She was the pioneer, the pied piper, the champion. The champion for her gender, the champion on the golf course. She was the embodiment of Helen Reddy’s woman. And she roared long before the women’s sports revolution we know today, long before women could express themselves through athletics, before women were playing on ESPN.

And it was with sadness earlier this week that we learned of Dale Salimeno’s death. Our region has lost a notable shareholder in the sports community, a woman who was a face of progress in this corner of the world for many years.

Dale was 68.

She won the first of her 15 club championships at the erstwhile New London Country Club in 1973, during the infancy of Title IX. She was 25 at the time. And with an unspoken simmer of everlasting repetition and consistency, she kept winning for 20 more years, paving a way in sports for women unknown in her childhood.

“A great lady,” Great Neck Country Club professional Kevin Shea, who knew her well, said earlier this week. “She was a great ambassador for women’s golf and New London Country Club.”

Also unspoken in her life: She battled illness. But kept playing. She not only taught kids in Groton for many years, but taught her son, Joe, how to swing the club as well. Dale wasn’t the only member of the household who won a championship at 28 Lamphere Rd. Joe grew up on the course and later won the men’s championship.

“There was never any woe-is-me with her. She was uncommonly brave,” Jim O’Neill, a veteran club member, former champion and de facto conscience of the place, was saying Wednesday. “And while she was very, very competitive, she was always gracious. Always.”

Dale Salimeno’s contribution was always understated, but no less significant. In the early '70s, opportunities for women in sports — locally and nationally — were scarce. Afterthoughts. And so now while the Serenas and Taurasis of the world, the daughters of Title IX, provide strong shoulders for the revolution, it’s Dale Salimeno who was part of the foundation.

Long live the pioneers.

“The face of women’s golf in eastern Connecticut for many years,” O’Neill said.

Dale Salimeno’s name belongs up there with all the others who affected change in our corner of the world. She inspired many. Cue Helen Reddy.

It has been suggested that even when our voices are silenced, they live on through family, friends and others they’ve touched. Dale and husband Joe did quite the job raising their son, who has become among the most accomplished and popular teachers at Cranston East High School in Rhode Island and football officials in eastern Connecticut.

Joe Salimeno, the outgoing president of the Eastern Board, is part of every inside joke with the football officials, who combine the earnestness required on game night with howls of laughter thereafter. Joe combines the triumphant quinella of a merciless sense of humor with the light touch required to be an official, when spasms of R-rated names rain on him like hailstones from the bleachers.

Dale’s wake is tonight from 5-8 at the Impellitteri-Malia Funeral Home in New London. The funeral will be Friday St. Joseph Church. Surely, much of the golf crowd will be there, saluting a great champion. But beyond all the hardware, Dale Salimeno’s contribution remains what she stood for, who she was and how she remained a beacon, even when she couldn’t swing a club any longer.

There was a memorable women’s championship match at Great Neck on Labor Day. Lynn Kiah made a flop shot from a ditch and then a 15-foot putt to win it on the first playoff hole, all with a sizeable gallery watching every swing.

Dale Salimeno would have been proud.

She started it all.

May she rest in peace.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.

Twitter: @BCgenius