Dover, DE --- Six former Delaware State University athletes,
a coach, and a long-time supporter have been selected for induction
into the university’s Athletics Hall of Fame. The seven
men and one woman will be officially enshrined during a banquet
on Friday, February 21 at 7:00 p.m. at Delaware State’s
Martin Luther King Student Center.
Sage Steele, anchor/reporter for Comcast SportsNet (Baltimore/Washington)
will serve as mistress of ceremonies.
Topping the list of Delaware State’s 2003 Hall of Fame
inductees are former football All-America Rod Milstead (class
of 1992) and Tom Davis (’91), the school’s all-time
leading basketball scorer.
Milstead, an offensive lineman, was a three-time All-MEAC
First Team selection (1989-91). In 1991, he was selected to
the Walter Camp, Associated Press and Sheridan Black College
All-America teams. Milstead helped lead the Hornets to MEAC
championships in 1989 and ’91. He was drafted by the NFL’s
Dallas Cowboys before being traded to the Cleveland Browns prior
to the 1992 season. Milstead also played for the San Francisco
49ers and Washington Redskins. He was a member of the 49ers’
1995 Super Bowl championship team.
Davis scored a DSU record 2,275 points during his four seasons.
A three-time All-MEAC First Team selection, he was named league
Player of the Year in 1989. That season, he averaged 25.2 points
and 9.9 rebounds per game. In 1990-91, he averaged 24.7 points
and 12.2 rebounds to lead Delaware State to its first MEAC Tournament
championship game. He also holds the DSU single-game scoring
record of 50, set in 1989.
Former student-athletes Stacy Hithon (volleyball, basketball,
softball), Collie Brown (track and field), Eric Gass (baseball),
and the late Marvin Hicks (wrestling) were also selected for
the hall of Fame.
Hithon (’92), a three-sport star, was selected as DSU’s
Female Athlete of the Year in 1992. She was an All-MEAC volleyball
selection in 1991 and ’92, and selected to the All-Tournament
team in 1989. Hithon was also a member of the women’s
basketball team that reached the 1989 MEAC Tournament final.
Gass (’90), a pitcher, was Delaware State’s all-time
strikeout leader before the record was broken last season. He
helped lead the Hornets to their only baseball championship
in 1989. In the 17-2 championship game win over Howard, Gass
struck out a MEAC Tournament record 14 batters, and was three-for-six
at the plate with three runs batted in. He was named tournament
Most Valuable Player.
Brown (’86) was a member of Delaware State’s school-record
4x400, sprint medley and 4x800-meter relay teams, and a school-record
holder in the 800-meter run. He was also a member of the Hornets’
1986 MEAC indoor championship team.
Hicks (’90), who died in a car crash in 1991, was a
four-time MEAC wrestling champion (heavyweight). He was the
first Delaware State wrestler to qualify for the NCAA wrestling
championships (1990). Hicks was a former state champion wrestler
at Lake Forest High School near Dover.
Also named for induction into the Delaware State University
Athletics Hall of Fame is former track and field coach Joe Burden,
and H. Allen Hamilton, a former chairman of the DSU Athletics
Council.
Burden directed Delaware State’s men’s track and
field program from 1971 to 2000. Under his leadership, the Hornets
captured a total of six MEAC track titles. He also coached several
All-Americans and MEAC record-holders.
Hamilton, a university math professor, also served as Delaware
State’s MEAC faculty representative. He rarely misses
a Hornet athletic event.
The newest DSU Hall of Fame inductees will also be recognized
during the Hornets’ basketball doubleheader against Coppin
State on February 22 in Memorial Hall.
