Delaware has a splendid sports history.
During the last two years, Delaware Online/The News Journal has capsulized the First State’s prolific past with two epic lists.
Last year, we published a collection of Delaware’s all-time 100 greatest teams, a compendium of winners who left the most indelible marks on teammates, fans and followers.
That followed our 2021 recognition of the state’s 100 most accomplished athletes. It was a tribute to more than a century’s worth of icons who graced our landscape by excelling at their games, scoring victories, stirring emotions and instilling memories.
Those athletes and teams, of course, needed coaches. Now, we have assembled an honor roll for them. Many guided the athletes and teams on our previous lists.
We learned that 100 names was not enough and expanded this list to 125, though it certainly could have been larger.
They have been divided into five sections of 25. Here are the 51st through 75th all-time greatest Delaware coaches:
75: Jim Blades
Blades was an All-State basketball player and standout runner at Felton High before consolidation and, after graduating from West Chester, returned to what became Lake Forest for a distinguished coaching career. He steered Lake Forest cross country and track teams to 16 team titles and another 25 second-place finishes, was a four-time state Coach of the Year and the 1988 national Region 2 Coach of the Year.
74: Robin Adair
The Cape Henlopen graduate was elevated to the Tower Hill field hockey head coaching position in 1994 after the Hillers had won four straight state titles and continued the school’s historic hockey legacy. She guided Tower Hill to 17 state title games through 2017 and 10 championships with several players going on to play for top college programs and U.S. teams.
73: George Johnson
Johnson turned Howard into the state’s first cross country/track and field powerhouse in the 1950s. His Wildcat teams won seven straight state titles in track from 1955-61, plus six New Castle County, seven Peninsula Relays and six Penn Relays events during the dominant stretch. Howard also won four state titles in cross country and 33 straight dual meets from 1956-59 before others began to catch up.
72: Bob Neylan
The Dover High hurdling champ returned to his alma after competing for Alabama and Florida State between an Air Force stint. He coached the Senators to a 107-13 dual-meet record in track and field from 1973-82 plus four state team championships. He later returned for one season to guide Dover to a 9-1 record and third-place state-meet finish in 1987.
71: Herm Bastianelli
The former Lehigh University wrestler coached the Georgetown and post-consolidation Sussex Central teams to a 150-15 dual-meet record from 1960 to 1976, including a 56-match winning streak from 1961-69. His wrestlers won more than 50 conference individual titles and 11 state championships. Bastianelli also guided Sussex Central to its lone boys state cross country title in 1980 in Division II.
70: John Walsh
Walsh was state coach of the year in three sports – football, swimming and volleyball – over a long career at Archmere, where he coached future president Joe Biden, and Concord. He was state football coach of the year in 1960 with Biden’s undefeated Auks and went 50-14-1 in eight seasons. Walsh then was the first football coach at the new Concord. He later returned to Archmere and won 1986 and 1987 volleyball state titles, started a swim team and also coached softball and track.
69: Gil Jackson Jr.
The former Dickinson High standout had honed the skills of many top Wilmington basketball players while working at the city’s Brown Boys Club when Sanford School hired him to lead a program that had seven coaches the previous seven years and rarely won. Jackson proceeded to guide the Warriors to eight straight Independent Conference titles, the 1985 state championship and a 138-38 record before becoming a college coach.
68: Bill Collick
Collick was Delaware State University football coach from 1985-96, guiding the Hornets to an 81-48 record and five outright or shared MEAC titles. Collick coached 62 Hornets who were first-team All-MEAC, including six All-Americans and several who reached the NFL. He also coached the DSU wrestling team and was athletic director before later coaching the Sussex Tech and Cape Henlopen football teams.
67: Robert Kenney
As baseball coach from 1957-91, Rev. Kenney steered Salesianum to a 411-168 mark without a single losing record. The Sals were the first unbeaten state baseball champ in 1976, also won the 1979 title and reached three other title games.
66: Barbara Jo Apichella
Apichella started the Newark High volleyball team as a club in 1972 and it went varsity in 1973. The Yellowjackets quickly became a state powerhouse. They won their first state championship in 1976, took four straight from 1981-84 while winning 40 straight matches and another in 1990, plus a slew of Blue Hen Conference Flight A crowns under Apichella through 1995.
65: John Hickman
Hickman was once among Delaware’s most familiar summer sports figures, as manager of the Parkway baseball team in the Delaware Semi-Pro League that transfixed Wilmingtonians during the late 20th century. Hickman skippered Parkway to 16 league pennants and 13 play-off championships from 1956-90. His teams went 834-325.
64: Gene Thompson
Thompson was boys basketball coach at Wilmington High from 1976-77 through the school’s last year of existence 1998-99. The Red Devils won 1978, 1983 and 1988 state championships, had seven first-team All-State players, including three state Player of the Year selections. He was state Coach of the Year in basketball (1978), tennis (1978) and track and field (1994), when Wilmington was Division II state champ.
63: Mark DelPercio
DelPercio was state football coach of the year in 2003 when, in his sixth year at Glasgow, the Dragons went 9-1 and shared the Blue Hen Conference Flight A title. He then returned to his alma mater Middletown, guiding the Cavaliers to eight Division I state title games and the 2007, 2011 and 2012 championships before stepping down after the 2016 season with a 151-62 overall record.
62: Ralph Heiss
Heiss was Salesianum School outdoor track and field coach for 30 years and cross country coach for 18, creating a pile of state titles and coach of the year awards. His cross country teams won 16 state team titles plus crowned eight individual winners in 18 tries from 1989-2006, with 12 New Castle County team titles as well. His outdoor track teams won nine state titles from 1991-2007 along with seven county championships.
61: Steve Steinwedel
Steinwedel, who’d been an assistant the previous five years at South Carolina, was hired to coach University of Delaware men’s basketball in 1985 after the Blue Hens had endured seven straight losing seasons. Delaware won a record 19 games his third season. Then Delaware reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 1992, going 27-4 with a perfect North Atlantic Conference record, and returning in 1993.
60: Jim Doody
Doody coached Newark boys basketball for 18 seasons through 1994-95, going 268-131, winning the 1982, 1987 and 1990 state championships and the 1987, 1989 and 1990 Blue Hen Conference Flight A titles.
59: Bonnie Kenny
The University of Delaware volleyball coach from 2002-16 guided the Blue Hens to a 253-199 record and four NCAA Tournament berths – the only ones in school history — in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 as Colonial Athletic Association Tournament champions.
58: George Kosanovich
Kosanovich was a head football coach over 42 years at three Delaware high schools. Wilmington and McKean won three Flight B titles under Kosanovich from 1972-82. But it was over a 31-year stint at Concord that he became one of the state’s big winners, going 204-137-5 with 11 state tourney appearances and 2003, 2004 and 2006 Division II titles. Several of his players reached the NFL.
57: Lindsey Underwood
Elevated to succeed P.J. Kesmodel as Cape Henlopen girls lacrosse coach in 2017, Underwood has kept the Vikings victorious as they won had won 13 straight state titles and 176 consecutive games versus in-state foes until a 2023 title game loss to Tatnall.
56: Don Haman
Glasgow had experienced little boys basketball success before Haman became coach in 1990. With him in charge over the next 14 seasons, the Dragons were a state power, going 235-97 and winning 1993 and 2003 state championships plus several titles in rugged Blue Hen Conference Flight A.
55: Bob Gregore
Gregore made Concord synonymous with soccer success as coach for 12 seasons from 1968-79. Concord went 133-27-13 overall and 103-14-4 in the Blue Hen Conference, with six championships or co-titles. The Raiders won the 1971, 1972, 1976 and 1978 state titles.
54: Tina Martin
Martin coached the University of Delaware women’s basketball team for 21 seasons through 2016-17, the Blue Hens going 408-238. They reached four NCAA Tournaments — in 2001 as America East Tournament champion, 2007 as an at-large selection and 2012 and 2013 as Colonial Athletic Association Tournament champion on teams featuring All-American Elena Delle Donne. Martin’s Hens also ended Old Dominion’s stranglehold on the CAA regular-season title by winning that in 2005 after sharing the 2003 CAA title with the Monarchs.
53: Don Burawski
Burawski turned St. Mark’s into the state’s top high school football team as the school’s first coach after its 1970 opening, guiding the Spartans to a 73-30-2 record over 10 seasons. That included 1973, ’74 and ’78 state Division I titles and a 26-game win streak from 1973-75. His teams featured future Denver Bronco Steve Watson and future Delaware governor John Carney.
52: Joe Purzycki
The 1969 UD football captain won the state championship just six years later as undefeated Caesar Rodney High coach. He returned to his alma mater to join Raymond’s staff before, in 1981, becoming the first white coach at HBCU Delaware State, which had lost a game 105-0 in 1980. The Hornets went 15-5-1 overall and 6-2 in the MEAC his last two seasons in 1983-84 and Purzycki was 1983 MEAC Coach of the Year before he left for James Madison.
51: Art Madric
The former Wilmington High State long jump champ and football and basketball star started the Wilmington Track Club in 1978. It was a springboard to high school, regional and national success and college opportunity for many. Madric later coached Sanford, Howard and Glasgow while winning 15 state team championships and continues to provide individual instruction.
Have an idea for a compelling local sports story or is there an issue that needs public scrutiny? Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com and follow on Twitter @kevintresolini. Support local journalism by subscribing to delawareonline.com.
