DOVER, Del. -- Delaware State University Director of Athletics Candy Young, a former world class track & field star, was honored in her hometown of Beaver Fall, Pa., for her lifelong achievements this weekend.
Young was among the 2013 honorees at the annual Larry Bruno Circle of Achievement ceremony.
National Football League Hall-of-Fame quarterback and Beaver Falls native Joe Namath was among the celebrities at the event.
Young, appointed as Delaware State University’s first female athletics director in 2012, held two world records as a high school freshman in 1977. That year, she gained notoriety when she broke the existing junior Olympic record, not once, but twice in the same day. The following year, she took fifth out of a field of 24 world-class hurdlers at Madison Square Garden in New York. She became an international sensation when she broke the 60 Hurdles record, also at MSG, with a time of 7.5 seconds.
Young was named the nation’s Most Outstanding High School Athlete in 1979. A Pennsylvania state champ in her specialty each year she competed, she qualified for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team but she and her teammates were unable to compete because of a boycott imposed on the games in Moscow by President Carter. Young maintained world-class status during her All-America career at Farleigh-Dickinson University.
In 1982, she and Stephanie Hightower finished in a dead heat in the 60 Hurdles, both establishing a world indoor mark of 7.38 seconds. In 1984, she capped her collegiate career by winning the NCAA Indoor Hurdles championship.
About the Larry Bruno Foundation
The Larry Bruno Foundation (LBF) is a non-profit corporation created in 2009 to preserve and perpetuate the attributes of its namesake Larry Bruno, the Magical Coach, via programs for the local community. The Foundation has dedicated a Sports Museum at the Carnegie Library of Beaver Falls that is home to the Larry Bruno Hall of Achievement. LBF plans to offer coach clinics and courses based on the lessons taught by the Magical Coach, and currently sponsors scholarships and provides assistance to community members that want, need and deserve recognition and hope. A special focus of the Foundation is in helping those in the community with brain disorders and sports injuries. The Larry Bruno Foundation and its Hall of Achievement plans to become the catalyst and agent for “Unity in the City” and change in attitudes about Beaver Falls.
For more information visit www.themagicalcoach.org<http://www.themagicalcoach.org/>.