Cape Gazette’s Frederick to enter Delaware Sports Hall of Fame
Longtime Cape Gazette sports writer/columnist, and Cape Henlopen High School coach and teacher Dave “Fredman” Frederick is among nine prominent men and women selected for induction into the Delaware Sports Museum & Hall of Fame.
The nine standouts, who represent the sports of football, basketball, track & field, field hockey, lacrosse and harness racing, as well as sportswriting, will be honored at the state’s premier sports banquet Thursday, May 12, at the Chase Center on the Riverfront in Wilmington. Joining Frederick in the Class of 2022 are Juliet Bottorff (track - Tatnall, Duke), Katelyn Falgowski (field hockey - Saint Mark’s, University of North Carolina, Team USA), Joe Holloway (harness racing), Bob King (track - Howard, Morgan State), Khadijah Rushdan (basketball - St. Elizabeth, Rutgers), Bob Shillinglaw (lacrosse - University of Delaware), Devon Still (football - Howard, Penn State), and Gene Thompson (basketball, tennis, track - Wilmington High).
Tickets to the 46th annual banquet are $65 each with tables of eight available for $490. Social hour and silent auction will begin at 5:30 p.m. followed by the dinner and ceremony at 6:45.
After a decade of coaching Cape Henlopen High School to track and cross country championships, Frederick became a sports columnist, building a statewide following over the next four decades.
He coached Cape’s boys to Division II titles in outdoor track in 1976 and 1978, indoor track championships in 1984 and 1985, and Cape’s first cross country championship in 1977. He was the state’s Indoor Track Coach of the Year in 1984 and 1985. He was inducted into the Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2016.
In 1982, he began writing a weekly column at The Whale, a Sussex weekly, then moved to the Cape Gazette in 1993, where he has since written a twice-weekly column, with additional coverage and photography of all sports in all seasons. He became one of the few weekly sportswriters with credentials to cover the Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles. He has served as a sports analyst on WGMD radio and wrote an anthology of short stories, “In A Class By Myself.”
In 1982, he organized the Lewes Polar Bear Club, with winter plunges into the chilly waters of the Atlantic Ocean. He later collaborated with Delaware Special Olympics to make one of those events into a fundraiser, attracting hundreds. As a trailblazer of organized distance running downstate, he helped organize the Lewes Seashore Marathon and other races.
An all-conference football and basketball player at Bishop Egan in Philadelphia’s Catholic League, Frederick played football at Temple University. In 1975, he came to Delaware to replace Tom Hickman as Cape’s track coach and to assist the football team.
Tickets to the event go on sale beginning Monday, March 21, and can be purchased online at desports.org/events. The deadline for reserving tickets is Monday, May 9.
Advertising opportunities for the souvenir program are also available. Contact DSMHOF Executive Director Scott Selheimer at desports@desports.org for details.
