division II All-American honors.

Other WCU grads include Jen O’Donnell — the latest in a prestigious group of renowned lacrosse officials already in the CCSHOF along with Jackie Hufnell (2014), Judy Wolstenholme (2014) and Joan Wagner (2015) — and swimmer Catherine Walsh Hay, who went on to start the swim program at Villa Maria, and has amassed 13 district and five state titles.

In addition, Ronn Jenkins has been the acclaimed diving coach for his alma mater for more than 40 years. The WCU grad was named the national coach of the year in 1995. And Elinor Z. Taylor was a graduate, teacher and administrator at WCU before embarking on a 29year career in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Taylor was also the daughter of West Chester High School coach Harold Zimmerman (Class of 2011).

Taylor is one of three honorees who will be inducted posthumously, along with Maria Whitehead and Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins, a Malvern native and 13-time winner on the National Hot Rod Association circuit. Whitehead was a standout in field hockey at West Chester East and Wake Forest, but died in 2006 at the age of 25.

The 2016 class is rounded out by West Chester triathlete Ken Glah, who won 10 Ironman competitions; horse trainer Jonathan Sheppard, who trained the earnings champion 24 times in the steeplechase; and Ted Torrance, who was a coach and administrator at Bishop Shanahan for 54 years, and the West Chester Adult Baseball League Director from 1980-2009.

Torrance was also a local sports writer and becomes the fourth staffer from the Daily Local News to be inducted. The others include Butch McDevitt (2009), Greg Greenday (2011) and George Heaslip (2012).

“Every year we have more and more quality athletes to choose from,” Schneider said. “Now we have Joey Wendle playing in the Major Leagues. We’ve got a couple pro quarterbacks in Matt Schaub and Matt Ryan that we haven’t taken yet, but I’m sure they will be in soon.

“We are not going to run out, I can tell you that. We’ll be old and gone before we run out. We are going to need some young people to take over this organization.”

The 2016 banquet will take place Nov. 12 at Downingtown Country Club.

CAROLYN KASTER — ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE Amanda Brown, seen here during her senior year at Penn State, is one of nine women to be included in this year’s class for the Chester County Sports Hall of Fame.