Dellen

This is the second in a series of articles profiling the 2007 honorees of the Butler Area Sports Hall of Fame. The annual banquet is April 28 at the Butler Days Inn.Although Aysha Dellen insists she was born too early, she more than made up for it later in life.The 67-year-old Butler resident will become the 15th woman — just the third since 1998 — to be inducted into the Butler Area Sports Hall of Fame at the organization's 42nd annual banquet April 28.Dellen was one of the first females known for a hook shot when she played intramural girls basketball at Butler High School from 1956-58. Her biggest claim to fame was playing and coaching in the Women's Franklin Field Softball League for more than 30 years.She also won gold medals at the PennsylvaniaSenior Olympics in the football and softball throws in 2001.Dellen played third base for the Pittsburgh Diamonds in the Senior League, which is for players age 55 and older, until two years ago."Playing sports were always a part of my life,"Dellen said. "I had to give it up for health reasons. I'm a diabetic. The aches and pains caught up with me. ... But I really miss it."And her softball team misses her."I started playing softball with Aysha maybe 30 years ago," Chicora resident Carol McCollough said. "To this day, she's the best female shortstop I've ever played with."She had a great arm, good range in the field and she was such a competitor."I'm thrilled she's going into the Hall of Fame. This is long overdue for her,"McCollough added.Though Butler did not have varsity sports for girls when she was in high school, Dellen was voted the most athletic female student of her 1958 graduating class.Always a standout intramural basketball player, she also played forward for Butler's girls traveling team for three years."Only the very best intramural players got to play for that team,"Dellen recalled. "We traveled to Mars and a few other nearby schools to play other teams."We played halfcourt, using three guards and three forwards, and guards weren't allowed to shoot. It was a different game then, and the hook shot is what I was famous for. I don't know why more basketball players today don't use it more often. I mean, nobody can block it."Dellen's softball teams finished either first or second in league play on a regular basis. Now that she can't play anymore, she helps coach her son's Trinity Lutheran church league team.She also was one of the first female coaches in the Butler Little League."My boys were playing and the team couldn't find a coach, so I did it,"Dellen said. "That was rare back then, a woman coaching boys, but I knew as much about baseball as any man."I had three sisters and my dad raised me as the boy he never had,"Dellen added, laughing. "I was definitely the tomboy."Dellen also played basketball, volleyball and badminton in the City Leagues and was a member of several championship teams."If I was in high school today, with all the opportunities girls have in sports now, I'd have gotten a college scholarship to play somewhere,"she said. "I'm happy for female athletes today, but a little jealous, too. They have opportunities I never had and I hope they take advantage of them."Dellen is still asked to coach softball, most recently with the Butler Girls Softball Association."I have a handicapped daughter at home and I'm limited in what I can do," she said.Dellen played softball for years while having only one kidney. She and her husband have raised their daughter and also endured a son receiving brain damage through a motorcycle accident."She's had a rough life of it in some ways, but she's such a devoted mother,"McCollough said. "Somehow, she always found time to play sports."