Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League

Category: Contributor

For more than 33 years, Anne Madarasz has played a vital role in preserving and sharing the rich sports history of Western Pennsylvania through her work at the Senator John Heinz History Center. She currently serves as Chief Curator and Historian and as Director of the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, where she oversees the Museum’s collecting and interpretive efforts and has led extensive initiatives to document and celebrate the stories of high school athletes, teams, coaches, and communities throughout the region and across the nation. Madarasz directed the team responsible for developing the award-winning Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, which opened in 2004, and has partnered closely with the WPIAL to honor the League’s legacy, including helping plan and celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2006. She has served as a member of the WPIAL Hall of Fame Committee since its founding in 2007 and has coordinated 16 WPIAL Sportsmanship Summits in collaboration with the League, all hosted at the History Center. A former multi-sport student-athlete, Madarasz competed in field hockey, basketball, and lacrosse at Great Valley Senior High School in the District 1 Ches-Mont League, earning one varsity letter in basketball and four in lacrosse while serving as co-captain of the lacrosse team. She has continued her involvement in the sport as a coach, serving as an assistant with East End lacrosse and as both an assistant and head coach at Oakland Catholic High School from 2013–2017, where she led the program to its first Section I AA co-championship and a second-place finish in WPIAL Division AA.