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Fahey’s Overseas Victory Not Due To Luck Of IrishJIM FAHEY IS a handball champion but you can’t say it’s due to the luck of the Irish. The big guy is of Irish descent. One look at him will convince you of that, but then so were the others that he recently conquered.Fahey, bom and reared in Cumberland and an all-round athletic standout at LaSalle High School, carried his handball fight to the heart of Erin. He flew to Ireland on the last weekend of January and returned as champion of the Castlebar Tournament.The 54-year-old Fahey, who became a star football end at Washington Lee University following his graduation from LaSalle, has been playing handball for only ten years but he put it all together in County Mayo. Fahey copped the title in Division D and, according to a story in the Irish News (one of the county’s three daily newspapers), “Big Jim Fahey of Marylands (sic), USA, was the toast of Castlebar following his magnificent achievement in winning the Silver Salver (tray) competition at the inaugural session of the tournament.”Fahey, president of the Creasy Company, a wholesale grocery firm in Hagerstown, said it was no big media deal. At the same time, he admittedthe victory was extremely satisfying to him. Jim has been quite proficient in handball, winning quite a few awards, but the silver salver won in Castlebar stands out as the nicest of all.A star on the 1944 LaSalle High basketball team (coached by Bill Keegan), which won the Eastern States Catholic Invitational at Newport, R.I., Fahey was one of two Hub City handballers in the Irish tournament. The other was Lew Buckingham, one of his regular foes at the Hagerstown YMCA. Fahey spends the best part of his lunch hour every day on the “Y” handball court.Fahey and Buckingham accompanied New Yorkers Jim Fitzpatrick and Mike McDonnell on the trip aboard an Irish Airlines plane. The Irish in New York have close ties with theirhome country and Fitzpatrick and McDonnell visit there once a year. It was they who extended the invitation to Fahey and Buckingham.The event attracted players from three of Ireland’s 26 free counties, according to Big Jim. “Some of the country’s top players weren’t there,” he said, “but the best in that part of Ireland were.”All but Fahey in the quartet flying from New York were defeated in their brackets. Fahey won by defeating Fr R Foran, E. O’Boyie and J. Reid. The style of play Jim said, is different in Ireland. “They rely on power, not finesse.”Faring better than his companions was a surprise to Jim because he was the oldest and has been playing for only ten years. “That’s not very long in handball,” he said, “but the guys I play against in Hagerstown (Buckingham and state champ JerryBoyer) are better than I am. That makes me workharder.”The trip was interesting for Fahey because his grandparents were from Galway, about 30 miles from Castlebar. “Our family name originated in Galway,” he says. “In fact, there were two other Faheys in the tournament, although one spelled his name with the ‘e.’ I checked the phone book and discovered that most of the Faheys there spell it without the ‘e.’•tRoy Lester, who was coaching Allegany High’s football team here when Jim was playing semi-pro baseball, had a unique pronunciation of the name. He called Jim “Fakey” (as in Fake). But that wasn’t unusual for Lester because Roy had nicknames for almost all of his friends.Fahey, who stands 6-2 and, because of his daily handball play, still has his boyish figure, beat Pete Rose by years as a looker” at bat. Rose “looks the ball” into the catcher’s mitt when he takes a pitch, just as Fahey used to do here.Fahey and friends were given a royal welcome when they arrived in Ireland and the treatment continued during their weekend stay. “Be sure to come back and defend your championship, they told Jim. He didn’t say he would or he wouldn’t, but did imply he’d love to do it ail over.Even had he lost in the first round, Fahey would have regarded the experience as rewarding. Winning made it that much sweeter.SPORTS KEG RESIDUE . . Honors are still coining in for Cumberland’s Crystal Fields who will receive the top Dapper Dan award here next Sunday. The Braddock Junior High girl, who won the national pitch-hit-run contest in her age group at the All-Star Game last July (she was 11 then) in Seattle, has been notified of her selection as a “distinguished athlete.” Women’s Sports Magazine publisher Douglas J. Latimer advised Crystal* the honor and sent her the February issue in whiff* she is featured. Tennis star Tracy Austin was picked as the magazine’s Athlete of the Year. In addition to five runnersup, Crystal was one of three distinguished athletes cited for outstanding achievement. Under separate cover, she will receive her award, plus an attractive blue nylon tote bag containing a variety of women’s products Former Allegany High football star Randy Stewart was honored by Evangel College in Springfield, Mo. as its Offensive Back of 1979. Randy, who broke into the Crusaders’ starting lineup as a freshman, is a junior at Evangel ... The Atlantic Coast Conference, long the national shooting leader, lost its title to Southeastern last season (50.31 percent to 50.27), but is back on top at 51.5. Next is the new Big East at 50.1, then the Pacific Coast, nudging the Big Eight, 49 88 to 49.85 .. . The Charles Town Turf Club is preparing for its opening February 22 with the installation of 110 new American Totalisator machines, a step in a series of changes to update the West Virginia racing plant. The new machines will allow bettors multiple bets per ticket, advanced race betting, and can accommodate different bet values and types on a single ticket. It also enables the bettor to buy and cash tickets at the same window.
Newspaper Details
Cumberland Evening Times
Cumberland, Maryland, US
Mon, Feb 04, 1980
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
MD, USA 19 Feb 2025
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