NJ Hall of Fame
Valerie B. Ackerman
Professional basketball player; sports executive
Born: November 7, 1959, in Lakewood, New Jersey
Grew up in: Pennington, New Jersey
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2021: Sports
Some professional basketball players have stood taller than Val Ackerman, but few have reached the heights she has achieved as an athlete and sports executive. Currently the commissioner of the Big East Conference, Ackerman was the founding President of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and is a past President of USA Basketball, which oversees the U.S. men’s and women’s Olympic basketball program.
Ackerman grew up with sports in her veins. Her grandfather was athletic director at Trenton State College and her father the athletic director at her high school—Hopewell Valley Central. In high school, Ackerman set the varsity basketball record for career points scored (male or female), as well as the career scoring record in field hockey. She also ran track—and graduated second in her class.
Her high school performance earned Ackerman one of the first female athletic scholarships to the University of Virginia. She was a starter all four years on Virginia’s varsity basketball team (including captain for three seasons) and an Academic All-American twice. Ackerman received her bachelor’s degree in political and social thought, graduating with high distinction. She later earned a law degree at UCLA, but first, she played a single season of professional basketball in France.
Following her academic years, Ackerman started her legal career with a firm in New York, then joined the National Basketball Association as a staff attorney in 1988. She was as an executive at the NBA for eight years, serving as special assistant to NBA Commissioner David Stern and eventually VP of business affairs. In 1996, Ackerman was named first president of the new WNBA. She guided the league’s launch and helmed day-to-day operations for eight seasons. During her tenure, the league expanded from eight to sixteen teams.
In 2005, Ackerman was elected the first female president of USA Basketball. During her four-year term, she led the organization to a record of 222-23 and gold medal performances by the U.S. men’s and women’s basketball teams at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. In all, she served on the USA Basketball board of directors for 23 years.
Ackerman was named the fifth commissioner of the Big East Conference in June 2013. Upon taking the top spot, she guided the realignment of the Big East, with new schools, a new headquarters in New York City, and new partnerships with Fox Sports and Madison Square Garden.
Among her other achievements, Ackerman served two terms as the U.S. delegate to the Central Board of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), basketball’s worldwide governing body. She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011, and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021.
Reflecting on her pioneering path as a female sports executive, she told New Jersey Monthly: “A number of women are in positions of leadership in sports. It’s not 50-50, and there’s work to do, but more women have become mentors and guiding lights. We’re moving in a good direction.”
Sarah Dash
Vocalist; co-founder Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles
Born: August 18, 1945, in Trenton, New Jersey
Died: September 20, 2021
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2021: Performing Arts
Blessed with a four-and-a-half octave voice, Sarah Dash could take on any musical challenge. R&B, funk, disco, rock, rap—Dash wowed audiences in a variety of genres, whether performing as a headliner, group member or back-up singer.
Born to a pastor and a nurse, Dash, like many vocal greats, initially sang gospel music. Eager to perform secular songs, she formed her first group, the Del Capris, with a Trenton schoolmate, Nona Hendryx. The group—initially a quartet—added new vocalists, including Patti LaBelle (nee Patricia Holte), and tried new names. In time, they settled on Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles.
Dash was just 16 when the group was credited with its first single, “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman.” The song reached No. 15 on Billboard’s pop singles chart in April 1962. Subsequent hits included “Down the Aisle (Wedding Song)” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” In 1964, the group (by then the trio of Dash, LaBelle and Hendryx) landed a spot as opening act on the Rolling Stones’ first American tour.
As the music scene changed, so did Dash and company. They moved to England for a period and then came roaring back with an edgier image, a funkier sound and a new name: Labelle. The formula worked and in January 1975 Labelle reached No. 1 on the pop chart with an instant classic, “Lady Marmalade.” Suddenly Labelle was everywhere, the three women performing in space-age suits and feathery head-dresses.
After that career peak, the members split up to pursue solo careers—although there would be later reunions. Dash’s self-titled debut solo album in 1978 included the disco hit “Sinner Man.” Three more albums followed, and Dash found herself much in demand as a back-up singer. She frequently recorded with her friend Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, as well as such varied artists as the Marshall Tucker Band, David Johansen, Alice Cooper, Laura Nyro and Nile Rodgers.
In recent decades, Dash toured in gospel productions and appeared onstage in musicals, including the self-penned “Dash of Diva,” which was presented at the Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick.
Dash never forgot her roots in Trenton’s West Ward. She returned frequently to support local events, and in 2017 was named the city’s musical ambassador. In 2021, she appeared at the opening of a Covid-19 vaccine center in Trenton, arriving in a sequined mask to attract media attention to the inoculation effort. In recent decades, she also put significant focus on raising funds for at-need single mothers in New York City.
Upon her death, longtime friend Patti LaBelle said in a statement: “Sarah Dash was an awesomely talented, beautiful and loving soul who blessed my life and the lives of so many others in more ways than I can say. “
Paul Adolph Volcker Jr.
Economist; 12th chair of the Federal Reserve Bank
Born: September 5, 1927, in Cape May, New Jersey
Died: December 8, 2019, in New York City
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2021: Enterprise
A big man in both stature (he stood 6-foot-7) and influence, Paul Volcker helped shape American monetary policy for more than six decades. Best remembered for his efforts to reel in inflation, Volcker served two terms under two presidents as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank from 1979-1987.
Born in Cape May, Volcker was raised in Teaneck, where he played high school varsity basketball and his father served as city manager. Volcker received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a master’s from Harvard. In 1952, he took a job as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank In New York. Five years later, he left for a position at Chase Manhattan Bank. This began a career-long pattern of shuttling between government jobs and the private sector, including a period starting in 1974 when he was a visiting fellow at Princeton.
Volcker’s government posts included deputy undersecretary for monetary affairs in the Treasury Department and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he became actively involved in decision-making on monetary policy. In 1979, following a sharp rise in inflation, President Jimmy Carter nominated Volcker to be board chair of the Federal Reserve Bank. Here, Volcker had his greatest impact. He instituted policies to fight inflation, tighten controls on banks and limit the size of the national debt.
Volcker’s efforts to slay what he called “the inflationary dragon” proved controversial and painful. His intention was to slow spending by driving up interest rates. But rates rose higher than expected, which plunged the economy into recession. Consumer spending dropped; unemployment soared. Auto dealers reportedly sent the Fed keys to unsold cars. Homebuilders sent chunks of two-by-four lumber. And in 1980, the weakened economy helped cost President Carter his job.
In the long run, Volcker’s harsh policies worked and by 1983 (with Ronald Reagan as president), inflation had slowed and the nation was back to work. After leaving the Fed in 1987, Volcker served as chair of the National Commission on Public Service and later as chair of the International Accounting Standards board of trustees. He also chaired numerous committees, including one formed to mediate the claims between Holocaust victims and their survivors and Swiss banks.
President Barack Obama cast Volcker in his final public role as a chairperson of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board from 2009 to 2011. During his tenure, he introduced what became known as “the Volcker Rule,” a provision limiting banks and other financial institutions from making certain highly risky types of investments.
Upon Volcker’s death, Carter said in a statement: “Paul was as stubborn as he was tall… and although some of his policies as Fed chairman were politically costly, they were the right thing to do.” Indeed, as the New York Times stated in its obituary of Volcker, inflation has remained under control ever since Volcker’s tenure atop the Fed.
Margaret Bancroft (1854-1912) founded the Haddonfield Bancroft Training School for the multiply disabled.
Special-education pioneer
Born: June 28, 1854, in Philadelphia
Died: January 3, 1912, in New Jersey
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2021: Public Service
Margaret Bancroft was just 25 when, defying convention, she left her teaching job in Philadelphia to start a school for children with developmental disabilities. The school, located in a rented house in Haddonfield, New Jersey, started with just one student. It would endure to serve generations of special-needs children.
Bancroft’s teaching career began immediately upon her graduation from Philadelphia Normal School. She quickly developed a belief that all children, not matter their developmental shortcomings, deserved a chance at education. When she left her teaching job, some warned her that she was wasting her time and talents, but Bancroft persevered.
Launched in 1883, Bancroft’s school—originally named the Haddonfield School of the Mentally Deficient and Peculiarly Backward—implemented unique programs designed to stimulate the physical, mental and spiritual growth of the developmentally disabled. By 1904, the school was renamed the Bancroft Training School.
When Bancroft founded her school, children with special needs were typically institutionalized or isolated from mainstream children. Bancroft believed that with individualized attention, special-needs children could learn skills and gain a degree of independence. Her program also emphasized proper nutrition, personal hygiene, exercise, daily prayers, and sensory and artistic development. Recreational activities included trips to the circus and the theater.
Bancroft biographer Sister M. Krista Mote quotes Bancroft as telling her doubters: “Special children must have special schools with well-trained teachers who use materials adapted to those children’s capabilities. They should not be abandoned to state institutions where conditions were appallingly inhumane.”
Bancroft’s work informed future programs for special needs children and adults. She also inspired many in the medical profession to help the mentally disabled and helped change societal beliefs about the special-needs population. Her Bancroft School eventually outgrew its Haddonfield home, but continues as a nonprofit serving individuals at need throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware.
Monford Merrill “Monte” Irvin
Professional baseball player and executive
Born: Feb. 25, 1919 in Haleburg, Alabama
Raised in: Orange, New Jersey
Died: January 11, 2016, in Houston, Texas
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2021: Sports
One of the first African-Americans to play in baseball’s major leagues, Monte Irvin became an All-Star and a World Champion with the New York Giants after first attracting attention for his stellar play with the Newark Eagles in the Negro National League.
The future baseball Hall of Famer was born Monford Merrill Irvin in rural Alabama, but moved as a child with his family to Orange, New Jersey. He was a four-sport athlete in high school, setting the state record in the javelin throw. He received an athletic scholarship to attend Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he starred on the football field. But when Negro League recruiters came around, he left college to play baseball.
Irvin signed to play shortstop with the Newark Eagles in 1938 and achieved a batting average above .400 in 1940—a rare feat. Denied a raise after another stellar year in 1941, he jumped to the Mexican League in 1942, where he topped all players in batting average, home runs and runs batted in.
Drafted into the military during World War II, Irvin was deployed as an Army engineer in England, France and Belgium, serving at the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he returned to the Newark Eagles and again hit over .400 in 1946, winning his second batting title and leading his team to the Negro League championship.
Many experts considered Irvin a good choice to break baseball’s color barrier, but that distinction—and burden—went instead to Jackie Robinson in April 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Two years later, Irvin joined the New York Giants organization, playing first for Jersey City in the International League and breaking in as the Giants’ first African-American player in July 1949.
Irvin became a fixture in the outfield for the Giants, helping lead the team to the World Series in 1951, when he batted .312, topped the National League in runs batted in with 121, and finished third in the voting for Most Valuable Player. The Giants lost the championship to the New York Yankees, but Irvin batted an impressive .458 in the six-game series. That year, Irvin also served as a mentor to a promising Giants’ rookie, a fellow African-American from Alabama named Willie Mays.
Irvin was named to the National League’s All-Star team in 1952 and again reached the World Series with the Giants in 1954. This time the Giants won over the Cleveland Indians. After a back injury, Irvin retired as a player in 1957.
By the 1960s, Irvin was back in baseball as a scout for the New York Mets. In 1968, the baseball commissioner’s office hired Irvin as a public-relations specialist, making him Major League Baseball’s first African-American executive. He served as an MLB executive until 1984.
Irvin was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1973. Throughout his sport, Irvin was respected not just for his skills on the field, but as a pioneer, a gentleman and a loyal teammate.
