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Beloit Memorial High school creating Athletic Hall of Fame
BELOIT — The 1969 state championship basketball game between Beloit Memorial and Neenah is arguably the greatest game ever played in the WIAA State Tournament.
In Beloit, there’s no argument. The undefeated 29-0 Purple Knights edged Neenah 71-69 in double overtime, thanks to LaMont Weaver tying the game at the end of regulation with a remarkable 45-foot buzzer-beating heave from just inside the half-court line.
That proud moment is just a fragment of a rich sports history that stretches beyond 100 years.
1969 was great, but what about the three straight titles won by Beloit in the 1930s? Or the star of that era, Johnny Watts, the first African American to star in the state tourney sinking the winning basket with a broken wrist? Or what about three-sport standout Frank Clarke, whose stellar NFL career ended in the Ice Bowl at Lambeau Field?
How many high schools anywhere can boast a Super Bowl coach (Jim Caldwell), a New York Yankee (Jerry Kenney),a first-round NBA draft pick and Olympian (Bill Hanzlik), a WNBA player (Rebecca Tibbetts) and a Division II women’s basketball coach (Tiffany Morton)?
What Beloit hasn’t had in the past is a way to honor and remember its best athletes and coaches. That will be rectified this year as over 100 are inducted into the Beloit Memorial High School Athletic Hall of Fame. There will be two celebrations for the inductees.
The first will be Dec. 19 prior to a boys varsity basketball game. The second will be Feb. 13 as the varsity basketball girls and boys teams play a double-header with the celebration between the games. More exact details will be released closer to the celebrations.
“In the year-plus I have been here, one of the first things I realized was that we don’t do a good enough job celebrating our history,” Beloit Memorial Athletic Director Dan Gratz said. “We know a lot of the most prominent people and state championship teams, but we forget the other great things.
“You find out how proud people are of this history, but the only way people would learn about it was word of mouth. We needed to create something that was going to be timeless. If we didn’t we would lose that history and that would be concerning.”
Gratz set out to rectify that situation, forming a Hall of Fame Committee who would evaluate athletes in the school’s long sports history.
“There are so many great names, so many great teams and so many great sports moments from Beloit Memorial,” Gratz said. “By launching this Athletic Sports Hall of Fame we are trying to reinvigorate the school’s best memorials and remind people that there were so many greats.
“Our first photo of a Beloit Memorial team is from 1895. Our first Hall of Famer was born in 1913.”
The committee, composed of prominent members of the sports community included former and current staff members and coaches. They evaluated close to 300 athletes from over a century of competition. Their task was enormous, Gratz said, and took months.
“We will have over 100 inductees in the first induction,” he said. “We talked extensively about not wanting to water down anyone’s induction. We spent so long trying to figure out the best way to do it. I spoke to 20 different high school and college Hall of Fame contacts. None of those individuals started those Halls. We had no experience to pull from. We had to literally invent the wheel here.
“There will be names left out in this initial induction that are well known and great student-athletes. Our intent was not to leave anyone out; this was such a monumental task that we needed to start somewhere and we feel this is just that — the start.”
Gratz said the committee used a tiered system in evaluating candidates, including whether the coaches or athletes belonged to state Hall of Fames, were state or school record holders or selected All-State and whether they competed collegiately or professionally.
“We felt that student-athletes who had a lasting impact on their community should be a major piece of it,” Gratz said.
A waiting period was created. The current induction class was cut off at 2004 BMHS graduates.
“We have 20 more years of athletes we haven’t evaluated yet,” Gratz said. “In addition to many candidates from the previous period who fell just short of induction and will be considered again.”.
Finding information on the oldest of the candidates was difficult as was information on female athletes prior to 1976 when the WIAA began sponsoring female athletics. Those females were not excluded. Stellar golfer Sarah Scott Starmer, for instance, will be inducted due to her phenomenal amateur success on the links while a high school student.
“That sport was not available to her here, but her amateur accomplishments outside of high school speak for themselves,” Gratz said.
As for the two celebrations, the committee hopes that inductees will be able to attend one or the other. Each inductee will receive a Hall of Fame plaque. Attempts will be made to inform them, but contact information isn’t available for all so Gratz is hoping friends and relatives get the word out.
“This city is extremely proud and should be,” Gratz said. “We want people to continue to remember and celebrate those achievements. These will be conversation starters and jog memories.We’ve been one of the best sports schools in Wisconsin. Period. The reality is that you look at our history and we’ve been great in every sport at one time or another.”
Gratz wants the project to continue, too. The plans are in motion, but they will continue to expand and improve.
“This is the first building block,” he said. “We needed to start somewhere. The Barkin Arena lobby will be the home base for this. We will have a touch screen TV that will give people access to the bios of people in the Hall. We will also have a Hall of Fame wall across from our weight room and a website with Hall bios that can be accessed anywhere at any time by anyone.
“It is not a finished product. We will continue to tweak the bios as more information and photos are available. We just needed to get started. It took a long time and a lot of lifting to get where we are. I’ve asked the committee to stay on and we will have an induction window in September every year. We haven’t decided, but maybe we’ll add five per year. The focus shifts from the original group to celebrating those handful every year.”
In addition to fostering pride in the school, Gratz hopes current athletes are inspired by the past.
The entire list of inductees follows:
David Achtemeier; Sahih As-Salaam (Terry Davis); Shelby Bandy; Menelik Barbary; Bernie Barkin; Alissa Bartz; Bill Barwick; Steve Bittorf; Kirk Bradford; Tony Brizzolara; Bruce Brown; Chris Brown; Nakeesha Brown; Chris Burt; Katie Bussan (Frey); Jim Caldwell; Tony Carr; Frank Clarke; Lakita Coleman (Franklin); Eric Collins; Katie Connelly; Charles Currier; Ron DeFauw; Tim Duffy; Jon Dupuis; Sam Eddy; Mark Edwards; Norman Edwards; Ty Evans; Al Farina; Gasper “Pop” Farina; Steve Ferger; Laura Finnegan (Hauser); Richard “Whitey” Gilbertson; Mallory Gill; Jack Gilmore; Charles Gladney; Bill Goetzke; Paul Golden Sr.; Donald Grady; Robert Grady.
Ethan Hanaman; Steve Hanaman; Jeff Hanson; Bill Hanzlik; George Harrell; John Heineke; Brooke Henderson (Joos); Michael Hodges; Bill Houck; Marsha Housley; Gary Hubka; Herman “Jake” Jacobson; Duane Jenkins; Darius Jones; Maureen Kearney; Jerry Kenney; Dave Kilgore; Gene Knutson; Vince Lamia; Tiffany LeShoure; James Lindsey; Fred Marks; Wes Mason; John Mauermann; Eddie May; Kurt Mikkelsen; Matt Miller; Curtis “Duke” Milheam; Paul Morrow; Tiffany Morton; Carl “Pill” Nelson; Ken Neubauer; Chris Pearson; Julius Pellegrini; Edward Polglaze; Harry Pohlman; Jennifer Pozzani; Tom Pratt; Tamaris Relerford; Tracey Richards; Julie Schill; John Schroeder; Sarah Scott Starmer; Donald Smith; Ashley Stanton (Parker); Jeff Stovall; John Thiel; Rebecca Tibbetts; Gene Van Galder; Duane Vance; Richard Vogel; Doug Wade; Johnny Watts; Kyle Weaver; LaMont Weaver; Gene Weeden; Chris Whitt; Wes Wieland; Harold “Dutch” Witte; Kristen Witting.
Source: Beloit Daily News
