to download the PDF - Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame

JIM FISCHER
Over 30 years as track and cross country coach at the
University of Delaware, Jim Fischer has guided over 100
athletes to individual championships, helped countless
others to superior college achievement, and broadened
access to the sport throughout Delaware and elsewhere.
Since becoming Blue Hen coach in 1982, Fisher has been
named conference coach of the year five times. 119 of his
athletes have won individual conference championships.
His indoor teams were undefeated from 1987 to 1991, and
have an overall record of 121-36-1. Five of his teams have
won conference titles; another 12 finished second. Many
of those champions were not high school stars, but
blossomed under his mentoring. A nationally-recognized leader in the sport, he has been
president of the NCAA Division I Cross Country Coaches Association and coached the
East team at the 1991 Olympic Festival. He has been a goodwill ambassador and
clinician in Honduras, North Yemen, Egypt and China. He has been a board member of
USA Track & Field’s High Performance Division and Mid Atlantic Association. As an
assistant professor of physical education, he has instructed and coached many of the
state’s track coaches. On his own time, he has trained thousands of Delaware adults in a
Tuesday Night Group that he founded and has operated for the benefit of the community
for many years. He has served on the board of directors for Girls on the Run, and been an
adviser to the Leukemia Society and Special Olympics Delaware. He founded the
Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1994, and remains its president.
ALBERT HORNE
An integration pioneer, Albert Horne attended Bridgeville
High in 1965 rather than all black Jason High, where he
had been the first freshman ever to start in boys’ varsity
basketball. In football and basketball Bridgeville
compiled an overall 53-4 record during Horne’s junior
and senior years. Over those two seasons the football
teams went undefeated and the basketball team lost only
to conference champion Milton and to state champions
P.S. DuPont and Mt. Pleasant. Albert made invaluable
contributions in football, but excelled in basketball with a
career total of 1,129 points. He averaged 28 points as a
senior and more than 30 points in state tournament play where he was the star of the first
two boys’ state tournaments setting four state tournament records. Horne headed the 1st
team All-State squad in 1968, selected as Player of the Year in Delaware. Wesley coach
and DSMHOF inductee Jim Wentworth recruited Albert to be the Wolverine's first Afro-
American player. Wentworth recalls Horne having “the best range on a jump shot of
anyone I have ever seen.” Al served as Wesley’s basketball captain in 1970. He then
enrolled at Greensboro College, was among the school’s first Afro-American players,
and an All-Dixie Conference pick. Al passed away in 1992 at the age of 43. In 2010 he
was inducted into the Delaware Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association’s
Delaware Basketball Hall of Fame. In April of 2011, Horne was again honored when
he was inducted into the Delaware Afro-American Sports Hall of Fame.