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State Hall of Fame banquet postponed

The 58th annual Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame induction banquet, originally scheduled for Nov. 14 at the Pittsburgh Sheraton at Station Square has been postponed until next year. The new banquet date will be Oct. 30, 2021 at 6 p.m. at the same venue. The 12 individuals who will be inducted into the Hall, now designated as the State Class of 2021, include two from Washington County, Mary Ellen Boylan Jutca and Joe Solomon.

Jutca is a graduate of Immaculate Conception High School in Washington and Villanova University. As basketball player, she was the Philadelphia area’s 3-time “Big 5” Women’s MVP in 1974, 1975 and 1976 and the first female inducted into the Villanova Wildcats Varsity Club Sports Hall of Fame in 1985. In addition to her collegiate basketball career, she was also the Wildcats’ two-year tennis captain.

Solomon, who will be inducted posthumously, was a wrestler and wrestling official. A wrestler at Canonsburg High School, Pitt and a the U.S. Olympic Team member, Solomon won three straight WPIAL titles and was the 145-pound PIAA champion in 1950. At Pitt, he was the 167-pound NCAA champion in 1954 and was a four-time EIWA champion. Solomon officiated five NCAA Championships and wrestled for the USA in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics.

Former Auburn coach Pat Dye dies at 80

Former Auburn coach Pat Dye, who took over a downtrodden football program in 1981 and turned it into a Southeastern Conference power, died Monday. He was 80.

Lee County (Alabama) Coroner Bill Harris said Dye died at a hospice care facility in Auburn from complications of kidney and liver failure.

In 12 years at Auburn, Dye had a 99-39-4 record. Auburn won or shared four conference titles and the Tigers were ranked in the Associated Press’ Top 10 five times.

Dye’s overall record was 153-62-5 in 17 years at Auburn, Wyoming and East Carolina. His coaching career ended in 1992 when he was forced to resign after a pay-for-play scandal. Auburn was placed on two years probation.

Judge tosses Dykstra’s suit against Darling

A judge has dismissed Lenny Dykstra’s defamation lawsuit against former New York Mets teammate Ron Darling, ruling the outfielder’s reputation already was so tarnished it could not be damaged more.

Dykstra claimed he was defamed when Darling alleged he had made racist remarks toward Boston pitcher Oil Can Boyd during the 1986 World Series. Justice Robert D. Kalish in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan did not evaluate whether the remarks occurred.

“It is only to say that Dykstra’s reputation for unsportsmanlike conduct and bigotry is already so tarnished that it cannot be further injured by the reference,” Kalish said.

Dykstra filed the suit in April 2019. It followed the publication of Darling’s book, “108 Stitches: Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game.” Dykstra alleged defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Darling wrote Dykstra was “one of baseball’s all-time thugs” and was in the on-deck circle at Boston’s Fenway Park before Game 3 of the 1986 World Series while Boyd warmed up and was “shouting every imaginable and unimaginable insult and expletive in his direction – foul, racist, hateful, hurtful stuff.” Darling called it “the worst collection of taunts and insults I’d ever heard.”

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