Kelly, a West Chester High School product, served in the U.S. Air Force from 1950-54, then returned home to marry Adelyne Izzi. Their partnership spanned 52 years and produced three children, five grandchildren, one great-grandchild and literally thousands of other young people who benefited form their largesse and concern for their hometown and its residents.
Kelly was employed by the Burroughs Corporation in its defense and space missile division from 1955-72. During his tenure with Burroughs, he helped install the first Atlas missile site at Cape Canaveral, Fla. A lack of government contracts and a sagging economy cost Kelly his job in 1972. Undaunted, Alvy and Addy established Kelly’s Sports, Ltd., in West Chester’s Parkway Center in 1972. The business expanded in 1980 when a second store was added in the New Garden Shopping Center in Kennett Square. In 1985, Kelly consolidated his business into one store at the 202 bypass and Matlack Street, where it has proudly and devotedly served the community for the past 23 years. Kelly’s employs 45 people and annually sponsors some 50 youth and adult sports teams. Kelly’s makes it a practice to donate jackets to any area high school athletic team that wins a state championship.
In 1956, he engineered the rearranging of Green Field to a softball/football field which is used by thousands of residents each year. He later installed lights at the facility. One year later, Kelly, upon noticing a group of kids playing unsupervised football with no equipment, founded the Little All-American Football Association (LAFA). In its inaugural season, LAFA consisted of four teams and one division. Today, 51 years later, it has grown to three divisions and 12 teams.
Kelly, who coached baseball for 10 years in the East Side Little League, donated and installed lights at the West Chester Community Center for its outdoor basketball facility in 1960. In 1990, he replaced the lights as well as the basketball poles and backboards. Through the years, Kelly has donated scoreboards and other equipment to West Chester Henderson, West Chester East and Kennett high schools and St. Agnes School, and also to the West Goshen Township Community Park.
In 1995, Alvy and Addy, who passed away in 2005, formed the West Chester Area Sports Association and donated the initial $25,000 to get the non-profit, five-field, completely lighted facility up and running.
Kelly’s sponsorship and donations to West Chester University are legendary. So much so, that in 1992 he was named as honorary alumni of the university. In 1991, the foyer of WCU’s Hollinger Field House was dedicated to Alvy and Addy Kelly.
Included among Kelly’s voluminous honors and awards is his prestigious 2007 Youth League Award, presented to him at the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame by the organization’s Philadelphia Chapter at Villanova University.
In his prime, Kelly was a standout softball and football player. As a member of the semi-pro Kennett Crusaders football team, Kelly, who played center, was named Most Valuable Player for the 1955 season.
His contributions off the playing fields, however, are what set Alvy Kelly a breed apart and has earned him a well-deserved place of honor among the inaugural class of inductees into the Chester County Sports Hall of Fame.
RETURN TO HALL OF FAMERS
