Bill Bixler - Inducted 2011

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INDUCTED 2011

State Championship. Check. District Championships. Check. Producing High School All-Americans. Check. Coach of the Year honors. Check. There really are no holes in the success resume of Cumberland Valley High School Track and Field Coach Bill Bixler, so let's keep the good times rolling by welcoming him tonight into the South Central Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.

Bixler says he became a track coach in large because of his first track coach, Bill Butler; an early mentor at Boiling Springs High School in the late l 960s, when Bixler himself was part of a state Class AA championship 4x800 relay team. "In high school, that track and field experience was very important to me," Bixler recalled recently. "It gave me a work ethic. It gave me the ability to set goals and try to achieve them. And together it was something that we all really enjoyed. "And I had somebody who was nice to me and encouraged me," Bixler added, referring to his old coach. "Hopefully, that's something that I've been able to pass on to my athletes along the way."

Message received. Cumberland Valley's track program has been littered with kids who were convinced they can do it during Bixler's tenure, including more than 100 state medalists, seven individual and five relay team state champions, and three individual and four relay All-Americans. As Jen Gray, a member of CV's District III winning girls' team in 2004 told the Carlisle Sentinel that year, one of three times Bixler was named the newspaper's Track & Field Coach of the year: "He's so dedicated that he makes you want to be dedicated, or you'll feel bad." "He teaches you to get more out of yourself than you ever realized you had," echoed another Eagles alum, Steve Koons.

Is there any higher praise for a coach? We don't think so. After a successful run as a hurdler at West Chester University, Bixler started his own teaching and coaching career at Upper Merion High School in suburban Philadelphia. He came back to the Midstate when Cumberland Valley hired him in 1978. He joined the track and field staff immediately as an assistant, before taking the reins of the boys and girls programs in 2001. It was that spring that an especially deep Eagles boys team won the PIAA Class AAA team championship. Bixler's track teams would go on to notch multiple Mid-Penn Conference team titles, three District III team titles (two boys and one girls), and place in the top five in total points at the state meet four more times.

Along the way, Bixler has made time to scratch his own competitive itch, competing very well at the masters level through his 40s. He was named an age group All-American in the 800 meters in 1997 and followed that up with an 800 meter race title in the State Games of America in 1999.

Bixler and his wife Nancy, the longtime operator of the Cumberland Gymnastics center in Carlisle, live in South Middleton Twp., the coach's boyhood hometown. They have two children, Curtis, who ran cross country and track at Syracuse University, and Anna, currently a student at East Stroudsburg University. Bixler retired as a middle school principal at CV at the end of the 2009-2010 school year, but at the tender age of 60 the coaching is expected to continue for a while. He is, he says, still having too much fun to stop.

INDUCTED 2013

The athletic trainer's wing of the South Central Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame opens tonight for one of the most important men in Pennsylvania. That would be Tim Bream, director of athletic training services at Penn State University, and the head athletic trainer for its football team. What that means is this: Bream is the man most responsible for the care, feeding and well-being of the young men carrying the standard for the still-treasured Nittany Lions' franchise. How he got there is a story in itself.

Until 2012, the Gettysburg native was in the midst of a happy, 19-year stint with the National Football League's Chicago Bears. But then the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke. Penn State had just hired Bill O'Brien, most recently of the New England Patriots, and as O'Brien was building his staff, Bream's NFL reputation and Penn State pedigree put him on the new coach's list. When O'Brien and Athletic Director David Joyner called, Bream, a member of PSU's class of 1983, couldn't say no. "The toughest decision I ever had to make, bar none," he said. "I had such a great experience as an undergraduate ... I felt good about being able to come back and contribute. And I couldn't think of a better time to make that move."

Bream had a stellar career as an athletic trainer long before hitting Chicago or State College. After earning a master's from West Virginia in 1984, he served on the staff at Syracuse University, Vanderbilt University and the University of Richmond, where he was head athletic trainer from 1988 through 1993. Bream joined the Bears' staff in 1993, serving as head athletic trainer there from 1997 on. That would, you will recall, include the Super Bowl trip in 2007. 

Outside of those "day jobs," Bream also lent his talents to a long list of special events, including service to the 1992 U.S. Winter Olympics Team in Albertville, France, where he worked with cross country skiers and biathlon racers. Bream says the ride all started with his exposure to the sports teams and trainers at Gettysburg College, where his grandfather was athletic director for many years and his father, Jack, was also a star athlete and an active alum.

College trainers Romeo Capozzi and Gareth "Lefty" Biser were family friends whom the young Bream deeply admired, and during his senior year in high school, besides playing basketball and baseball, Bream was welcomed as a student helper in the Bullets' training room. From there, it was on to Penn State, where he majored in health and physical education, and got his career underway.

Now he's back. In his second tour at Penn State, Bream oversees services for all 31 varsity teams, and about 800 student-athletes. He also supervises a large corps of student athletic trainers. He loves his job because it keeps him in the competitive arena that all sports provide, but squarely on the side of helping the kids. "It is kind of a service-oriented occupation, but I really don't look at this as a job," Bream said recently. "There's a lot of self-fulfillment in thinking that you can make a difference in young peoples' lives."

INDUCTED 2013

Darwin Breaux has, you might say, institutionalized Dickinson College's place as a top Centennial Conference football program. Having come to Carlisle as a member of Ed Sweeney's staff, Breaux took over as head coach in 1992 while the program was riding a relatively newfound high from the Ed Sweeney years. But lots of sports programs have high highs and low lows. What Breaux did was place Dickinson's program on the map for the long haul, making Carlisle, PA a must-see stop for many student athletes looking to have a Division III football career. And now, 21 years later, Breaux's name is firmly entrenched in the list of Dickinson's all-time coaching greats.

He has registered the most wins as head coach of all-time, more than doubling the total amassed by the second-place Sweeney. He ranks fifth on the career winning percentage list, with a sterling mark of .593 entering this season. He has guided the Red Devils to five post-season berths, including trips to the NCAA Division III playoffs in 2004 and 2006, and seen 18 players named as All-Americans. Dozens of former players have started their own coaching careers. All the while, his colleagues say, Breaux has done it with a certain, even-keeled class, where every player is made to feel like an important part of the team, and every assistant feels empowered to do his job. "The guy is a gentleman from the word go," said Joel Quattrone, Breaux's longtime defensive coordinator. "He's a big family guy, and Dickinson football is definitely a family."

Breaux is a native Louisianian who landed in Carlisle by way of West Chester University, where he played quarterback, and then marriage to a Pennsylvania girl who helped convince him to sink roots in the Mid-Atlantic region. His first job in South Central PA was as an assistant to Barry Streeter at Gettysburg College, where he also served as the Bullets' head golf and wrestling coach. Breaux joined Sweeney's staff in 1989, playing a key cog in Dickinson's football renaissance as offensive coordinator and recruiting director.

A resident of Boiling Springs, Breaux said he has never gotten the itch to leave Dickinson, and has enjoyed the stability a successful run at a well-regarded D-III school provides. "To me, football is football. It should be about teaching and being a mentor, and this is a tremendous place to do that with a bunch of top-notch young men," Breaux said. Dickinson, he noted, "is a tremendous institution academically, it plays in a great athletic conference, and with two children in the family this was a great place for them to grow up."

But that doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy rubbing elbows with the high priests of football from time to time. For Breaux, that chance has come in recent years as a summer assistant at the Manning Passing Academy. Yes, that is the fundamentals camp for aspiring quarterbacks run by those Mannings. But tonight's honor isn't about who Breaux knows. This honor is about all he's done to make "Wearing the Red" a point of pride for the small school with the big reputation in Carlisle.

INDUCTED 2011

Last year, the Hall of Fame took in one great Shippensburg University softball coach: Bobby L. Davis, who won more than two-thirds of his games in a 16-year career. Welcome to Lady Raiders softball, the sequel. This year, the Hall welcomes Bob Brookens, who succeeded Davis as Shippensburg's softball coach in 2001, and hasn't let the program skip a beat.

This past spring, Brookens was named Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Eastern Division Coach of the Year for the fifth time in his 11 years, after orchestrating a nice bounce-back season that saw the Lady raiders going from their first losing record in Brookens' tenure to a sparkling 28-15. The 2011 season culminated in an Eastern Division title and the team's ninth trip to the NCAA Division II softball tournament for the ninth time in Brookens' career. 

All this from a former baseball player who was really just trying to be a good dad. Brookens tells the story about how one night his little girls came home in tears with the news that they wouldn't have a softball team that year because there was no coach. "I said, "I'll go over and see how it works, and I've been stuck in it ever since." He followed his oldest daughter into volunteer service at Chambersburg High School, then started coaching an accomplished American Softball Association travel team for area girls, and eventually joined Shippensburg as Davis's assistant in 1997.

In truth, it wasn't that much of a stretch for Brookens to coach on the diamond. He is from the same lineage, after all, that produced Franklin County major leaguer, fellow South Central Hall member and current first base coach for the Detroit Tigers Tom Brookens. The two are cousins. But for Bob Brookens, softball was love and not career until 2001, when with Davis’s retirement, the Shippensburg job opened up and he was chosen. 

It has worked out pretty well. Brookens' teams have won nearly 380 games during his tenure, for a career winning percentage of .663. And the resume includes three PSAC Championships, eight consecutive NCAA tournament appearances from 2002-09, including two Mid-Atlantic regional

championships and a third-place finish nationally in 2004 Individually, this late bloomer has won a mantle-full of coaching awards too, including two selections as the NCAA Division II Mid-Atlantic Region Coach of the Year.

The irony of Brookens' trajectory to this night- going into sports professionally after a lifetime of doing it for fun and love is not lost on this humble, former foundry worker. "I guess I could say I was very, very lucky to be given the opportunity to go to Shippensburg University and be able to do this job that I truly love so much," he summed up in a recent interview.

There is really nothing unusual about the secret to Brookens' success, though. He simply tries to honor his players the same way he honors the game: They learn their softball, for sure. But along the way they also get a surrogate father for their college years who's always there to try to help, on and off the field. "I just believe in becoming not only their coach, but a good friend," Brookens said. "And if you get them to believe in your system, I think young women in particular will run through a wall for you."

As he enters the Hall, Brookens also offers his appreciation to his wife Sue, and their three adult daughters for allowing him to pursue a passion that has kept him away from home more often than the average day job.

INDUCTED 2012

Like a lot of sons, Bill Davidson was introduced to golf by his father, a man who took up the game despite having lost one hand in a boyhood accident. But unlike most of us, Davidson got good quickly, learned the finer points of the game by watching others and, in fairly short order, made himself into one of the best tournament players in the Harrisburg region.

It started when his dad asked him to caddie. After several hours of boredom, the men he was carrying clubs for suddenly put some money into his hand. Young Bill decided he could do that again. Within a few years, Davidson started hitting the ball for himself, and it was love at first sight. "When I hit the first one on the sweet spot," he recalls, "I was in love, and I knew that was what I wanted to do." So, while most of his friends were vying to become part of Carlisle High School's football, basketball or baseball dynasties in the 1950s, Davidson was known as "the golf guy." 

It was not a sign of disrespect. For in his sport, Davidson quickly showed he was among the best around. One of the first signs was the high school state championship in State College in 1955. Davidson took third place, even after coming home on the night between the two rounds to take his girlfriend to the prom! 

From there, Davidson carried his clubs to a scholarship at Penn State, where he competed on the university's golf team. It was at Penn State that he scored probably the biggest single win of his life, capturing the individual Eastern Intercollegiate Championship in 1958. In 1959, Davidson - a two-time qualifier for the NCAA Championship - was named to the first NCAA golf All-American team.

Back home, meanwhile, he was already established as one of the big men on the tees. Davidson at age 18 won his first club championship at the Carlisle Country Club, his home course and certainly Cumberland County's golf capitol at the time.

In his prime, Davidson would eventually win five more club titles, countless other regional tourney titles, and qualify for the US Amateur Championship - the pinnacle of amateur golf in America - twice. Davidson's strength, he says, was his short game: "I wouldn't give you two cents for my driver, but I would have bet my life on my wedge and putter," he said in describing his game recently. And his specialty was the one-on-one environment of match play tournaments, where you try to win more individual holes than your opponent, and the occasional double or triple-bogey doesn't set you back as much as it might in stroke play competition.

Davidson pondered a professional career with the Palmers and Nicklauses of the world. But he never acted on that dream because, he explained, in an era where all you needed was a financial sponsor to get started, he decided he simply did not want to be beholden to anyone. He opted instead for a job with Connecticut General Life Insurance Co., kept playing golf and has no regrets. "God gave me a great wife, two fine young sons, and I have enjoyed my working career," he said.

More recently, Davidson has added two Carlisle senior championships to his trophy case, and seen both his sons, Clayton and Heath post junior club championships. Now 75, the romance still burns. Davidson said he still tries to get a round in every Saturday and "I still enjoy practicing."

INDUCTED 2011

Scotland School for Veterans Children was so good for so long in so many sports that its small school competitors sometimes grumbled, if mostly in private, that competing against it was somehow unfair. The very nature of the now defunct school, as an institution for children of veterans who were in need, was obviously different from most South Central Pennsylvania schools. But to argue Scotland recruited or took other advantages really does a disservice to the quality people who built a uniquely winning program from the ground up. One of them, Ralph Dusman, is honored here tonight as a coach and administrator.

Before Dusman arrived at the small Franklin County campus in 1967 as a high school Social Studies teacher and head boys basketball coach, Scotland wasn't necessarily feared on Midstate basketball courts. But Dusman, a former three-sport athlete at Hanover High School, steadily crafted a winning program that really hit its stride by the mid-1970s, when the Cadets kicked off a run where they made the District III hoops tournament field in 10 out of 12 years, and captured a Class A title in 1975.

Dusman also served as athletic director from 1973 through 1984, a period in which the groundwork was laid for similar successes in the school's football and track and field programs as well.

A big part of the Cadets' evolution, he says, was winning entrance into the Mid Penn Conference in the 1980s, which gave the school an opportunity to find quality competition without having to travel all over the countryside. "That really did give our kids a chance to compete against some very good

teams and learn the proper way to do it," Dusman said.

The ensuing Scotland success wasn't as effortless as it might have looked. Dusman noted Scotland's athletes, all of whom had to enroll in the school by age 13, frequently came there in poor academic shape and needed to learn to be better students. Academic eligibility standards wound up being higher than the PIAA's. They also had to adapt to a strict set of rules on the campus. For Dusman, that challenge of person-building became a reason to stay for a career. "When I went there, I was hoping to move on to a small college or some larger high school or whatever," he said recently. "But working with these kids and trying to set the examples that they needed to have to get better, I did enjoy that opportunity. It didn't always happen perfectly, but when you got everybody on the right track at Scotland, you had a team spirit that I think was above and beyond what you will see at some of the regular public schools," Dusman added. 

Dusman's contributions to Scotland went well beyond the playing fields. From 1985 to 1991 he served as the school's academic principal, and then as director of education and programs - essentially equivalent to serving as dean at a college - through 1999. After retirement that year, Dusman still had a little more to give, and he returned to his old job as athletic director through 2005.

Dusman and his wife, Phyllis, who have two children, live in Chambersburg 

INDUCTED 2011

Something triggered in Ken Bowman's mind last year when he saw Washington DC teacher Natalie Randolph getting a wave of national publicity for becoming, as the reports went, the first female to serve as head coach of a high school varsity football team in at least 25 years. Bowman knew a fellow alum of his old Eichelberger High School in Hanover had done something similar decades earlier, and he wanted to make sure that Ruth Dusman Fretwell Bruce's unique contribution to the lives of a bunch of West Fairview (Cumberland County) schoolboys so long ago wasn't forgotten. One extensive research project later and Bruce is presented tonight for posthumous induction into the South Central Chapter Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.

In 1947, you see, it was the then-Mrs. Fretwell whom people were talking about. Then a 26-year-old teacher at West Fairview School - an independent K- 10 school serving the gritty little West Shore town - she stepped in to coach the football team to comply with PIAA regulations that required coaches to be faculty members of a school. There were no male teachers at West Fairview that year.

Mrs. Fretwell by day, she taught biology, general science and math. At 3:30 p.m., she looped a whistle around her neck and became "Coach Fretwell" to her 16-member team. In today's Internet age, we would say that Bruce's story "went viral"; not only was she featured prominently in local newspapers, but her service was documented in newspapers and magazines from coast-to-coast. Comedian Bob Hope devoted one of his syndicated humor columns to the idea of a woman coaching football, one that also captures the pre-Women's Lib altitudes of the time: "Those boys should be well trained with a girl coach around," Hope wrote. "Yes sir, they should have no trouble keeping their eyes on the belle."

And she also received a file full of letters: some hate mail, according to the record; but mostly good wishes from businesses and regular folks across the country who commended Bruce for stepping up to a unique challenge. It didn't hurt the story that this particular team was really, really good. Playing a slate of junior varsity teams from around the area, the West Fairview boys, eighth, ninth- and ten-graders, split their first two games, then reeled off a seven-game win streak to close out the season during which they outscored their opponents 100-0.

It wasn't all the coach, as Bruce would be the first one to admit. She had two experienced assistants that had helped to run the team in prior years, former players recall, and there was also a stable of pretty good athletes on the roster that year, hopeful of continuing their high school careers at Lemoyne or Enola high schools, where the West Fairview graduates had a choice of enrolling tuition free. But nor was Bruce, whose main exposure to the gridiron up to that point had come via performing as a college cheerleader at Millersville University, just a feminine figurehead. As she told an Associated Press reporter that year, "I'm reading all the rule books and coaching books I can get my hands on ... l hope I'm good enough and win enough games to keep right on being a coach."

Longtime friend Nancy Otstot came to know Bruce later in her career, when she served as a school principal and later as a reading supervisor for the East Pennsboro School District. As Otstot watched her friend in those positions, she said, she came to understand it was Bruce's teaching skills and force of personality that served her well in anything she was doing, whether it was trying to make sure a student was “reading to his or her potential, or a squad of football players were playing up theirs'.

"She had that ingredient, the ability to motivate others," Otstot said. "That's exactly what she did, and she was like the Pied Piper of the community" during her service at the West Fairview School, where in addition to teaching several subjects in the higher grades, Bruce was always involved in a variety of extra-curricular programs, including coaching students through elaborate holiday and other stage performances, Otstot added. "If she'd have walked down the street the whole community would have followed her."

The West Fairview School closed in the 1960s, shortly after the community elected to merge its school into East Pennsboro. But Bruce, who had become principal of the community school by that time, stayed on with the district, eventually retiring with 40 years of service. Twice widowed, Bruce's first husband, Milton Fretwell, died in 1971 after 27 years of marriage. Her second husband of five years, David Bruce, died in 1983.

It might surprise Bruce to be celebrated today for her brief, albeit outrageously successful stint as a football coach. But friends and family actually think it's the perfect way to commemorate her can-do spirit, which literally saved a key experience for her students in that post-war time period when male educators were few and far between and then turned it into a season that they would never forget. "Whatever it takes, it was her whole persona," Otstot said of her friend, who died in 2009 in Hanover at age 88. "There was no way she would not have stepped up to that challenge if that was the only way he could have a team."

That's exactly what Bowman wanted to remember. "If she wouldn't have stepped forward there wouldn't have been a football team, and those guys were so proud that they were a part of that team," he said. "I wanted to make sure that she got the credit for what she did."

INDUCTED 2012

What does Dee Fichter Cross have in common with LeBron James? Just like "King James," she was a part of championship teams at the state, national and world level competitions. Now, how does Cross's triplet do James' one better? Well, she accomplished her feat in three different sports. As Casey Stengel would say: "You can look it up." Cross's teams won a state basketball title in high school; a national collegiate field hockey championship while at Shippensburg University in 1979; and finally, a 1989 World Cup crown when she was playing for the United States national team in womens' lacrosse.

The South Central chapter honors Norristown native Cross for all the above tonight, but with special attention to the years that she demonstrated her multisport prowess at Shippensburg from 1977 through 1981. At Ship, she has long been considered one of the greatest female athletes in school history and was selected as a member of SU's inaugural Hall of Fame class. Always a passionate athlete, Cross said she was initially drawn to Shippensburg because it was a school that was known for a good business program, and a place where she believed she could continue to play a different sport in each season. Add in the fact that the then-coach of the US National womens' lacrosse team, local native Kathy Heinze, was helping to launch a new lacrosse program at the school, and Cross - who had played in high school - was sold.

At Shippensburg, it is Cross's field hockey credentials that shine the brightest now. The Lady Raiders - coached by 2009 South Central inductee Jane Goss – won the Division III national championship in 1979, in a year when Cross set a single season record with 17 goals and was named Division III "Player of the Year" by Field Hockey News. Cross was also part of a 27-game unbeaten streak through her first two seasons at Ship and completed her career in 1980 with a career record 49 goals scored in 64 games - her goals scored per game average would stand until 2006.

But Cross was truly an all-around star at Shippensburg, earning 12 letters in total and finishing as the career scoring leader in basketball; and with single-season and career assist records for the lacrosse program. It Was the latter sport where Cross made a huge name for herself on the national

and international stage. Her connection with Heinze, her original college coach, got her a tryout for the national team after her junior year. There, Cross opened eyes with her playmaking ability and would go on to play with the Americans in all kinds of tournaments over the next decade. Her crowning achievement would be serving a captain of the 1989 team that won the World Cup with a sudden death overtime win over England. Cross was selected to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1999.

Currently the girl’s lacrosse coach at Upper Dublin High School, where she has especially relished the chance to coach her own daughters, Cross looks back fondly on her years at Ship, and credits her coaches and teammates - in all three sports - for helping her to fully realize her potential as an athlete.

"It was the perfect school for me, and I feel really blessed that I was able to play all three sports all through college," she said recently. "It was three different sports with three very different coaching styles, but they were all winning programs and I just grew by leaps and bounds.”

INDUCTED 2012

For Kris James Furness, speed was always important. That was evident from a high school career that included two school sprint records and a big school 4 x 100 meter relay gold medal at the 1982 PIAA state championships. Furness shared that gold with teammates Karen Johnson, Stacey Owens and Stephanie Smallwood. Then, there was her continued growth at Shippensburg University that would lead to two more school sprint records in 1984: a 12.10 second 100-meter dash that has been tied but not bested; and a sparkling 24.81 second run in the 200-meter dash. Through her four years at Shippensburg, the Lady Raiders were a remarkable 33-0 in dual meets, and won the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Championship in 1984. The speedy Furness was inducted into Shippensburg's Hall of Fame in 2000. But it's actually the long distance race of life that has allowed her sporting accomplishments to age like a fine wine.

For example, Furness says her time spent as a track coach - 18 seasons back at Carlisle that included a 1993 PIAA District III team title and the mentoring of three individual state champions - showed her how tough it is for everything to come together to allow an athlete to perform at his or her peak at just the right moment, and how much the steady support of coaches and family can mean in the process. 

Furness thinks of her own parents, her Shippensburg University track coach Galen Piper, and Carlisle Athletic Director Dave Eavenson, who helped her successfully navigate the challenges of being first-year coach with lots of talent and the challenge of high expectations. She said she enjoyed that kind of pay-off as a coach and aunt when her niece, Kacey James, captured the Class AAA state javelin title in 2005. "That was an emotional time and a great moment for me."

There was also time spent at years of track meets where Furness couldn't help but hear other coaches and parents raving about some new star on the horizon. When she had a private moment to think about such things, it pleasantly surprised her to know the times in question were the same kinds of time she used to post at Midstate meets. "I'd sometimes think: 'Wow. That must have been said about me."

The perspective of time has also moved Furness's individual records from being just the latest in a never-ending string of "PRs" to marks that have never been bettered by 28 years of Shippensburg runners. "When I was doing it, I was always looking to the next goal and what I needed to do now," Furness said. "I don't think I realized the value of the accomplishments at the time." But through the filter of time, she said, the achievements and the ingredients that helped her get them have all taken a special place in her life and helped her enjoy even more giving back as a teacher, coach and Mom herself.

A Fayetteville resident, Furness resigned as Carlisle's head track & field coach after the 2007 season to have more time to watch her two children in their own spring sports. She continues to teach 6th-grade English at Carlisle's Wilson Middle School, and she and husband Doug enjoy still cheering on their daughter, Devin, for the Chambersburg High girls’ soccer team.

INDUCTED 2012

Scott James was a basketball letter-winner in both his junior and senior years for Carlisle High School, and a tri-captain and starting point guard on the first team of the Dave Lebo era to reach the PIAA state tournament in 1980. His true passion, however, was baseball.

In the 1979 and 1980 seasons, Scott earned a number of accolades with some very good Thundering Herd teams. Posting batting averages of .367 and .422, respectively, he was twice selected as the South Central League's All-Star Catcher, and twice was selected Carlisle baseball's MVP. In his senior year, Scott added the Clyde Washington Memorial Scholarship as Carlisle's outstanding male athlete. His old high school and legion coach Harry Mundorf says it was deserved. He remembers James as one of the best all-around players ever at Carlisle, mixing clutch hitting with good defensive skills and general leadership abilities. "I was glad he played for us," Mundorf said.

In the summer of 1979, meanwhile, James also helped lead a loaded Carlisle American Legion team to a Cumberland County championship and second-place finish in the Pennsylvania State tournament. He was one of three players on that team (along with future major leaguer Sid Bream, and Mike Knox) to play pro ball. James, though, would first head to West Chester University. There, he was an instrumental part of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference championship team in his junior year. Individually, James was a PSAC All-Star in both his junior and senior years.

Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in 1984, James played one season in the Appalachian League and helped lead the Pulaski Braves to a Divisional Championship. But the convergence of a shoulder injury and a new baby boy caused James to take an early exit from the minor leagues, though not from the sporting life. James returned to Carlisle as a basketball coach, coaching middle schoolers and junior varsity teams during the Thundering Herd's unprecedented state title run. 

As successful as Scott's sports career has been, the winning moments weren't all on the field. The Carlisle boys rallied heroically in the face of tremendous adversity during James' senior basketball season, when their teammate Jay Hodge died during a game against rival Steelton-Highspire. After a week off, the Herd boys channeled their emotions into a great, late-season surge that took them right into the state playoffs, the official start of the Herd's glory days.

In baseball, a disabling shoulder injury helped bring an end to a dream. James said he wouldn't trade any of it, and he credits the work ethic and lessons learned through sports with helping him reach his current post as general sales manager for the Mid-Atlantic region for Core-Mark International, a major distributor of food and groceries to convenience stores throughout the East Coast.

He is especially proud tonight to be continuing a family tradition, of sorts. Scott is being inducted into the Hall tonight alongside his younger sister, Kristin (James) Furness, and they both join their dad, Wes, and grandfather Ben as third generation members. And oh, by the way, the gene pool still looks good.

James' son Brandon was drafted by the Texas Rangers and played three years of minor league ball through 2008. And daughter Kacey was a state high school javelin champion in her sophomore year.

Just sayin’.....

INDUCTED 2013

Sharon Leidy Todd was in the first generation of female athletes to benefit from the age of Title IX requirements. But that was just part of the story. It was her dad, she says, who nurtured her zeal for physical activity from an early age and helped her find outlets for her talents when there wasn't a lot going on for young girls. At Boiling Springs High School, she found mentors eager to help her along the way, like the coach who let an eighth grader find newfound skills as an exhibition participant with the high school track team. 

And there was inherent ability. Todd was a true, three-sport athlete who seemed to bring a Midas touch to every sport she played. She won PIAA state Class AA gold in the long jump in 1980, following that up with a state silver medal in 1981, when she lifted off for a 17-foot 10.5-inch leap that still stands as a school record. She led her high school field hockey team in scoring in both 1979 and 1980, with no prior training outside of gym class. In both years, Boiling Springs won Blue Mountain League titles. She played basketball in the winter, "to stay in shape." So, naturally, Todd set a new single season scoring mark for the Bubblers with 390 points as a senior, also leading the team in assists and steals. Todd loved the blend of team and individual sports, getting the thrill of accomplishing something she worked hard for on one hand, and the thrill of being a part of something bigger than herself on the other.

Todd was recognized for her lofty accomplishments - including being valedictorian of her class – at the time: In her senior year, she was selected as The Sentinel's "Female Athlete of the Year." She also received athletic and academic scholarships to attend Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL, a school Todd says first drew her attention through family ties. And she kept right on producing. At college, Todd was MVP on her field hockey team in 1983 and 1984, and a conference champion in the indoor pentathlon and outdoor heptathlon in track. She was inducted into Salukis' Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992.

In her professional career, Todd has been on the faculty at the State University of New York at Cortland since 1993, currently serving as chair of the Recreation, Parks and Leisure Studies Department. She continued to play field hockey on various club teams through 2002 and served as an assistant field hockey coach at Cortland from 1994 through 2006. And if you want to know if Todd ever lost her winning touch, consider this: SUNY Cortland's field hockey team made the NCAA Division III’s Elite Eight every year in that time, including national titles in 1994 and 2001.

Her life's work, Todd said recently, is testament to her belief in the benefits of striking a balance between work and play, something that became ingrained in her at Boiling Springs. Her induction tonight is proof that personally, she has managed that line flawlessly. Todd resides in Freeville, NY with her husband Kevin and their daughter Mackenzie, who plays high school volleyball and runs track (with Mom providing extra coaching tips when asked!)

INDUCTED 2013

Football, basketball, track & field, diving, golf, tennis, angling. You name the sport, and chances are Edmund "Ted" Lesher competed in it. In fact Lesher, a respected Franklin County businessman and self-proclaimed "gym rat," has followed a simple formula for most of his 87 years that can pretty much be boiled down to this: competition = focus = success.

Lesher's athletic exploits predated the Internet and smart phones. There were no videos going viral, or Friday night highlight shows. But back in the days when local events played out primarily before local audiences, Lesher stood out. He was leading rusher for the Chambersburg football team in both his junior and senior years. As point guard for the basketball team, he helped pilot the Trojans to South Penn Conference and PIAA District III championships in 1945. With World War II wrapping up, Lesher left school before graduation to enlist in the Merchant Marines. They didn't play football there, but Lesher quickly found his sea legs, taking part in various crew and diving competitions.

Returning to Chambersburg at the end of the decade to join his family's business, the Frank B. Lesher Co. electrical contractor service, Ted immediately started playing tailback for the Chambersburg Cardinals football team. Work was interrupted again in 1950, when Lesher was drafted into the Army, but the football wasn't. Lesher starred for the Camp Stewart, Ga. football team, winning its MVP honors in 1950 after leading the team to a shutout win over a Paris Island squad loaded with professional and collegiate players.

Back in Franklin County but still only in his mid-20s, Lesher rejoined the Cardinals, a team he would go on to lead in rushing every year he was on the roster. It is a fact of life, however, that football careers don't last forever. So, as he aged Lesher simply found new fields of play to conquer. He took up golf and wound up winning the Chambersburg Country Club championship in 1969. The so-called "Tennis Revolution" hit the United States in the 1970s. By 1980, Lesher, racquet in hand, won the club's singles, men’s doubles, and mixed double titles. He even won a $5,000 first prize in a bluefish tournament.

Lesher said his competitive fire dates to a group of boyhood friends who prided themselves on outdoing each other in friendly games, conditioning and strength training. That led him to a "Charles Atlas" kind of personal creed of giving it his all in everything, and never sapping his strength with late nights, drinking binges, or even smoking. "I never smoked nor drank in my life," Lesher said, "and I played my heart out in every sport that I took up. That kind of gave me a little inkling of what I could do if I really put my mind to it."

For Lesher, the ultimate participant, the results have been good. Besides his successful electrical business, which he still serves as president, Lesher has served the Chambersburg area on the hospital board, as a trustee of the YMCA and as a director of the Valley Bank, to name a few civic pursuits. The fun hasn't ended, either. At 87, Lesher said he is still playing golf several times a week when the weather is right.

INDUCTED 2011

Well, this was inevitable, wasn't it. Rarely has anyone come to the South Central Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame with better credentials than Billy Owens. He was the sun around which the Pennsylvania basketball universe rotated in the 1980' s, joining with his coach Dave Lebo and teammates to lead Carlisle High School to four straight AAAA state basketball championships from 1985 through 1988. Individually, he set the school scoring record with 3,299 points over four years, a total that still places Owens' third statewide. The Thundering Herd teams he led posted a four-year record of 118-l l, including a flawless 20-0 in post-season games. Nuff said? Of course.

That's why Billy, in another first for this organization, was inducted this summer into the National Federation of State High School Associations Sports Hall of Fame. But the fabulous Mr. Owens didn't stop scoring with the fourth state title at Hershey Park Arena. From there, he went on to Syracuse University for a three-year hitch in the Big East wars, finishing his career there as an Associated Press All-American and the conference player of the year.

Then he enjoyed one of the longest-running professional playing careers of any Midstate athlete, playing 10 years in the National Basketball Association and finishing with career averages of 11.7 points and 6.7 rebounds per game.

When playing with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1999, Owens found his current home. He currently lives in Blue Bell, Montgomery County with wife Nicole and their children, and he has broken into the coaching ranks as an assistant coach to the men's basketball team at the Camden campus of Rutgers University.

But what we like best about Billy is his continuing connection to the Carlisle community. Throughout his NBA career, Billy annually funded a hoops camp for the town's youth that provided instruction, visits from top-name hoop stars and lots of free stuff.

Why? Well, it seems that Owens is still very fond of his Carlisle roots and intends to keep them viable. As he stressed when he was inducted into the National Hall of Fame in July, Carlisle's fans made his high school experience a life's treasure. "We got some amazing support from our fans; they still went to our games even if they knew we'd win by 40," Owens told the Sentinel this summer. "Those were just some great times - they were the best times in my career, including college and the NBA." He said he hopes to resume some form of youth instruction in the area down the road.

Owens becomes the second piece of the Thundering Herd basketball dynasty to be selected to the South Central Chapter hall, joining Dave Lebo, who was inducted in 2006. He likely will not be the last. Congratulations, Billy. And thanks for everything.

INDUCTED 2012

What do you get when the sheer joy of playing the game meets supreme athletic talent? Meet Michael Owens. Like a stage performer who just has that indefinable "it" factor, Owens regularly treated teammates, coaches and fans at Carlisle High School in the early 1980s to jaw dropping performances.

A three-sport athlete, Michael was a key part of the Thundering Herd's four straight basketball championships, bringing a mental toughness and all-purpose skills to teams led by Jeff Lebo and his emerging younger brother, Billy. He also excelled as a sprinter, placing 2nd in the 100 meters and 3rd in the 200 meters at the state track & field championships his senior year.

But his first love was football, and his prime stage was Friday nights at Ken Millen Field. The resume speaks for itself: 4,495 rushing yards gained, 11th-best in the long history of Pennsylvania prep football to that point: selection as a Parade magazine high school all American; offensive MVP of the "Big 33" high school all-star game in 1986. He was also named the Pennsylvania high school player of the year by the Associated Press.

But for Owens, all the personal accolades take a back seat to one special night in November 1985, when he and his Thundering Herd teammates avenged a regular season loss to neighboring Cumberland Valley to win the 1985 District Ill football title. Carlisle, entering the season with high hopes, lost to CV in Week Three of the regular season. "I was proud as a member of that team to be able to overcome that loss and run the table," Owens said. "To come back and beat CV in the district championship game was pretty special." There were no state playoffs at the time, but if you had seen him play in his senior season, well, suffice to say I'd take the team with Owens.

Next stop, Syracuse, where Owens wore the legendary and now-retired "44" jersey made famous by Ernie Davis and Jim Brown. Owens unfortunately lost his freshman year of college football to the NCAA Proposition 48 rules. But he won over the Syracuse faithful as a sophomore with his electric play, including what some call the most dramatic moment in Orange football history: scoring a late two-point conversion against West Virginia to clinch an undefeated 1987 regular season. Syracuse would go on to tie Auburn in the Sugar Bowl, finishing the year ranked 4th in the nation. In his senior season, Owens gained 1,018 yards, the fifth best single season total of any runner in school history.

Owens was selected by the Kansas City Chiefs in the ninth round of the 1990 NFL Draft and spent two training camps with the team but never made the regular season roster. If you saw him play, count yourself among the lucky ones. "Mike was a winner who wasn't going to let us lose," said former Thundering Herd basketball coach Dave Lebo, who relied on Michael to bring leadership to his returning core after Jeff Lebo had graduated and moved onto North Carolina. "He was a better athlete who was very competitive."

Owens tonight is thrilled to be joining his brother Billy, a 2011 inductee, in the Hall of Fame. He views his playing days as some of the best times of his life, leading to a lifetime of memories and lasting friendships, and said he's always happy to share the glory. "We did a lot of winning in Carlisle at the time," Owens said. "It was an awesome time."

INDUCTED 2013

Most of our inductees arrive at this night because of an impression they made on local playing fields somewhere along the way, either as players or coaches, that separated themselves in some way from the average talent. Les Poolman has made a different kind of impression in his tenure as Dickinson College's Athletic Director, but it may be the most lasting of all. Don't take our word for it. Just visit the Carlisle campus sometime for an event.

There are the beautiful turf fields at Biddle Field, now equipped with stadium lighting. The new baseball and soccer fields at Dickinson Park in Carlisle's West End. A newly refurbished track. And the in-progress additions to the Kline Life/Sports Learning Center that will allow the college to establish a varsity squash program, and a new Biddle Field training complex. All projects undertaken under Poolman's guidance, with the support of former President William Durden. The result? This is a thriving small-college athletic department where successful program is begetting successful program, and every season seems to put at least one or more teams into national rankings or NCAA championship play.

Poolman, a native of England, arrived in America as part of a second "British Invasion": Not the one that brought The Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones to our shores. This was a quieter one that brought a steady stream of people who grew up with soccer in their blood to the game's fast-growing, but coaching-starved, American market in the 1970s. Poolman joined that vanguard in the 1970s, coaching at summer camps here while still a college student. He settled in more permanently at West Virginia University, where he was an assistant varsity soccer coach for four years while earning graduate degrees.

Seeing a future in professional athletics administration at the collegiate level - a field that literally did not exist in Britain at the time - Poolman moved to Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where he founded the women's soccer program, and eventually arrived at Dickinson as athletic director in 1988. Along with the facilities improvements in Carlisle, he has presided over a steady upgrade of staff. Where once Dickinson was filled with part-time coaches, 19 of the 23 varsity programs are now piloted by full-time coaches. Poolman has shared his talents beyond campus as well: He's equally proud of his service on the NCAA's Division III Management Council; and more locally, the Carlisle Borough Parks and Recreation Board and local youth soccer.

Along the way, you might guess, Poolman has become quite a passionate advocate for the value of Division III collegiate athletics. He calls it the true "last bastion of amateurism, where the athletes play because they love the game ... and where kids can still do other things besides their athletics." While he loves the sport-to-sport success Dickinson has come to enjoy, Poolman gets just as much satisfaction from seeing a Red Devil athlete star in a theater production or sing in an a cappella group. "The more well-rounded we can be, the better off we are,” Poolman says, and he loves the contribution Dickinson athletics makes to that end.

INDUCTED 2013

There are those who enter the South Central Sports Hall of Fame as athletes, and there are those who enter as coaches. But every now and then, we see a candidate who's got legit credentials either way. Like Barry Purvis, whose successes could be broken into three acts.

Act One. Purvis was a fine football player on some middling Chambersburg High squads in the early 1970s. He was a big-play specialist who earned his team's Most Valuable Player award and a Big 33 nomination after the 1972 season in which he amassed 980 yards in receptions. But he really started to bloom into a track star the next spring, qualifying for the PIAA District 3 finals in the 440 and placing fourth. That was a springboard to a stellar track career at East Stroudsburg University. Purvis anchored a mile relay team that won the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference title in 1977 and advanced to the NCAA Division II national meet, where only a baton mishap kept them from medaling.

Act Two. After college, Purvis came back to Chambersburg, where he was eager to give back as a teacher and coach. He joined the faculty as an elementary physical education teacher. And then, one of those quirky twists of fate occurred that often mean so much in our lives. Purvis was asked, and he agreed, to coach the junior varsity girls' basketball team for a year. He did, and when the varsity job unexpectedly came open the next year, Purvis - who saw himself as a football or track coach - had the surprise, inside track to head a program he never expected to be involved with. Maybe it was the fun he'd had with the JV kids. Partly, he believes, it was the birth that year of his own daughter, Kia, that made him think a little more seriously about creating good opportunities for girls in sports. But Purvis said yes, and Chambersburg girls' hoops was launched onto a track of excellence. From 1979 through 1996, Purvis's teams notched a stellar, 270-132 cumulative record, good for 14 PIAA District III playoff appearances and four trips to the PIAA state championship tournament. Purvis' Lady Trojans won the tough Mid-Penn Conference Championship in 1995, sealing the deal with a, dominant fourth quarter against Cumberland Valley before a packed gym at neutral Carlisle High School.

Act Three. Purvis would eventually leave coaching in 1996, after his daughter's senior season, when he was named principal of the Chambersburg Area Middle School, and later, principal of Chambersburg High School. In that latter role, he eventually became president of the Pennsylvania Association of Elementary and Secondary School Principals. Now a central office administrator and scheduled to retire at the end of this year, Purvis is still ending his talents to local youth. He hasn't found his way back to football or track but is an active, age-group softball coach. Purvis credits his involvement in sports with honing the leadership qualities that served him - and by extension his community - so well off the court. ''Coaching taught me how to deal with people. How to deal with conflict. To understand what motivates people," he recalled recently. "It's the same things that you come across in your regular life."

INDUCTED 2012

For a truly robust athletic scene, you need a competent cadre of administrators, referees, trainers, statisticians and other behind-the-scenes players to keep the teams on the field. Inductee Bob Shank is one of those off-field heroes, working for decades in the training rooms at area high schools and Dickinson College to make sure those who could play did, and those who could not were getting the kind of attention they needed. Shank is also one of the area's leaders in professionalizing a field that, during his career, has gone from the age of "walk it off" to everyday vigilance against evils like dehydration, heat stroke and concussion.

For Shank, it started as a 9th-grader in Lancaster County, when he followed the lead of an older neighbor and signed up for a student trainer's correspondence course. He was bitten by the bug of caring for others from the start, though after graduating from Millersville University in 1970 he began his career as a classroom teacher, serving in an extra duty capacity as a trainer at his alma mater, Hempfield, and later Cumberland Valley high schools.

He also was an accomplished runner. After lettering for the Millersville track and cross country teams in college, Shank continued as a competitive runner, ultimately completing four marathons including a 180th place finish in the Boston Marathon in 1971. 

In 1978, aspiring to something more professionally, Shank took full-time graduate studies at the University of Virginia, earning a master's degree in athletic training and assisting with the Cavaliers football, basketball and baseball programs. With his enhanced pedigree, Shank returned to Pennsylvania in 1980 to become head trainer at Dickinson College. For the next 29 years he would oversee sports medicine for the Red Devils' 23 intercollegiate sports programs. But he never stopped learning, seeking new experiences, or sharing his talents with the larger community.

For several summers and sabbaticals, Shank worked on the medical staff of the U.S. Olympic Committee, including a year at the Olympic Training Centers in Colorado Springs and Lake Placid; and service with the 1983 Pan-American Team in Caracas, Venezuela. He also worked with USA Baseball, served as an assistant trainer for the Washington Redskins when training camp was held at Dickinson; and served many years in a volunteer capacity for the Special Olympics and Keystone State Games.

While growing professionally, Shank was also helping his profession grow. He is considered a founding father of the Pennsylvania Athletic Trainers Society and served as its president from 1988-90. In his spare time, Shank spent 18 years running ambulance calls as an emergency medical technician in Cumberland County, and many more years after that as an EMT instructor for local ambulance services.

Shank was always an educator of course, whether leading a formal class or just doing his thing in the trainer's room. Former Dickinson colleague Janelle Noll said she always appreciated Shank's holistic approach to his charges. "He always had a good ability to form relationships with the students so that he was not just treating an ankle injury, but he was treating the person and getting to know them and the things that were going on in their lives," Nolt said. Shank says those relationships with the student-athletes are what he treasures most. We know he's sincere about that, because even in "retirement" now you 'll find him today working as a part-time assistant trainer at Northern York School District in Dillsburg.

Shank and his wife Charlene live in Dover.

INDUCTED 2012

Scott Shank continues our "All in the Family" theme tonight as he joins his older brothers Gary and Dennis in the South Central Hall of Fame. Many people are lucky to play for one special coach in their athletic careers. But as a three-sport athlete in Carlisle High School's Class of '67, Shank literally moved from one extraordinary influence to another, playing for: John Whitehead in football; Dave Heckler and Wes James in basketball; and George Bowen in baseball. All four of those coaches, by the way, are members of the chapter. As are Shank's teammates Walt Whitehead and Dave Eavenson. Understand these were glory days for Carlisle sports, and Shank was a key contributor to teams that notched an undefeated football season in 1965, and a second place finish in the PIAA District III basketball tournament in 1967.

Shank earned a scholarship to play running back for the University of Maryland. On his way to a degree in health and physical education, Shank earned three varsity letters at the Atlantic Coast Conference school, earning a selection to the conference's All Academic team in his senior year. Upon graduation, Shank came back and launched his own teaching and coaching career at Boiling Springs High School. He has an easy answer for why he decided to become a coach: He wanted to help guide the next generation of kids just as his mentors had guided him. "I think it’s taking the things that I learned from my coaches as a player, and trying to give that back to the athletes ... They really gave me a lot, and it's nice to give back to the current athletes."

But he also simply wasn't ready to stop competing. "I've never thought of not being involved," Shank said recently. "You can only be a competitor on the field for so long. That ends pretty rapidly if you' re not fortunate enough to go on to the professional level." Starting out as an assistant to Wally Vogelsang, Shank became head coach at Boiling Springs in 1978. He spent eight years there, developing many fine athletes including Division II All-American Desi Washington. In 1986, Shank took a job with Carlisle schools and joined fellow inductee Ed Sweeney's football staff at Dickinson College, serving as running back coach.

Two years later, Shank answered a call from his pal Eavenson to succeed Ray Erney as the head football coach at Carlisle. He coached the Thundering Herd in 1988 and 1989, and then returned to Sweeney's staff at Dickinson in 1990. He has been on the Red Devil staff ever since.

Shank retired six years ago as a physical education teacher at Carlisle, where outside of the football season he stayed busy as an assistant for the Herd's girls’ basketball and track & field teams. In the latter capacity, Shank noted, it was his special pleasure to work alongside coaches including Mike Shaker, Lyle Herr and Tom Cook, and to coach his daughters Erica and Molly, as well as state javelin champion Kacey James. In nearly 50 years of competing and coaching, Shank has seen a lot of changes. But the essential elements that he and so many others have enjoyed about sports remains the same. "The competition is still there," he said. "The camaraderie is still there."

Scott is married to Dolores Giachelli Shank, a member of Dickinson College's Hall of Fame.

INDUCTED 2012

Without a doubt, Ed Sweeney is the only 2012 sports hall inductee who, while costumed as the action movie hero "Rambo," climbed to the top of the Biddle Field grandstand and arced a flaming arrow over his football team to get them psyched for the next day's game. Now this was at Dickinson College, where for years SAT scores were more prized than football scores. But as the anecdote above illustrates, Sweeney wasn't just another coach for the Red Devils. He was a paradigm-shifter for a Division III program that had been caught in the rut of winning 1 or 2 games per year, moving it quickly to a place where it was always competitive in the conference and beyond.

Hired to the Carlisle campus in 1985, Sweeney quickly exorcised the Red Devils’ gridiron demons, building the program from a 1-8 start in 1985 into a Mid-Atlantic region juggernaut that won five straight Centennial Conference championships from 1988 through 1992, posting a gaudy 44-5-3 record in that time. His overall mark at Dickinson, 56-23-3, leaves him with the school's best all-time win percentage, and second in all-time wins.

Sweeney parlayed his success into a head coaching job at Colgate, and has since coached at several other schools, but he still sees his Dickinson era as the crowning jewel of his coaching career. He says he didn't do it alone. By 1985, he recalled recently, then-President Sam Banks was eager for improvement on the football field, and he was ready to fund additional staffers who could help recruit kids that were really willing to push themselves to win. With staffers like Dave Bengston and Joel Quattrone, Sweeney said, the Red Devils were suddenly recruiting in triplicate, and the roster gradually filled with the kind of players who, as Sweeney tells it, were willing to sacrifice a big Friday night for better Saturday afternoon.

Sweeney was certainly willing to go the extra mile for them. Recalling the Rambo gig and other motivational specials, Sweeney explained it was partly to get the team loose for Saturday's game. But there was more, too. "I always wanted the kids to remember their college games ... So, they wouldn't just all fade." 

In fact, there were a lot of memorable milestones along the way, like Sweeney's first win over Gettysburg College, a rivalry played for the traditional "Little Brown Bucket." When Sweeney asked for the booty, Gettysburg Coach Barry Streeter sheepishly confessed he didn't know where it was: It had been that long since it was exchanged. Sweeney's favorite moment, though, was a post-season win over a Fordham team that was building up to play Division I-AA the following season. Like many coaches, Sweeney credits the players "who owned it ... they really pushed each other and set the tone for the next group of freshmen coming in." 

But Sweeney set a tone at Dickinson, too. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about Sweeney - who doesn't dress up as Rambo anymore but still toils as defensive coordinator for the second-year football program at Stevenson University in Owings Mills, MD - is that the mark he made on Dickinson football has never really left. Current head coach Darwin Breaux was brought here by Sweeney, and several of Breaux's staff are holdovers from the Sweeney era as well. Even better, the winning attitude that Sweeney instilled has never really left: since 1992, the Red Devil's on-field record is a satisfying 117-77-1.

INDUCTED 2014

Another star of the tough Shippensburg University football teams from the mid-70s is being honored here tonight: Dr. Anthony S. Winter. But Tony Winter brings another first to the South Central Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame: he is believed to be the first member to have earned admission through his handball expertise. Let’s start at the beginning. 

Coming out of York Suburban High School where he participated in football, basketball and track, Winter played a year of football and lacrosse at Lebanon Valley before transferring to Shippensburg. It would prove to be the decision of a lifetime. As a three-year starter as a linebacker on the Red Raiders football team, he served as co-captain of the 1976 Pennsylvania Conference championship squad. While fellow Hall inductee Averell Harris was setting receiving standards, Winter set school records for most tackles in a single game with 27 against Clarion in 1976 and the career record for tackles with 401. Winter was the team's Most Valuable Player, a first team All-Pennsylvania Conference selection, and received honorable mention in the balloting for All-American in 1976.

He was also named an Academic All-American and received an NCAA post-graduate scholarship. Winter used that grant to attend Arizona State for an MBA degree and to serve as a graduate assistant to legendary coach Frank Kush. He also began developing his interest - and excellence - in handball. Over the next three-plus decades, a time that would see Winter return to Shippensburg for a little coaching and a long career in administration, he has been consistently among the best handball players in the East. Winter has won 40 handball titles at the Harrisburg YMCA (including 21 singles and 19 doubles wins); 10 state-level championships; and a national masters doubles championship in 2003. He also competed in the 2003 World Handball Championships in Ireland, placing third in the veteran's singles division - a classification for men aged 45 and up.

The next year, Winter turned his attention to encouraging a new generation to learn and learn to enjoy what has been seen as a very old-school sport: he launched a United States Handball Association handball club at Shippensburg. That has led to some unique collaborations. The SU Handball Club has hosted regular tournaments with the Hope in Handball program, a Harrisburg-based program for city kids that matches an emphasis on fitness with youth mentoring, including getting kids to think about college. Is it making a difference? Well, Winter can happily report that one of the former Hope in Handball participants enrolled at Shippensburg University as a freshman last year. Winter believes in what he's selling. Handball, he says, is a premier sport for developing hand-eye coordination, quickness and agility in younger athletes. As you age, it helps you maintain your total body fitness.

And Shippensburg has become his life's work. Winter currently serves as associate dean of the John L. Grove College of Business at the university. He lives in the town with his high school sweetheart and wife of 35 years. Linda. They have three adult children.