With all the success enjoyed by Mercer soccer, baseball and softball teams over the years, the absolute excellence of county track & field sometimes gets overlooked. Former Notre Dame High track/cross country coach Tony Genovesi feels it’s time to change all that, and a group of his peers agree. Thus, the inaugural Mercer County Track & Field dinner will be held on Sunday, May 19 at the Nottingham Ballroom in Hamilton Square. Tickets are $100 and available for purchase through May 9 by emailing Genovesi at egenovesi@comcast.net. The cocktail hour is 3 p.m. and dinner starts at 4, as coaches, officials, athletes and Trentonian legend George O’Gorman (posthumously) will be honored. For more information go to mercertrackhalloffame.com. “These athletes deserve recognition,” said Genovesi, who spearheaded the effort. “A lot of them  get very little recognition. These achievements need to be celebrated and honored. A lot of them made history.” Indeed they have, as big-time colleges such as Stanford, Georgia, Rutgers, Clemson, Penn, Villanova, Virginia, Texas A&M and a plethora of Ivy League schools have all bolstered their teams with Mercer products. “I started thinking about this a couple years ago and I felt that if we didn’t get this started now, then when?” Genovesi said. “I wanted to do it while some of the older guys who know about the ’60s and the ’70s are still alive. You gotta have people who have that kind of knowledge; guys like Blei (Jerry Bleistein), Andre Modica, Al Jennings and Tom Harrington. We can bring our knowledge to the table and get it started, then turn it over to the next group of guys like Aaron Oldfield, Joe McLaughlin, Brian Gould.” “We’re trying to spread it out over the generations. That way every era has input.” The board itself is a Who’s Who of county track legends. It includes Genovesi (former ND state championship coach/official), Jennings (former Trenton championship coach/athlete/Trenton Track Club founder), Harrington (former Lawrence, Stuart, Princeton coach/official), Mike Walker (TCNJ assistant/former Robbinsville coach), Michelle Purvis (former ND state champion/TCNJ athlete), former Steinert teammates McLaughlin (ND head coach) and Oldfield (Hopewell Valley head coach), West Windsor-Plainsboro North coach Gould, Craig Wood (former Ewing coach/official), Peddie coach Tim Brennan, former Steinert coaches Andre Modica (official) and Doug Martin, Lawrence coach Tim Collins, Tom Ritter (former WW-P coach/official) and former Steinert and Mercer County Community College standout Bob Marchetti. Through their knowledge, research and diligence, they will induct a first class that includes standout athletes Felix Davis, Nick Kovalakides, Darrell Jeffress, Danielle O’Grady, Todd Matthews, Wenda “Wendy” Vereen, Elvin Bethea, Jackie Davis, Royce Flippen, Al Jennings, the 1978 Trenton High 4×400 and 4×800 relay teams, coach Jerry Bleistein, official George Wah, and O’Gorman as a special contributor for all the coverage he provided the sport. Athlete Inductees must be 28 or over and have attended or coached at a Mercer County secondary school. Also, the Larry Ivin Scholarship will go to a current high school male athlete and the George Wah Scholarship will go to a female athlete.  They will be announced the night of the dinner. Here is a look at six of the 14 inductees. The remaining eight will appear on-line Monday and run in Tuesday’s Trentonian. DANIELLE GRADY At age 12, Danielle Grady won the ARCO/Jesse Owens National Championship in the 200 and her standout career was underway. She was inducted into the Jesse Owens Hall of Fame in 1993 and placed in the TAC state meet with a state record of 2,557 points in the pentathlon’s Midget Division. At Notre Dame, Grady won the MCT gold in the 100, 200 and long jump as a freshman. She became a three-time MCT champ in the 100 and 200 and was a four-time Parochial A State champ in the 100 and 200. Grady was second in the Meet of Champions high hurdles and eighth in the Penn Relays in long jump. For her efforts Grady was named Athlete of the Decade for the 1990s and inducted into the Notre Dame Hall of Fame for track and basketball. She coaches track at Hamilton West. TODD MATTHEWS Notre Dame’s Todd Matthews was a Mercer County Indoor Champion in the 55 meters, 55 hurdles and long jump; and an MCT Outdoor champ in the 100, 200, 110 hurdles and long jump. He won various championships at the Parochial and State level, was Eastern States indoor champ and National Scholastic indoor champ in the Pentathlon and 60 hurdles. Matthews also won the 110 World Junior USA gold in 1998. At Clemson he earned All-America status in the 60 hurdles indoor and 110 hurdles outdoor and was Penn Relays 110 hurdles Champion of America in 2002. Matthews went on to have success professionally and still holds the Sudan-Africa National 110 hurdles record. ROYCE FLIPPIN Royce Flippin made his mark at both Princeton High School and Princeton University as one of Mercer’s all-time distance runners. During his senior year at PHS Flippin won the MCT indoor mile and Group III indoor 2-mile, placed third in the 2-mile in the Eastern States with a Mercer County record of 9:10.8 that stood for 32 years and a PHS record that still stands. In the 1976 outdoor season, Flippin won the MCT mile in 4:16.1, won the two mile at Central Jersey Group II and NJSIAA Group II meets and ran a 9:05.8 to finish third in the Meet of Champions. His second-place time of 9:05.2 at the Glenn Loucks Invitational set a Mercer 3200 record that stood for 34 years. At PU, Flippin helped the Tigers to their first-ever indoor Heptagonal Championship and was a member of three Heptagonal championship cross country teams. NICK KOVALAKIDES Nick Kovalakides starred in three sports for Princeton High in the mid-1950s and was state discus champion in 1957 and state javelin champ for three straight years. He set a state record in the jav of 211-8. At the University of Maryland, Kovalakides broke a 21-year-old school record in the javelin, was the ACC champ in discus, indoor and outdoor shot put and javelin, and Penn Relays and IC4A champ in javelin. As a U.S Marine, he was the All-Marine Corp javelin champ and national AAU and US-Pan American Games runner-up. Nick Kovalakides of Princeton High was state discus champion in 1957 and state javelin champ for three straight years. AL JENNINGS (COACH) Al Jennings, also known as King Alfonso, is one of the most influential and nicest coaches in Mercer County history. After a career at West Philadelphia High School and Maryland State College, he earned a Master’s Degree from Trenton State (now The College of New Jersey) and began teaching in Trenton in 1969. He started coaching outdoor track & field in 1970 and retired in 2010. During his career he coached national standout Wendy Vereen and the 1978 Penn Relays winning 4×400 and 4×800 TCHS teams. He founded the Trenton Track Club in 1973 and is still head coach of an organization that produced Olympic Gold medalist Athing Mu and numerous other standout runners that went on to big-time colleges. Rich Hundley III - For The TrentonianTrenton Track Club coach Al Jennings, left, gestures and fellow coach Bernice Mitchell, right, speaks at a sendoff event for Trenton track sensation Athing Mu ahead of the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday at City Hall. GEORGE WAH (OFFICIAL) A graduate of Trenton State (now The College of New Jersey) with a Bachelors and Masters in Health & Physical Education, Wah’s coaching career included soccer, basketball, swimming and baseball. After becoming a highly respected football official (in a career that went 50 years) Wah joined the New Jersey Track and Field Officials Association in 1979, and was an official and assignor through the Spring 2011 season. In 2003, he was honored as  NJ Boys T&F Official of the Year by the NJ Scholastic Coaches Association in cooperation with the NJSIAA.