Amy Mears DeMatt thinks back to her time in high school. She remembers finishing track or cross country practice, piling into a car with a group of friends and driving to Sideshow Pizza in Greensburg to have a slice.
“Just hanging out with that group, joking around and having fun,” she said of her favorite high school memories. “No matter how hard the practice was, we always had fun.”
Those moments, along with strong coaching influences, led to a successful career at Greensburg Salem and then at Washington and Lee University, where Mears DeMatt was scheduled to be inducted into the school’s athletic hall of fame as part of the 2020 class Sept. 17.
Mears DeMatt ran both cross country and track for the Generals. Among her many accomplishments while in college was an 18th-place finish at the 1994 NCAA cross country meet, earning All-America honors.
“I was completely awed. It’s such a tremendous honor,” she said of receiving the notice that she’d be enshrined among the athletic elite at the school in Lexington, Va.
Mears DeMatt’s older brother, Scott, ran cross country at Greensburg Salem, and that led to her interest in the sport. But it was her high school coach, Steve Snider, who got her hooked.
“They broke the mold when they made him. He was an excellent, excellent coach,” Mears DeMatt said. “He just instilled a love of running in all of us. He was really a great coach, and we were so lucky to have him.
“He’s never really gotten the proper recognition. I cannot adequately thank Coach Snider.”
Snider is a well-known face in the running community in Westmoreland County. He coached at Greensburg Salem for 28 years and served as an assistant at Saint Vincent. Two of his sons have coached track and cross country programs and multiple grandchildren ran in WPIAL competition.
When Mears DeMatt recently reached out via Facebook to her old high school running pals, Snider — as well as those trips to Showcase Pizza — were certainly part of the discussion.
“They are like, ‘Yeah, we loved it, we loved it,’ ” Mears DeMatt said of the trip down memory lane. “And they are posting all of their old photos.”
The daughter of a Westmoreland County lawyer, Mears DeMatt toured various college campuses in the south but fell in love with Washington and Lee. That’s where she met Jim Phemister, her collegiate coach who also served as one of her professors when she finished undergrad and stayed at Washington and Lee for law school.
His teachings helped lead her to her degree, and back to Westmoreland County, where Mears DeMatt works as a District Court Administrator at the Westmoreland County Courthouse.
She also is a proud wife to Mike DeMatt, who she met in law school and who serves as an assistant lacrosse coach at Hempfield. The two have a pair of children in Owen, 16, and Allison, 14, who are students at Hempfield and involved in sports for the Spartans.
“I can’t keep up with them. My son would dust me.” joked Mears DeMatt, who has continued her love for running into her adult years.
Next month, she will run the Boston Marathon, her sixth 26.2-mile competitive run in her life.
But first, she will receive one of the ultimate honors for a collegiate athlete.
“Once it started to sink in, I started to think about all of those people who I have met, those people who have helped me along the way,” she said. “I feel so lucky to have met all of them. They were really nice to me.”