Jeff Kashner: The baseball coaching legend guided his teams to 344 victories over 26 seasons at Pleasant Valley High School. The highlight of his career was a 41-game regular-season win streak, started by his 2000 squad and continued by his team the following year. His Bears teams won District 11-AA titles in 1982 and ’84 with the latter squad finishing fourth in the state. He is a two-time conference coach of the year and was named District 11 athletic director of the year.
Gary Kessel: The East Stroudsburg University Athletic Hall-of-Famer and two-time NCAA Division II All-America wrestler went on to a distinguished career as an official on the national scene. He won an Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association championship in 1977, served as the Warriors’ captain from 1975-77 and was a finalist for his school’s male athlete of the year in ’77. His many honors include being voted New Jersey’s state official of the year in 2007. He is serving his eighth year as EIWA president.
Kristen Maloney: The Pen Argyl Area High School graduate, who trained at the Parkettes National Gymnastics Training Center in Allentown, qualified for the U.S. Olympic team that won the bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Games. Leading up to the Olympics, she participated in the 1997 and ’99 World Championships, earned a gold medal on the balance beam at the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York, and won the all-around at the 1998 Pacific Alliance Championships. After the Sydney Games, she competed for UCLA on a full scholarship, graduating in 2005. Her career includes a stint with Cirque du Soleil and coaching stops at the University of New Hampshire and Iowa State.
Billy McCaffrey: Following a 2,051-point basketball career at Allentown Central Catholic High School in the late 1980s, he played two seasons for coach Mike Krzyzewski at Duke. The Blue Devils went to the NCAA Final Four both seasons, winning the national championship in 1991. He also was named to the Final Four all-tournament team. He transferred to Vanderbilt, and after sitting out a season, led the Commodores to the Southeastern Conference title and was named the SEC co-player of the year. At Central Catholic, McCaffrey’s honors include first-team and MVP selection by the East Penn Conference in 1987-88 and 1988-89. As a senior, he was named AP and UPI first team all-state, and Pennsylvania’s player of the year by both Gatorade and the Atlanta Tip-Off Club. He finished his playing career in Italy and Australia.
Bob Stem: The Phillipsburg High School alumnus compiled a 285-98-6 record as a football coach at his alma mater and Bethlehem Catholic, following a career as a three-year starting center and linebacker under coach Ben Schwartzwalder at Syracuse University. His high school career included all-state honors in football (1957) and becoming a state wrestling champion at 168 pounds (1958) while also lettering in track and field. His two coaching stints at Phillipsburg produced an NJSIAA sectional championship in 1977 and a 12-0 squad in 2005 that marked the first of three more sectional titles. He played in the 50th Easton-Phillipsburg Thanksgiving Day rivalry game and coached the Stateliners in the 75th and 100th games. He died in October 2023 at the age of 84.
Jeff Wilson: The 1986 East Stroudsburg University graduate has dedicated most of his adult life to the Warriors’ basketball program —three years as a player, 10 as an assistant coach and the last 20 as head coach. His teams have advanced to the NCAA Division II playoffs seven times with three Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference championships and seven PSAC East Division titles. He followed his mentor, Sal Mentesana, to Lehigh University as his top assistant for six years before returning to ESU as head coach in 2002. His teams since then are a combined 381-197. Wilson has produced 33 All-PSAC players, including at least one for the last 16 years.
Clyde “Red” Witman: The EIWA hall-of-famer and past president served 17 years as head wrestling coach and 10 as director of athletics at East Stroudsburg University. His program produced six NCAA Division I and 20 college division and Division II All-Americans. His squads, competing against the likes of such powers as Oklahoma, Oregon State, Maryland and Navy, won 76 percent of their dual meets, among them an upset of Iowa in 1968. The Warriors also won two PSAC championships. He served as a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee for wrestling. The former wrestler at West Chester University has been inducted by numerous halls of fame, including ESU, West Chester, PSAC, National Wrestling, Pennsylvania State and EIWA Officials. He died in April 2006 at the age of 74.
Bill Zimpfer: The Freedom High School graduate is this year’s John Kunda Memorial Media Award inductee after parlaying a degree in broadcasting at Penn State into eight seasons as play-by-play announcer for the Miami Dolphins. He did football play-by-play and public address work at Lehigh University (1979-89), broadcast Penn State football games (1990-94) while serving as public address announcer for Nittany Lions basketball games, and worked at WGPA in Bethlehem, WIP and WOGL in Philadelphia and did national broadcasts on IHEART radio.
