Ben Sirman, a star athlete, successful coach and important leader in the integration of Delaware sports and education, died Oct. 10 after an extended battle with heart disease and cancer. He was 82.
All-time great Bulldog
A three-sport star at Laurel High School, where he was the only first-team All-State basketball player in Bulldog history, Sirman was the southern team’s quarterback in the 1958 Blue-Gold football game and was quarterback and defensive back at Swarthmore College, where he also played three sports.
After graduation in 1962, he returned to Sussex County as a coach and turned Bridgeville into a basketball power.
More significantly, Sirman deployed his ethical, educational and righteous values in the integration of Bridgeville High, through its basketball team.
“Athletics is a great thing,” Sirman told The News Journal in a 2011 article. “You go out there, and you’re not thinking about Black or white. You just get the ball and go. It’s a perfect melting pot of people, and that’s what kind of developed with us. We came together.”
Moving on to Seaford
In 1969, he moved to Seaford, where as a history teacher, athletic director, and for four years, the football coach (26-13-1 record), he mentored thousands of students and dozens of coaches through his retirement in 1991. He continued to support the community in numerous ways thereafter.
Sirman served as executive secretary of the Henlopen Conference for 11 years and chairman of the Boys State Basketball Tournament Committee for 15 years, in addition to many other community roles.
He received the Herm Reitzes Award for public service from the Delaware Sportswriters and Broadcasters Association in 2009.
Sirman was recognized for his integration efforts with induction into the Delaware Afro-American Sports Hall of Fame in 2012, and was a charter inductee into the Delaware Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.
Sirman also served on the board of the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame for a decade, declining the presidency to focus on his health. At that point eligible for election, he was inducted into the Hall in the 2014 class.
The gym at Seaford High School was renamed the Ben Sirman Gymnasium in a ceremony on Feb. 14, 2022.
His wife Ellen, a fellow educator, has been a constant support, for Ben and other civic efforts. Their son, Trey, was an outstanding athlete at Seaford who also followed his parents into education.
