Greater Wilmington Sports Hall of Fame set for 16th induction class Sunday

The Greater Wilmington Sports Hall of Fame will induct its Class of 2023 on Sunday to cap three days of events in Wilmington.

A luncheon is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Wilmington Convention Center, with its fundraiser golf tournament set for 9 a.m. Saturday at Wilmington Municipal Golf Course.

On Sunday, a reception and auction will start at 5 p.m. at the convention center, with dinner and the induction ceremony at 6. Go to gwshof.com/2023-events for more information.

Here's a look at this year's class of five inductees in alphabetical order, and mistress of ceremonies.

Jennifer Alley

Jennifer Alley, the first full-time women’s basketball coach at the University of North Carolina, has championed women since the beginning of her career. Alley worked in both the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) and the NCAA as a teacher, coach and administrator, including time with the UNC Wilmington athletic department.

She went on to serve 13 years as the executive director for the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators, now Women Leaders In College Sports. A native of Hudson in Caldwell County, Alley was awarded a Nike Lifetime Achievement Award by Women Leaders in College Sports. Alley also was honored as an ACC Women’s Basketball Legend in 2009. She was named Appalachian State's University Distinguished Alumni of the Year in 2006.

Eddie Biedenbach

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Biedenbach went on to play basketball at N.C. State, quickly becoming a fan favorite as a speedy defensive guard who had uncanny hand and foot quickness, great ball-handling skills and an innate knack for the game.

Nicknamed “The Pittsburgh Pickpocket” and “The Pittsburgh Pirate” Biedenbach was selected by the Los Angeles Lakers with the 45th pick of the 1968 NBA Draft. He played briefly with the Phoenix Suns during the 1968-69 season before returning to N.C. State to begin a long and rewarding coaching career that included stops at Davidson, Georgia and UNC Asheville before arriving at UNCW as an assistant in 2013. His 256 victories at UNC Asheville are still a school record. He is also the winningest coach in the history of the Big South.

William Murphy III

William Murphy III (died 2009) was a standout athlete at Williston High School, where he was captain of the football team and earned the nickname “Big Train,” by which he was known to many, and graduated in 1954. Murphy attended Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina, and played football, then returned to Wilmington after graduation to care for his family.

Murphy immediately involved himself in the coaching, teaching, and mentoring of young neighborhood children, teaching them discipline and excellence through sports. He worked for the City of Wilmington Parks and Recreation Department and traveled to all the centers (mostly by walking) to organize sports and eventually became director of the 8th Street Center when it was just the “little white house on the hill.”

Murphy’s youth teams joined the local Pop Warner Football League, he coached organized women's softball teams, and eventually led the Wilmington Tigers semipro team. Posthumously, Murphy also has been inducted into the Mason Dixon Football League Hall of Fame and was honored in 2014 as an African American Pioneer by The Friends of North Carolina HBCU Parks and Recreation Majors. In addition, sports facilities at Robert Strange Park now bear his name.

Al Pastore

Even before his arrival in Wilmington in the mid-1990s, Al Pastore (died 2022) had made a name for himself in the soccer world. The New York native formed FC Westchester in 1986 and was named Youth National Coach of the Year by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America in 1992.

Pastore moved to Wilmington in 1996 and was the founding owner of the Wilmington Hammerheads, the professional soccer team that remained in town through 2017. He coached the Hammerheads for the first three seasons. After five seasons as an assistant at Duke, he returned to Wilmington and coached both the boys and girls programs at New Hanover High School, taking the boys to the 2008 state championship game.

Pastore is also a member of the New York State Soccer Hall of Fame and received the NSCAA’s Youth Long Term Service Award in 2003.

Mark Scalf

Mark Scalf is the all-time winningest baseball coach at UNCW and in the Colonial Athletic Association. After a four-year career as a second baseman for the Seahawks, his coaching career began in 1981 as a graduate assistant at UNC. He eventually returned to UNCW in 1984 and succeeded Bobby Guthrie as head coach in 1992.

Scalf coached the Seahawks for 28 seasons, compiling a record of 941-686-1, before retiring at the conclusion of the 2019 season. Under his guidance, UNCW won nine CAA regular-season titles and six tournament championships. They qualified for the NCAA Tournament 10 times. The 2008 team went on a school-record 21-game winning streak and set a program record with 44 victories.

Two of Scalf’s players – pitcher Brad Holt and shortstop Greg Jones – were selected in the first round of the Major League Baseball Draft and a total of 83 of Scalf’s former players went on to play professionally.

Nora Lynn Finch

The evening's mistress of ceremonies, Nora Lynn Finch has been a dynamic leader in the evolution of women's athletics as a coach, administrator, and national governing body committee head. A four-sport letterwinner at Western Carolina (basketball, field hockey, tennis, and volleyball), she later coached at Wake Forest and Peace College and was associate athletic director at N.C. State, chairing the NCAA Division I Women's basketball committee for eight years.

In 2019, Finch was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. She has also been inducted into the National Women's Athletic Hall of Fame, the Peace College Athletic Hall of Fame, and the Western Carolina Athletics Hall of Fame.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Wilmington Sports Hall of Fame inducts 5 in Class of 2023