Two former National Football League players from First State High Schools will be among the nine inducted into the 2023 Delaware Sports Hall of Fame.
Newark High grad Kwame Harris, who went on to be a first-round draft pick for the San Francisco 49ers, and Concord grad Paul Worrilow, an undrafted linebacker who became one of the NFL’s top tacklers, will be drafted on April 18. Honored May.
They will be joined by golfer Chris Anderson, NCAA shot put champion Christina Hillman, official and women’s sports advocate Ruth Lajoie, swimmer Ray Peden, sprinter and hurdler Ginger Smith, boxer Joe Tiberi and roller skater champion Charles Wahlig .
The Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame is located at Frawley Stadium. The 47th Hall of Fame Banquet is scheduled for May 18 across the street at the Chase Center on the riverfront.
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Tickets are $75 each, tables of eight are available for $550. They can be purchased at www.desports.org/events or by sending a check to DSMHOF, 801 Shipyard Drive, Wilmington, Delaware, 19801. The social hour, silent auction and memorabilia display begins at 5:30pm, followed by dinner and ceremony at 6:45am.
Here’s a breakdown of the 2023 new arrivals.
CHRIS ANDERSON
Golf Digest named Anderson one of the top three golfers of all time in Delaware, along with Porky Oliver and Dave Douglas. As a freshman at AI du Pont High, Anderson won the 1977 Delaware Junior Championship. He then went on to win the Delaware Open a record seven times from 1983 to 2004 and is the only Delawareer to win the Philadelphia Amateur in its 125-year history. After graduating from the University of Virginia, he turned professional in 1984. Anderson won the 1991 Founders Club Match Play Championship at the PGA National Golf Club. He joined the Ben Hogan Tour in 1992 and won the Variety Club Tournament of Champions of Philadelphia and finished second in a playoff at the Fort Wayne Open. He also played on the Canadian PGA Tour in 1988 and qualified for the 1996 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville. After regaining amateur status, Anderson won the 2005 Delaware Amateur.
KWAME HARRIS
Great college football coaches seldom visited Delaware until Harris featured on Newark’s teams for four years in two-way standout from 1996-99, the last three of which were state Division I champions. He was a three-time first-team All-State and, as a senior, the state offensive player of the year, honored first lineman. Recruited by every college football powerhouse in the country, the 6-foot-7, 320-pound Harris went to Stanford, where he was a three-year starter and Morris Trophy winner for top Pac-10 offensive lineman as a junior declared for the NFL Draft. He was picked 26th overall by the 49ers. Harris played in 86 NFL games with 55 starts over six seasons, the last with Oakland.
CHRISTINA HILLMAN
Hillman won three discus and three outdoor shot put state titles at St. Thomas More, as well as Penn Relays and New Balance Indoor Nationals titles. She was a seven-time All-American at Iowa State, highlighted by her 2014 indoor and outdoor NCAA shot put championships. She also won Big 12 indoor and outdoor shot put titles in 2014 and won indoor again in 2016. Hillman also placed second and fourth (indoor) and fourth and sixth (outdoor) twice at the NCAAs. Her shot put record from Iowa State (59 ft 6¾ in) still stands, as does her 49-1 Delaware high school grade.
Ruth Lajoy
LaJoie is a longtime field hockey and basketball official who remains active in both sports and advocates for women’s sports and those involved. She received the 2006 Delaware Pathfinder Award from the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport and the 2017 DIAA State Award for Outstanding Service from the National Federation of High School Sports. The High graduate from Penns Grove, New Jersey played field hockey, basketball, lacrosse and tennis in West Chester and made the US Reserve team field hockey. She was inducted into the West Chester Athletic Hall of Fame. LaJoie helped establish girls’ athletics as a high school sport in Delaware in 1971, created a groundbreaking sportsmanship award as chair of the Delaware Board of Women’s Basketball Referees, and successfully pursued equal pay for boys’ coaches while coaching basketball at Conrad and girls on teams.
RAY PEDEN
Captain of the first swimming team at the Salesianum State Championships in 1973, he set 42 records at York College in the pool before becoming an open water swimming champion. With the Wilmington Aquatic Club as his base, Peden set the American record in the 26.2 mile marathon swim in 1984 and in 1986 became only the second Delawarean and 288th person to swim the English Channel. In 2004 he placed third (45-49 age group) in the US Masters Open Water Race. Peden was on the first relay team to swim from Cape Henlopen to Cape May across the Delaware Bay, was the 2010 men’s champion at the 12.5-mile Ocean Water Swim Around Key West, Florida, and was the 2.5-kilometer champion five years later in the 60-64 age group at the US Masters Open Water National Championships. The 29-year-old state trooper received the Order of the First State, Delaware’s highest civilian honor, in 1996.
GINGER SMITH
Smith, the first Delaware woman to run the Penn Relays in 1964, was then Delaware’s first runner, qualifying for the Olympic trials that summer as a 16-year-old and reaching the finals in the 80-meter hurdles and 100-, 200- and 400-meter sprints. At the rain-soaked 1966 Penn Relays, she led Tower Hill to the high school championship in the 4 x 100 yard relay, winning the 440-yard dash in 58.9 seconds. Later that summer, she led the Delaware Track and Field Club to the mid-Atlantic title by winning the 80 hurdles, 440 and 4 x 100 relay. When she was there, Stanford University didn’t have a women’s track team, so Smith competed for the Millbrae Lions Track Team and won the 1967 California 100-yard championship.
JOE TIBERI
Tiberi had an amateur boxing record of 44-4-2 with 31 knockouts, followed by a pro mark of 18-5-2 with 13 knockouts in the 1970s and 80s. He fought eight undefeated boxers and beat five. That included knocking out New England welterweight champion Fernando Fernandez at the Boston Garden and North Philadelphia’s Mike “Youngblood” Williams on ESPN. After his competitive career, Tiberi became a successful coach.
CHARLES WAHLIG
The late Wahlig is the only three-time USA Roller Sports Hall of Fame inductee honored for athlete, coach and outstanding service. He began winning national competitions in the 1950s, winning the 1957 USA National Senior Dance and National Speed Skating Championships and the 1958 Senior Dance title with a new partner. In 1959 he came second in the World Speed Contest in New Zealand. He then coached over 1,000 state, regional, national and world champions after moving to Delaware in 1970 and was the 1979 coach of the US Pan American Games. He later served as President of USA Roller Sports, served on the USA Roller Skating Board of Directors and the International Federation of Roller Skating Speed Skating Committee, and owned three roller rinks in Delaware.
PAUL SORRY
Worrilow was a first-team All-State team on both offense and defense, earned Concord the 2006 Division II state title and was named 2007 Defensive Player of the Year which he entered in a red shirt at the University of Delaware. Worrilow became a four-year starter and All-American linebacker for the Blue Hens and ranked fifth in UD history with 377 career tackles. Drafted undrafted with the Atlanta Falcons in 2013, he made more tackles than all but four NFL players in his first two seasons. Worrilow played for Atlanta in the Super Bowl and spent time with Detroit, Philadelphia and the Jets. In 76 NFL career games, including 52 starts, he made 415 tackles, forced four fumbles, four recovered and had two interceptions.
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