BUTLER TWP — Setting a record time in a track and field relay is one thing.

Having it stand for 50 years is another.

Butler's Frank Hilovsky, Chick Maffei, Ted Bobby and Tom Paserba ran the mile relay in 3 minutes, 19 seconds, while winning the WPIAL championship in that event in 1969. That remains a Butler High School record to this day.

“I'm shocked that record still stands after all this time,” Maffei said. “The stars were aligned at that (WPIAL) meet. We all had a good day.”

That foursome also won the Penn Relays that season. They finished second behind Abington at the PIAA meet.

The quartet is among this year's Butler Area School District Athletic Hall of Fame class. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's class will be inducted in 2021.

“The four of us just had great chemistry,” Hilovsky said. “We practiced hard and worked hard.”

Butler's 800-meter relay team that year — Hilovsky, Paserba, Mike and Ted Bobby — also won the WPIAL title that year, setting a district record in the process. The 800 relay placed third at the state meet.

Only one mile relay team in all of Butler County — the 2011 Seneca Valley quartet of Andrew Schroeder, Oliver Philogene, George DeAugustino and Hunter Williams (3:18.36) — has run a faster time than that Butler mile-relay foursome.

Bill Lennox, who went on to fame as a track coach at Slippery Rock University, coached that 1969 group.

“Just thinking of those four guys puts a smile on my face,” Lennox said. “A lot of young kids don't want to put in the time to practice. Those guys did.

“One of the big things I focused on was the handoff. You have to get the stick around the track. They put in the effort. It takes time to perfect that and they got it done.”

And they got it done on a cinder track.

Maffei went on to run college track at Akron. Ted Bobby went on to Pitt while Hilovsky and Paserba competed at Slippery Rock. Paserba is now deceased.

“Those cinders were cruel,” Maffei said. “I can still see myself picking them out of my knees, my hands ... when I went to Akron and ran on a rubberized track, I couldn't help but wonder how much faster we might have been at Butler if we had one of those back then.”

They would have worn different shoes, of course, among other factors that may have changed.

“It's hard to say,” current Butler track coach Mike Seybert said of the transition from cinder to paved track. “I know they would have been faster, though.

“I remember running on cinders. They can come flying up on you ... It's tough. But that group's willingness to work on the baton exchange was probably as big as anything. That is such a key part of a relay. We emphasize that all the time now.”

Hilovsky said there were a lot of good teams in the WPIAL that year — Mt. Lebanon, Penn Hills, Baldwin, etc. — and “we were looking for any edge we could get.

“We had a lot of good races. It's exciting to be remembered like this. No one could have guessed that record would still be there today,” he said.

Tom Paserba was the first runner on that 1969 mile relay.

“He always got the lead, so there was never anyone in the way when they executed those handoffs,” Seybert said.

“Those guys worked long hours together,” said Bob Paserba, Tom's brother. “Those records were the result of a combination of talent and work.”

Gail Paserba, Tom's wife, said her husband spoke of those days “with great pride.”

He went on to work as a quality engineer and formed his own company.

“Tom always emphasized that track and field gave him so much more than that record,” Mrs. Paserba said. “He said it taught him how to establiish a goal and go after it, it taught him discipline and work ethic.

“Track gave him tools he used for the rest of his life.”

Maffei is proud of the record as well, but he wants to see it broken.

“That's why records are there,” he said. “While I'm surprised it's still there, I'd love to see another group of guys come along and shatter it, then be able to tell their kids about it 10 or 15 years later.

“That's what it's all about.”