Hall of Fame Member Bios 2004

View: Alphabetical List - Members by Induction Class - Biographies

Betty Shuster
Betty Shuster, a member of the Hall of Fame Committee, is being presented with the Meritorious Services Award for an adult lifetime of service to high school athletics as a coach, official and administrator. She is a 1963 Colls High graduate and won a total of nine varsity letters in four sports: field hockey, basketball, tennis and softball. Betty captained the hockey team in her senior year. She went to Trenton State College (now the College of New Jersey) and played hockey, basketball and softball there. Betty then began a career of teaching and coaching at four Camden Diocesan high schools. She was a basketball coach at Gloucester Catholic, basketball and softball coach at Paul VI, then coached hockey and golf and served as athletic director at St. James High. When the diocese closed St. James, Betty moved on to her present position at Sacred Heart in Vineland, where she started the field hockey program and she also coaches golf. Shuster is also a highly-respected official. She has officiated basketball games for over 25 years and officiated hockey games at both the scholastic and collegiate levels before coaching that sport.

Chuck Roney
Charles “Chuck” Roney, class of 1968, is the first Hall of Fame inductee in the Coaching category who has not been a Colls High coach. He did enjoy playing ports at Collingswood, including four years of lettering in both baseball and wrestling and two years of football. However, he is a self-proclaimed “average athlete at best” who simply “loved the competition and the camaraderie of being part of an athletic team.” Roney has achieved an outstanding record as a high school baseball coach over 29-year career, including 25 years as a head coach. He is one of the few 300-game winners in South Jersey annals, posting a 312-206 record at four high schools: Cherokee, Haddon Township, Pennsville and Eastern, plus a winning mark during one years as head coach at Glassboro State (Rowan University). He produced many championship teams and was honored as “Coach of the Year” by the Courier-Post in 1992, Inquirer in 1994 and NFHS New Jersey Baseball Coach of the Year in 2001. He has also been chosen “Teacher of the Year” as teacher of molecular biology. Roney was also founding board member of the South Jersey Baseball Hall of Fame and past president of both the South Jersey Baseball Coaches Association and the New Jersey Coaches Hall of Fame Committee. He is a graduate of Taylor University and holds a master’s degree in exercise physiology from Temple. He has brought great honor to Collingswood High by virtue of his teaching and coaching service to youth at other regional schools.

Dan Trainer
Dan Trainer never played a varsity sports at Collingswood High, but over the years he has coached dozens of boys who have made their marks in Panther athletics. Soon after graduation in 1958, Dan began helping to coach in the Collingswood Little League program. That began a 42-year (and counting) career with Foster’s (now Foster-Warne) major league team, all but the first few years as manager. During that period, his teams won many championships and one of those in recent years became the first Collingswood Little League squad to go undefeated for the entire season. Trainer also got involved when the junior wrestling program was launched. He has served 29 years as junior wrestling coach and 18 years as treasurer of the Collingswood Varsity Club. The junior program and Varsity Club have provided the foundation and support for Collingswood High’s success on the mats. Dan even found time to serve as an assistant football coach. In all three youth sports, Trainer has helped to install the fundamentals of the games, as well as the sportsmanship and competitive spirit that his charges take into high school sports. He has truly provided service to the community of Collingswood throughout his adult lifetime.

Edgar Warren
Skeets Irvine arrived in Collingswood and the brightest star in his first three seasons was Edger “Eggs” Warren. Collingswood won its first gridiron title in 1920 and was co-champion with Woodbury in 1921. Warren captained both those title teams. There were no All-South Jersey teams selected at the time, but the Newark News placed Warren on its second All-State team, a rare honor for a South Jersey player. In 1921, Eggs threw touchdown passes to Bob Wilkens and Howdey Roberts to enable the Colls to beat Camden 14-13. It was the first victory over Camden. The write-ups of the day called him big, fast, strong and deceptive runner and a ferocious linebacker. Game story after game story had his name in the first paragraph. Eggs Warren dominated his era.

Joe Bowman
As a sophomore, Joe Bowman ’55 was a top jayvee player and saw a bit of varsity action on the championship team of 1952-53 that’s also being honored tonight. He went on to star the next two seasons, being selected team Most Valuable Player as a senior. That year he was chosen the Group Four “Player of the Year.” He was known for his quickness and slashing drives to the basket. Bowman also ran on the track team. His biggest scholastic thrill was beating Camden. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected captain as a senior and played under his former high school coach, Jack McCloskey. Bowman graduated from the Wharton School of Business and then attended law school. Currently he is a business executive in Southern California.

Pat Roney Miller
Despite recurring hip and later back problems, Pat Roney Miller ’59 was a standout basketball and tennis player at Colls High. A memorable moment for her was making the basketball team as a freshman after a year of walking on crutches. She was a four-year letterman who captained the team and was the leading scorer with a 17 ppg average in her senior year. Pat was also a four-year letter winner in tennis and played first singles as both a junior and senior. She captained that team as a senior as well. Pat played a year of hockey before focusing on the other two sports. At Beaver College, she was an outstanding basketball player. There was no tennis team there at the time so she switched back to hockey and was a solid performer despite her lack of high school experience.

Jerry Cabnet
Jerry Cabnet, on the basis of his record, was the best boys tennis player ever to wear the Blue and Gold. He was 39-1 in scholastic competition from 1961-63. His only loss came in his sophomore year when he played at #2 singles behind his late brother Lou, also an outstanding player. Moving up to first singles, he was undefeated in his junior and senior years and won every scholastic competition open to him. His steady baseline game was more than a match for every frustrated opponent. In those days, coach Chet Ollinger entered his Colls High team in a Saturday league with the Philadelphia-area country club teams featuring many of the best players in the Delaware Valley. Led by the Cabnets, Collingswood won the league championship in 1961 and Lou and Jerry captained the doubles title. Jerry started at college at Temple, then served in the Army at Okinawa. Then, in his mid-20s, he completed his college degree at Rutgers-Camden and was once again a dominant tennis player at first singles.

Carolyn ‘Lynne’ Bartsch and Karin Bartsch Read
Twins Carolyn “Lynne” Bartsch and Karin Bartsch Read of the class of 1967 are being inducted into the Hall of Fame in the same year, since they played the same three sports and their accomplishments were almost identical. Both were three-year letterman in tennis, hockey and basketball and they were part of a great class which won championships in just about every boys’ and girls’ sport in their senior year. Karin played second singles to her twin’s first singles in tennis. She and Lynne played important roles on the hockey and basketball teams that won Colonial Conference titles when they were seniors. Karin scored the highest number of hockey goals, playing right wing, and she was MVP of the basketball team in her senior year. She was also awarded the Silver Medal as outstanding athlete in her class. Lynne captained the tennis team, played first singles and received the MVP award in that sport. She was also a high scorer on the basketball team and was a defensive bulwark of the hockey team from her fullback position. Together, the Bartsch girls proved double trouble for opposing players on the tennis courts, basketball gyms and hockey fields.

Patrice Wright Dennison
Patrice Dennison follows older brothers Rick and Tim Wright into the Colls Hall of Fame. She graduated in 1970 after earning nine varsity letters, three each in hockey, basketball and lacrosse. She also had the distinction of playing on Colonial Conference championship teams in all three sports, as well as an undefeated lacrosse team in her sophomore year. Patrice was a first team All-Colonial Conference basketball team selection in her senior year. She also captained the Colls hoopsters that year. She was a second team All-Conference pick and shared the team MCP award in hockey, and Collingswood won the conference title in that sport in both her sophomore and senior years. Patrice received the Howard “Skeets” Irvine Award as outstanding female athlete in the class of 1970.

John McShay
John McShay ’78 was perhaps the best cross-country and track miler produced by Collingswood in the second half of the 20th century. In cross-country, he was first team All-Conference and All-South Jersey Group 3 in both his junior and senior years, and All-South Jersey as a senior. That year, he was unbeaten in dual meets and was individual champion in the Colonial Conference and Camden County Championship Meets, placing second in the South Jersey Championships. John earned similar honors in track and his greatest achievement was winning the New Jersey State Indoor Mile Championship. In his senior year, he was the first-place finisher in the Colonial Conference, Camden County and South Jersey Group 3 Meets. Collingswood won the Colonial team title, edging Haddon Township by one point as McShay passed the best Hawk runner at the finish line. McShay ran the mile anchor leg on the Collingswood distance medley relay team that placed first in both the Woodbury and South Jersey Relays. That foursome set a school record that still stands.

Dominic Mariani
Dom Mariani Class of 1980 was an outstanding football player at Colls High during the years 1978-80. He was a star back on both sides of the ball, gaining All-Colonial Conference honors and being named to the All-South Jersey team as a defensive back. Mariani saved his best for last. Collingswood had not scored against Sterling for five years prior to that 1979 game. Then Dominic intercepted a pass and made 12 unassisted tackles to lead the Colls to a 48-6 rout. Dom went on to receive a degree in biology from Rutgers-Camden and the degree of doctor of chiropractic medicine from Palmer College of Chiropractic. Her is a practicing doctor of chiropractic medicine in South Jersey.

Doreen Slimm Deal
Collingswood High School has only offered gymnastics for a few years in its long history of athletics. Diminutive Doreen Slimm Deal ’81 took full advantage of the opportunity provided her. Known for her fast twist, super flipping and fearless vaulting, she was a three-time All-Conference and All-South Jersey selection. Doreen led coach Nancy Tolstoy’s team to participate in sectional competition and qualify for the state tournament. She was also vault champ in the Canada Classic while in high school. Doreen went on to an excellent gymnastics career at the University of West Virginia, where she was an All-East selection, placed second in the regional championships and gained All-American honors as well. Doreen placed 38th in the all-around national competition against the best gymnast of the U.S. She has also coached gymnastics for 12 years at Cherry Hill High School East and also coached at the private Cherry Hill Academy.

1952-53 Boys Basketball Team
Jack McCloskey’s coaching debut at Collingswood bordered on the spectacular as his team won the South Jersey Group 4 title, the second in school history. Among the teams defeated on the way to the crown were Trenton and Atlantic City, two schools which had dominated court play in the area. The Irvine Gymnasium had just opened in 1952 and capacity crowds regularly saluted one of the greatest teams in school history. The starting team consisted of Captain Walt Blankley, Bucky Waters, Alan Ferner, Bob Seitz, and Pete Celani. Jack Reinert and Ed Kurkian were among others who saw action. And there was a jayvee standout, Joe Bowman (also honored here tonight), who in 1959 would become McCloskey’s captain at Penn. The unit produced three college captains. Besides Bowman, Blankley captained Princeton and Ferne led LaSalle. Waters starred at North Carolina State, coached at Duke and can still be heard today as an analyst for college games. Seitz, at 6’9”, was one of the first giants who possessed true basketball skills. He was a teammate of Waters at N.C. State, but tragically died while still a young man. McClosky went on to become head coach at Penn and Wake Forest before embarking on a long career as a coach and executive in the NBA.

William K. Dickey
Bill Dickey, third recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, has practiced law in Collingswood for 55 years and distinguished himself by being elected to five terms in the State General Assembly. There he rose to serve as both Minority and Majority Leader, Speaker and, on two occasions, as acting Governor. Dickey suffered an eye injury at 16 which exempted him from active military service, but after graduating from Collingswood High in 1939 he did serve in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserves and also helped the war effort by working the midnight shift at New York Shipyard. Since his father had suffered a disabling stroke, Bill was then the sole support of his family. While working at night, he attended and graduated from the College of South Jersey (now Rutgers-Camden) in 1941 and the South Jersey Law School in 1944. Several years later, while a practicing lawyer, he earned a B.A. degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Dickey was elected president of the New Jersey Jaycees and served eight years as a municipal judge in Collingswood and two other communities. During that period, he was appointed chairman of the State Supreme Court’s Municipal Court Committee and was also the secretary of the Camden County Legal Aid Society. He was president of the Collingswood Republican Club for 16 years and was three times a delegate to the Republican National Convention. After retiring from the Assembly, Dickey served with distinction for 11 years as commissioner of the Delaware River Port Authority, including two years as chairman. He has been an active leader in many community organizations, including the Salvation Army, Better Business Bureau, South Jersey Chamber of Commerce, South Jersey Development Council and the Lions Club. Dickey has performed a great deal of pro bono work for these and other organizations over the years, and is admired and respected for his integrity, humility and kindness to others.