Class of 1954

Year Inducted 1995

"Uncle" Marty Stern is a veteran championship track coach. Marty started his track career at Upper Darby High School and continued as a Hall of Fame athlete at West Chester University in the mid-1950s. He began coaching several successful high school programs in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. After winning 3 Pennsylvania state championships, he was named head coach at Villanova University.

In 1989, he was named NCAA Women’s Outdoor Track Coach of the Year. By the end of his coaching career, he had earned six NCAA National Coach of the Year awards.  Twenty-one of his athletes were individual NCAA champions, and five of his teams won NCAA championships. He coached 145 All-American athletes, 12 world record holders, 13 Olympians, 4 World Champions, 8 Academic All-Americans and 2 Rhodes Scholars. His coaching led to 22 Big East Conference Team Championships and 21 Penn Relay Championship of America Titles.  Marty was also a coach at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul Korea.  He has authored a book entitled Coach Marty Stern’s Secret to Running Faster and does motivational speaking across the country.