DEARBORN — The Dearborn Parks and Recreation Commission recently held its 69th Annual Sports Awards Ceremony, honoring four local athletes and sports supporters.

The ceremony took place on June 12 at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center.

Richard Masi became the newest member of the department’s Sports Hall of Fame as a result of his achievements with the department’s Boxing Club.

Masi was a four-year participant in the club and had his greatest success in 1952 when he entered the state-sponsored Golden Gloves competition. He went undefeated in the tournament, taking top honors in the 136-lbs. lightweight division, making him one of only a handful of Dearborn boxers to earn a Golden Gloves State Championship.

After leaving the program as a competitive boxer, Masi continued to support the club by serving as a coach for several years. He became the 177th member of the Sports Hall of Fame.

Ayman Mustafa

Ayman Mustafa and Rick Jenks were inducted into the Dearborn Parks and Recreation Department’s Special Award Hall of Fame, which was created in 1988 to honor sponsors, officials, managers, coaches, administrators and other supporters of department-sponsored sports.

Mustafa earned his membership for his involvement in the city-sponsored softball leagues, as both a manager and an umpire, and later as a supervisor umpire. Starting in the mid-1980s, Mustafa managed teams — such as Little Professor and Palomar Bar — in the department’s popular Class B softball league, winning several championships in the early 1990s.

Mustafa also began a long umpiring career in the mid-1980s, earning a reputation for being one of the city’s best. He also began helping schedule and train hundreds of umpires in more than two decades.

Rick Jenks

Jenks earned his membership for his role in Dearborn Baseball, a partnership organization of the Parks and Recreation Department that was created in 1982 to replace the city’s Junior Baseball Program and provide children the opportunity to play baseball in competitive leagues. 

Jenks was one of the “founding fathers” of Dearborn Baseball, which grew into an organization of up to 900 participants annually.

During his 35 years, Jenks served as a board member and commissioner, coached, umpired, worked at instructional clinics and helped maintain the fields.

Philip Mahar

Philip Mahar was inducted into the Sports Legends Hall of Fame, which was created by the commission in 2000 to honor Dearborn residents who distinguish themselves in sports beyond the level of Dearborn Parks and Recreation Department-sponsored activities. 

Mahar, a member of the Fordson class of 1977, has had a long career coaching track and cross country at several local high schools beginning in 1982, working with the boys’ track team at St. Alphonsus and the girls’ track team at Fordson.

In 1984, Mahar took over as the head coach of the Tractor boys’ cross country program before taking over the track team the following year. He remained there for a quarter of a century.

Mahar later moved to Dearborn High where he has coached the girls’ track team since 2014, the boys’ cross-country team since 2016 and the boys’ track team since 2017. Over his four decades of coaching, his teams won nine conference titles and finished among the top 10 teams in the state five times.

The induction ceremony can be viewed on the city’s on-demand website.