Julie Bowers Glavin - Inducted 2005

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INDUCTED 2005

At a time when Carlisle High School's track and cross country teams were a regional power, Julie Bowers Glavin led the way. Turns out she was pretty tough to catch, too. Tonight, with nowhere to run to, Glavin is honored for a stellar track and cross country career that has seen her accumulate whole pages of personal and team honors at Carlisle, West Chester University and, more recently, as a top-flight amateur. Here's a peek at the more notable accomplishments in Glavin's file:

· As a member of Thundering Herd track teams that won three consecutive South Central Athletic League championships without losing a conference meet, Glavin set several school and league records, and was part of a 3,200-meter relay team that won District Ill titles three straight times. 

· The girls cross country teams she led in high school won back-to-back league titles in 1979 and 1980, again never losing a dual meet. 

· Glavin was the South Central League individual champion her senior year and earned a spot on the all-state team.

· She was voted outstanding female athlete in her class. 

But Glavin was really just getting started. Julie enrolled at West Chester and quickly blossomed into a national-caliber competitor. A Division II All-American in track from 1982 through 1985, she won three national championships and posted two championship meet records that still stand: the indoor 1,500 meter run in 1985; and the outdoor 5,000 meter run later that same year.

In cross country, meanwhile, Glavin earned All-American status by placing fifth in the 1984 Division II nationals. In 2001, she was part of the first class to enter West Chester's Athletics Hall of Fame. Stop there, and Julie Glavin would probably be a cinch for the South Central Hall of Fame, where she can proudly take her place alongside her father, Jim Bowers, as the only father-daughter combo.

But the road never really ends for a devoted, lifelong runner. And since college, Julie has pursued her passion all the way to Chiba, Japan, where she was part of a US Track & Field team racing in the Ekiden Road Relay, and later to a spot in the 2000 US Olympic women's marathon trial.

Glavin took a season off for the birth of a second child. But, drawn to running by the discipline it instills and the eternal ability to, as she puts it, "find out what you have in you," it's only a matter of time till she starts pounding pavements again. 

A writer/researcher for QVC, Julie lives in Ardmore with her husband Michael, the head men's cross country and track and field coach at St. Joseph's University, and their two boys.

INDUCTED 2006

Two things that have always rung true about longtime Hanover High School football coach Jack Connor: his love for the game of football; and an understanding that it is, above all else, still just a game. But if you were lucky enough to have Connor as your coach, football season also served as a kind of outdoor laboratory where scores of boys were stamped with his lessons of team, hard work and perseverance. The game, Connor believes, had already taught those same things to him in the early 1950's, when he was a young boy searching for anchors in Aliquippa. "Everything I am, I owe to football," Connor said, crediting the game and the disciplines it taught with helping him set goals for himself, stay focused in school and ultimately aspire to college.

Connor would become a small college All-American at Shippensburg University while earning his bachelor's degree in education. Two years after graduation, and with a reference from Hall of Famer Wilbur "Goby" Gobrecht in his pocket, he returned with his wife Joan, a Littlestown native, to the Midstate as the first head football coach at the new South Western High School.

In 1970, Connor moved to Hanover High School, where he settled in for a 28-year run highlighted by six York Area Interscholastic Athletic Association division championships and, in 1985, a District Ill Class A title. His Nighthawks players, to this day, feel they were blessed to be at the right place at the right time. Because even if they didn't have the best talent or the greatest numbers, they usually had a good game plan and a ton of heart. "I loved him as a coach, I loved him as a colleague, and as a friend in my

adult life," said Don Seidenstricker, a quarterback for some of Connor's earliest teams at Hanover.

"We were competitive," Connor said when asked what he considered the hallmark of his teams, which often represented one of the smallest schools in York. "You were going to have to work when you came to play us." "Even if he only had 26 kids out," agreed York sportswriter Steve Navaroli, "opponents knew they weren't going to have an easy time of things." 

Connor retired from Hanover after the 1998 season with a combined career record as a head coach is 201-197-13. In 2002 he was inducted into the Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Now 72, Connor's passion for the game he has always loved still burns. Currently enjoying a post-retirement gig as offensive coordinator for Susquehannock, he still prefers to roam the sidelines on fall weekends than settle in and watch someone else's teams play. But as much as he still loves the games themselves, Connor says it's always been the friendships and the bonds with former players and coaching colleagues that are most important to his life. "I'd always tell my kids that I'm associated with that I think they're the best kids in the school," he said of his players. "They were the leaders, and they were asked to do so much more" than other students.

INDUCTEDD 2006

If it seems like "The Year of the Coach" for the South Central Chapter, then it's entirely appropriate that 2006 is the year Terry L. Conover has his ticket punched to the Hall of Fame. At last count, Conover has had a hand in scripting 64 different sporting seasons at Hanover since arriving at the York County school district - including 46 as a varsity 'head coach in wrestling and baseball. That's two wildly different sports but a common coaching theme: making sure you get the most out of your abilities. It's no more than Conover has ever expected of himself.

An accomplished three-sport athlete in his own right in his native Annandale, NJ, Conover became a star wrestler – career record of 40-8-2, with a trip to nationals - at Western Maryland College in the late 1960s. After staying at his college alma mater for one year to fill a sabbatical-created vacancy, Conover came to Hanover High School in 1971, hired as head wrestling coach and assistant football coach. He arrived in a town with a proud sports heritage, and filled with coaching legends like Steve PadJen, Frank Noonan, Hal Reese and tonight's fellow inductee Jack Connor. It's safe now to add Conover's name to the list.

Consider: At this writing, Conover is the third-winningest coach in Pennsylvania high school wrestling history with a career dual meet record of 519-196-2. Conover' s Nighthawks have won 13 York County titles, 12 sectional titles, and an incredible seven straight district team titles from 1991 through 1997, including an end-of-season number one state ranking in 1995. Individually, Hanover has produced 24 district and four state champion wrestlers.

But what Conover may be most proud of is that he was able to build that program and consistently produce those numbers in what traditionally had been a football/basketball town. Conover' s wrestling program established its own hallmarks over the years: knowledge of the sport, discipline and working harder than the competition form the foundation. The "X" factor, he says, is surrounding yourself with "great people," be they student-athletes, parents, teachers, or fellow coaches like Padjen, Connor and

Noonan. "I walked into a tremendous tutorial situation where these guys could teach me, and I was smart enough to learn from them," he said.

Conover has already been honored by his wrestling peers. He was voted into the Pennsylvania Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1996, the same year he was named the state's Class AA "Coach of the Year."

As the lifetime achievement awards start piling up, Conover is showing he's got a lot of life left in his coaching career. Just last year, he was re-hired as Hanover's baseball coach, becoming one of the region's few two-sport coaches at age 58.

And with his two adult sons assisting in Hanover's wrestling program, Conover has no end-date in sight. "As long as my health stays with me, I'll keep doing this for three, four, or five more years," Conover explained last month. "I think you're born to be a competitor, and this is me ... This is what I live for. "I think I was given an ability to coach and I think I can relate to kids. The kids keep me young."

INDUCTED 2003

Chambersburg's Cook brothers spent so many hours running Midstate roads together, it's most fitting that they "cross the tape" tonight into the South Central Sports Hall of Fame as one. After all, they are both Midstate coaching legends.

The Cook boys, you should know, were running long before the "running revolution" of the 1970s. "We'd be out running on our training runs, and people would stop their cars and ask us if we wanted a ride," Tom Cook laughed recently. "You just didn't see people running back then." Tom went on to explain their love of the road. "Running is one place in athletics where you play a large part in how well you do," he said. "If you're self-disciplined and have a good work ethic, you can have a good hand in your success." Cook said he also liked the notion that on any given day, every runner in a race could enjoy the satisfaction of posting a new personal best.

Of the two, Tim had the more notable running career, placing second in the state cross country meet in 1970, and winning a state championship in the two mile run the following spring. Tom Cook recalls the time he had placed in a conference race for Shippensburg University, only to find out that his younger brother - then a sophomore in high school - had posted a better time for the same distance. Tim Cook went on to run track for William & Mary, where he was a scoring member of a cross-country team that finished third in the NCAA Division I Championships.

After college, both brothers returned to the Midstate, becoming high school math teachers, track coaches -Tom at Carlisle, and Tim at Chambersburg - and continued to burnish their own personal records at marathons and other races around the region. At Carlisle, Tom Cook's teams produced state medalists in distance events every year from 1993 to 1998, and the 1994 team finished third overall at the state meet. In a brief stint as the women’s cross country coach at Dickinson College, Tom Cook also helped the Red Devils claim their first women's conference championship in any sport.

Tim Cook's Chambersburg girls, meanwhile, amassed a 27-year cross country record of 225-30, including state team titles in 1977 and 1989. And his track teams went 194-34-2 over the same span. Both schools, through the duration, remained in the upper echelon of track programs in the region.

Older brother Tom retired in 1998 as head boys track and field coach at Carlisle High School, ending 29 years of highly successful involvement with the Thundering Herd program because of the demands of an administrative post, including 15 as head coach.  He is currently Math Department Chair there.

Tim Cook, in his 27th year as head girls track and cross-country coach in Chambersburg, was killed with his wife Susan in an auto accident last December. They are survived by their son, Brian, a senior at the University of Delaware, and daughter Alison, a sophomore at Lehigh.

INDUCTED 2004

Before there was Jimmy V, there was Jimmy D. We speak here of Jim Dooley, who has, over nearly 40 years now, put just as much of his heart and soul as that other famous Jim into inspiring young basketball players and students at four high school stops around the Midstate. "He was just passionate about the sport, and he cared about us a lot," said one of Dooley's former charges at Cumberland Valley, Reed Lose, who credits "Dools" with helping him land a scholarship at Division I East Carolina University. "He just wanted us to be our best."

A Bronx, NY native who attended the University of Scranton on an Athletic scholarship, Dooley arrived here in 1968 - after a three-year stint in Maryland - as a young Social Studies teacher and basketball coach at Shippensburg High School. This fall, he will open the book on his 39th season as a still very much young-at-heart basketball coach, now at Delone Catholic High School.

It will be the second year in an unplanned reprise of a career that had already spanned more than 500 wins (Dooley's current record stands at 531-391), four league championships and several coach-of-the- year honors. And for Dooley, who still lives in Gettysburg, it's a trip back to the fountain of youth. "It's an awful lot of fun being around young people, and it keeps you young," he said recently. He has also noticed, he says, that other persons in his age group who do not work with kids "simply don't think the way you do.”

Here's some highlights from the still-evolving Dooley file:

· League championships at Cumberland Valley High School (1981 and 1982) and Gettysburg High School (1992 and 1993)

· Central Pennsylvania Old-Timers Association's coach of the year in 1981; two time Adams County coach of the year.

· A sabbatical year in Iceland, during which Dooley led a high school age group team to a 22-3 record and a national championship. "I never won a state championship," the effervescent coach who did more for saddle-shoes than anyone we know, quips. "But I won a national championship."

But Dooley says it's the sum of the career has always been greater than its parts. What he treasures most are the lessons learned and the relationships formed with players, students and coaches. It's also why he would recommend participation in sports and extracurricular activities to anyone, and why he thrives on continuing to be able to offer those opportunities to kids. "There's a lot of lessons to be learned. Confidence. Loyalty. Discipline," Dooley said. "It makes you mentally tougher. You can work your tail off, and you may not be successful. But the ability to understand that you still need to work will make you successful in whatever venture you enter."

INDUCTED 2003

Dave Eavenson may never get a building or athletic facility named after him at Carlisle High School. It's his own fault. Because Eavenson admits one of his favorite accomplishments as Carlisle Area School District's Athletic Director for 16 of the last 20 years has been making sure that the legacy of the school's greatest coaches lasts. That initiative has resulted to date in Ken Millen Field; Gene Evans Gymnasium; George Bowen Field; and the Stanley Q. Morgan Track to name a few, ensuring that some of the richest history in Thundering Herd sports is never forgotten. "What better way for a school system to recognize individuals who performed at the level those individuals did, not just in athletics, but as teachers and people," Eavenson said recently.

Tonight, the man they know as "Buddy" gets his due for his own service to the Carlisle's cause in his stints as athletic director from 1983 to 1986, and again from 1990 to the present. In between those two stints, Eavenson served as an assistant high school principal at Carlisle. He also served for five years as an administrator and athletic director at Boiling Springs High School and started his career as a physical education teacher and coach at Big Spring.

Along the way Eavenson has made his mark on a wide variety of issues at a number of different levels, including, at present, service on the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Oversight Council that may lead to significant improvements in the administration of high school sports statewide. But his happiest moments still come back to his work in his hometown, like the four straight state basketball championships won by the Thundering Herd teams of the Jeff Lebo-Billy Owens era. That experience, he said, was proof positive of the bonding effect a school and a team can have on a community. "To watch the community engulf those teams and those four seasons was something special," he said. "It was almost like our whole town was out there competing."

It also gets to why Eavenson, who plans to retire after this year, found a career's worth of satisfaction in the athletic director's office. "I liked being able to be creative in showcasing our school and our kids, and I found that I could do that as an athletic administrator. I like to think we made it easier for the coaches to coach and the kids to perform."

Eavenson Jr. joins his father, the late David B. Sr in the South Central Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.

INDUCTED 2006

Louisa Etter spent her days as a high school art teacher trying to instill in her students an appreciation for the beauty in the world around them. Then, when the dismissal bell rang, she'd take a select group of Chambersburg girls out to the tennis courts and teach them to pound the felt off the ball. The common thread? Finding the passion in your life, and especially in that which you are doing right now.

Etter, as a coach of the Chambersburg High School girls tennis team for 33 years, guided scores of girls into squeezing the most out of their high school years as founder, builder and manager of a top-flight program that registered a cumulative 316-70-3 regular season match record and eight league championships on her watch. For that outstanding record, she is honored tonight as the 10th woman to be enshrined in the South Central Chapter Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.

But you can't simply measure Etter's career with numbers. As good as they are, former players say that would be an injustice. "What I liked about Coach Etter was her willingness to give her time and effort for the team," recalled Jan White, a senior on Etter's last Chambersburg team who now plays at Lebanon Valley College. "She always had a positive attitude, was always encouraging and always made you feel good about yourself. And she was able to say just the right thing to get you going."

For Etter, the opportunity to coach led to the rediscovery of a personal passion. As a girl in Chambersburg - a community blessed with a strong recreation program at the time - "I used to live on the tennis courts in the summertime," Etter said. She played on a community team in summer leagues and participated in a variety of youth tournaments, but as a girl coming of age in the 1960s never had the chance to compete for a school team in high school or college. So, entering Kutztown University, Etter decided to follow her other great passion into a career as an art teacher, and returned to her alma mater as a teacher in the fall of 1970. Three years later, in the midst of the Jimmy Connors/Billie Jean King/Chris Everett tennis boom, schools across the country started adding girls tennis teams, and Etter got a chance to scratch an old itch.

When Chambersburg launched its team, "I applied for the tennis (coaching) position, got it and started to madly study" the new art of teaching tennis. Just like the calligraphy, watercolor and pastels Etter likes to work with in her spare time, the end product was a labor of love, in this case reflected in the faces of players who, Etter always hoped, had learned a little more about themselves along the way than simply how to read the bounce of a twisting serve.

"My goal was to hope that I made a positive impact on the kids' lives in some way ... Maybe there was something in tennis or my teaching that would help them become more successful in life," Etter said. Lessons like seizing the day, getting involved in things while you have the chance, and taking life - and tennis - one shot at a time. 

Former player Paige Chicklo says Etter delivered on all counts. "She was tough ... l mean you had to work hard," she said in a 2004 interview. "But she was very fair. I have a lot of fond memories, and it was the most fun I've had on any team." 

Louisa, who retired from Chambersburg in 2005, and her husband, Dave, a longtime coach in Chambersburg's vaunted baseball program, live in Fayetteville.

INDUCTED 2004

For the Heckler family, athletics has always been a common thread. We're talking serious athletics. First there was Cap, a star Scotland School halfback from the leather helmet era who went on to a distinguished career as a coach and educator at his alma mater. Then there was Dave, successful basketball coach and athletic director at Carlisle High School. As of tonight, Steve Heckler, the longtime Director of Sports Medicine at Shippensburg University joins his grandfather and father to become part of the first family to have three generations inducted into the South Central Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. "To be inducted into such an illustrious group that has the added honor of including your grandfather and father is truly something special for me," Heckler said recently.

A graduate of Carlisle High School and West Chester University, Steve Heckler was hired in 1972 as the youngest faculty member at Hamilton College in upstate New York. He served there as head baseball coach and athletic trainer for three years. In 1975, Heckler began his 27-year career at Shippensburg University as Director of Sports Medicine serving thousands of student athletes' health care needs. Additionally, Steve directed medical coverage for PIAA Championships and Senior Games held annually at Shippensburg University. 

He was the school's first full-time certified athletic trainer and was noted during his tenure for helping to create modern facilities and foster university support in sports medicine. Among his accomplishments for the Red Raiders were the establishment of a state-of-the-art rehabilitation center for injured athletes in 1988, and more recently, the acquisition of an on-campus x-ray capability. "Steve's influence, dedication and work changed the face of athletic care at Ship," was how head football coach Rocky Rees put it. 

Heckler says two aspects of his career stand out: First, "the opportunity athletics provided me to mentor young people. I know the value of such role models in my own career; many are found here in the South Central Chapter's Hall of Fame." Many of those Heckler mentored went on to their own careers in sports medicine.

Second, he said, was the opportunity to help professionalize the delivery of athletic training services statewide, capped by the passage of legislation in 2001 creating a process for trainers to be certified through the State Board of Medicine, and that delineated how they should work in tandem with medical doctors.

Heckler retired from Shippensburg in 2002, and now resides in Venice, Florida, with his wife, Vonnie.

INDUCTED 2005

No conversation about the glory days of Hanover sports can be considered complete without some

remembrance of Jim Heilman. To those who coached or saw him, Heilman, who was tragically killed in a hit-and-run accident in South Carolina in 2000, remains high on the list of all-time greats in Nighthawks lore. Heilman starred in football, basketball and baseball for his school, earning stand-out status in all three sports.

In football, Heilman was a stud running back who led his team to an undefeated season in 1959 and the coveted South Penn Conference Championship. Individually, Heilman won all-state recognition and was selected for the Pennsylvania Big 33 team that year. "He did a lot for us," said Heilman's old coach, Steve Padjen. In fact, whenever things got down to gut-check time for the Hanover boys in that storied season, more often than not it was Heilman who was leading the way with his distinctive gait. He finished with 2,138 yards, 31 touchdowns and a 6.2 yard per carry average.

That may have only been outdone by Heilman's baseball exploits, which included batting .390 to help lead Hanover's American Legion team to the state finals, and a selection to play in an all-star game at the then still new Memorial Park in Baltimore.

Heilman was as accomplished in the classroom as on the playing field, and he seemed to effortlessly transfer his prodigious talents to Colgate, where he earned All-East status as a halfback and flanker and held down centerfield for the baseball team with a lifetime .353 batting average. Upon graduation, with options open to him like a latter-day Bo Jackson (Heilman was actually drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the ever strengthening American Football League) Jim opted to launch a career in professional baseball, signing with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.

"I always thought football was his best sport," remembers Heilman's brother, Phil. "But he thought if he could go to the major leagues and stick it out, the longevity was greater in baseball than it was in football."

Heilman eventually reached the Triple-AAA level before deciding to walk away on his own terms, taking a sales job in New York City for Procter & Gamble. Heilman eventually moved to the garment industry, finding great success as a women's clothing designer before his untimely death. "Everybody liked Jim," recalled Padjen. "He was a gentleman, he loved life, and he was smiling most of the time.  And he certainly loved to play.”

INDUCTED 2004

Wes James traveled back 50 years in less than five seconds when he was asked what stood out most for him in a high school sports resume littered with triumphs as a player and coach during Carlisle's glory-filled 1950's. But the favorite moment in James' personal highlight reel is a storied three-game stretch of basketball between Carlisle and Middletown - unbeaten to that point in the 1955-56 season. The games, one at Carlisle and two play-off games at neutral sites, took a week to play out and ended with the Green and White as champions of the South Penn Conference.

James, a sophomore point guard at the time, had received a battlefield promotion to start after the third game in the season. But the kid, with the help of teammates including Hall of Fame member Clyde Washington and Hall of Fame coach Gene Evans, rose to the occasion. Carlisle finished 21-3 that year, ultimately reaching the semifinals of the District III playoffs before losing to Reading. Carlisle won another conference crown in basketball two years later, in James' senior season, and posted a three-year record of 51-17 during his stint on the varsity.

In the springtime, James took his talents to the baseball diamond, where he played shortstop for another Hall of Fame member, George Bowen. In his senior season, the Herd finished 13-1 and captured the West Shore League championship, with young Wes leading the team in extra-base hits.

After graduating from Dickinson College in January 1963, James returned to Carlisle as a teacher, coach (he would assist both David Heckler and Evans from 1963 through 1976) guidance counselor and, ultimately, the central office's "point guard" for a series of superintendents. He even filled in as head boys basketball coach for the 1976-77 season after Evans' retirement as coach, posting a gaudy 23-4 record and gaining a berth in the state playoffs.

So, let's see ... Evans, Bowen, Washington, Heckler. With mentors and teammates like that, it probably comes as no surprise that what James' values most from his participation in sports is the relationships. "It's the people that are critical," James said. "I had the opportunity to work with a lot of exceptional people who just were top-quality individuals, and what we were learning on the court and on the field (dedication, perseverance, hard work) were really the lessons of life."

Of course, Wes James' story can't be told without the prominent mention of one other Hall of Famer who probably had the biggest impact of all on this cool customer… his dad, Ben, who was inducted into this Hall as a member of the Class of 1987.

Recently retired from Carlisle schools, James stays active around the community with his wife Joyce and keeping tabs on their three grown children and 11 grandchildren.

INDUCTED 2006

For former Carlisle High School boys basketball coach Dave Lebo, tonight's induction has been more a question of when, than if. After all, leading your teams to an unprecedented four straight PIAA-AAAA boys basketball state championships rates pretty well on most barometers of lifetime achievement. How special was this? Put it this way. If you lived in Carlisle during the 1980s, it was literally impossible to miss the phenomenon that Thundering Herd basketball had become, or the spirit that incredible run infused the community with.

We're talking early mornings campouts to buy tickets; the coach buses taking fans to basketball Mecca's around the state and beyond for playoff or tournament games; the thrilling rivalry games against Harrisburg and Steelton-Highspire; and the pride bubbling around it all. It involved seven league championships in eight years; four District III crowns; and, after some initial frustration in the state tournament, the titles book-ending the careers of Jeff Lebo and Billy Owens.

At the center of it all was guidance counselor/coach Dave Lebo, a native son who seemed to enjoy the communal craziness as much as the on-court conquests. That's fitting in a way, because talk to Lebo all these years later about those heady days, and he invariably deflects credit to a battery of former players, assistants, coaches and teachers whom he says put him in position to succeed. "Anytime you're recognized for the work that you've done, it’s an honor for the players that played for you, the assistants that coached under, and even the coaches that coached you," Lebo said this fall.

Lebo certainly was exposed to some masters as a member of Carlisle's Class of 1962. He played, in various seasons, for Ken Millen, Gene Evans and Stan Morgan - all of whom he rejoins now in this Hall of Fame. "I was inspired by my coaches," the most celebrated coach of Carlisle's latest generation recalled. "They motivated me to do well academically, they motivated me to do things the right way while I was growing ... I wanted to be what they were." Turns out, he was.

The proof lies not just in Lebo's 26-year record of 485-208 as a head varsity coach at East Pennsboro and Carlisle High. One can also see it in the "Court Lebo Court" logo name adorning the floor at Carlisle's Gene Evans Gym, an honor dreamed up last year by former players and colleagues on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the state title teams.

Even as his legacy is secured in his hometown, Lebo is not done with basketball. Since 1998, he has been honored to work as an assistant to son Jeff at Tennessee Tech; the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and now Auburn University in the basketball-rich Southeastern Conference. The Lebos are believed to be college basketball's only son-father tandem, and it's hard to tell who enjoys the relationship more. From Jeff's standpoint, his dad's presence "is like having a basketball library a couple of doors down the hall... It's nice to have that resource."

Dave, a self-proclaimed basketball junkie, is enjoying the challenge of helping his son build a program at the college game's highest level. "To me," he said, "this is like a dream true as a way for me to finish my coaching career," Dave Lebo said. "To be able to coach full-time, and to be able to do it with Jeff, it's pretty special."

INDUCTED 2006

Donald N. "Donnie" Miller can thank the football job he never got for the career turn that, some 34 years later, is landing him in the South Central Chapter Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame tonight. Miller, just a few years removed from his own days playing football at Penn State with Rip Engle, had come to Shippensburg University in 1969 to serve as an assistant to then-head football coach David Dolbin. Two years later, Dolbin resigned, and the football staff would undergo a massive reshuffling. Miller, at age 26, was granted an interview for the vacant head coaching job but didn't get the job. He stayed on the football staff that next year but found himself outside the inner circle and a little uncertain about his future.

Then opportunity knocked. Or splashed, really. Around this time, the university was building the Heiges Field House, with a competition swimming pool, and plans were being laid for development of a new swimming program. Miller, a Harrisburg native who had several years of experience life guarding and, later, leading an age-group swim team on the East Shore, was approached about taking the job. With football and wrestling dominating his own sports pedigree, he didn't feel totally qualified, he recalled. But the athletic director pledged patience; the expectation was that the new program and new coach could grow together.

That challenge of building something from the ground up, Miller recalls now, appealed to him and he took the plunge. Literally, Miller immediately dove into learning the finer points of competitive swimming and, at the same time, setting about building a program that would quickly do the new

natatorium proud. "It was a real research problem," Miller said, recalling his frequent road trips to any clinic within driving distance, constant reading and questioning of other successful coaches. Even quizzing his own recruits on how they had learned different techniques. After the second year, Miller said recently, there was no turning back. "My first love had been football, but I threw myself so much into swimming and had worked so hard to bring that program along that I didn't want to let go." The rise was quick and sustained.

Shippensburg's men's team would suffer only one losing dual meet record in Miller's 20-year tenure-that in the team's first season in intercollegiate competition. From that point on, the Red Raiders steadily improved to the point where they would finish second (always to Clarion) in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference standings for a remarkable 12 years in a row. The Red Raiders finally broke through to the next level in 1989-90, winning the first of what would be four PSAC titles in the next five years. It added up to a career dual meet record of 235-69-1 for a gaudy winning percentage of .773. The coach who quips about never having swum in a competitive race himself as voted conference coach of the year four times and has been repeatedly honored by his peers.

At the national level, meanwhile the Red Raiders were in the Division II Top 20 every year from 1978 to 1995, and among the top five teams in the Country each year from 1989 to 1992, when Miller retired from the deck of what is now known as the Donald N. Miller Pool. Not bad for a career that started by accident.

Miller says he still occasionally draws looks of wonder from his former football teammates at Penn State Reunions, but to him the challenges in running his program were just an extension of those playing days. The beauty of sports, he explained, is that constant challenge to do better. "As a head coach," he said, "you can take that same attitude, and take it to an extreme." That may sound daunting to some. But to Miller, it was just the norm.

Miller retired from his position in Shippensburg's health and physical education department in June 2005. He lives just outside town with his wife, Linda.

INDUCTED 2007

Dennis Shank's selection to the South Central Sports Hall of Fame this year is the culmination of a very cool comeback story. Shank, a 1964 graduate of Carlisle High School, was an under-sized contributor at defensive back and running back to the first team of what would become a glory-filled football era under Coach John Whitehead. He expected to continue his football career at West Chester University while studying to become a physical education teacher. That's where this story gets interesting. Shank was unceremoniously cut from the freshman football team three days into his collegiate career. "I thought it was unfair," he recalled recently, "I didn't think I got enough of a chance to show what I could do." 

But he didn't quit, on himself or West Chester, and as you can probably guess since Shank is here tonight, things took a turn for the better. Shank got invited back to the spring football drills, worked his way onto the roster, and ended up as a starting defensive back by the time the 1965 football season rolled around. What he became was a player who made the most of every opportunity on teams that regularly exceeded expectations.

Individually, his record speaks for itself. He still holds West Chester records for most interceptions in a season (12), and a career (21 in three years). In 1966 and 1967, he was an all-Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference pick as a defensive back. And in 1967, he was voted by teammates most valuable player of a 10-1 team that won the PSAC title and earned its second straight bid to the Tangerine Bowl, a rarity for Division II teams. "I feel very good about what happened there, and what we were able to accomplish as a team," said Shank, who has since been inducted into West Chester's own Hall of Fame. The records aside, Shank notes one of his proudest moments as being elected as a captain in his senior year. "That took me quite by surprise, because I never was a "yeller" type of guy." 

After college, Shank returned to Carlisle to launch a 34-year career as a physical education teacher in the Carlisle schools, doing extra duty along the way as an assistant football coach at the high school and at Dickinson College. He still can be found at home football games roasting peanuts for the Carlisle Sports Association, indirectly working to help other Carlisle kids get the same opportunities to benefit from sports that he had. Dennis, we should also note, is the 2nd member of his family to enter the Hall, joining his brother Gary as an inductee.

INDUCTED 2004

It's not a big surprise that Gary L. Shank comes into the South Central Chapter Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. After all, he was a three-sport athlete at Carlisle High School (football, basketball, and baseball) who played under three of that school's most revered coaches (Ken Millen, Gene Evans and George Bowen). But the sport that ultimately punched his ticket? That you might have been able to win a bet on back when Shank was flying around local football fields as an all-South Penn Conference end. Because we gather here tonight to honor Shank for a career of coaching excellence in the one sport that he didn't compete in: swimming.

It all started in the summer of 1968, when then Carlisle Swim Club Manager Dick Burkholder recruited his new assistant to start up a summer swim team. Shank, somewhat nervously, agreed. He was not a total landlubber. As a student, he'd worked as a lifeguard at Pine Grove Furnace State Park. On the other hand, there were certain things, like flip turns, that he was just going to have to learn. Thirty-six years of on-the-job training later, and we guess you could say it's all worked out. Consider:

· Shank, with the help of some eager kids and supportive parents, founded Carlisle High School's varsity swim team in 1979.

· With 25 years at Carlisle high school, Shank is one of the few coaches in any sport to have amassed 400-plus career wins. The Shank record for boys and girls is a combined 419-142-3.

· He has coached six high school All-Americans, plus several more who have gone on to swim for major college programs.

· The 36 seasons Shank has put in at the Swim Club, where he's stamped happy summer memories on hundreds of swimmers from all over the Carlisle area.

You might say Shank has taken to coaching swimming like a duck to water, but it wasn't all that effortless. He credits major helping hands along the way from mentors like David Eavenson Sr., the longtime swim coach and athletic director at Dickinson College, a Carlisle School District administration receptive to adding the new program and, of course, legions of supportive parents and dedicated kids.

Plus, his own old coaches, even if they worked on terra firma. "The work ethic, dedication to the sport, and the sense of fair play and enthusiasm; all of that I think I got from all of those guys," Shank said, referring to his high school coaches.

Shank, who retired as a high school English teacher at Carlisle after 2002, will be back on the pool decks this winter for his 26th scholastic season with his son, Jamey, as an assistant. "It keeps you young, working with the kids," said Shank, who lives in Carlisle with his wife, Patty. "It’s added a lot of fun to my life, and a lot of enjoyment."

INDUCTED 2005

It certainly wasn't Bill Sterner's master plan to become a swimming coach. But when opportunity knocked for the freshly minted Slippery Rock State College graduate in 1967, it came with a significant string attached. To get hired as a health and physical education teacher at York Suburban High School, he would also need to serve as diving coach. Sterner might as well have been picked to teach curling.

But eager for a job that was close to home, the Hanover-area native and collegiate letter winner in soccer figured he could learn enough from books, clinics and the divers he inherited to muddle his way through, until he moved into coaching soccer, baseball or some other game played on terra-firma. But soccer hadn't really swept the Midstate yet; Sterner was flourishing under his new mentor at York Suburban, established swim coach Richard Guyer; and, to top things off, Sterner soon received a chance to start a new swimming program at his alma mater, South Western High School. So Sterner, whose notes that his only experience with swimming through college was getting the life guarding certification required of all physical education majors, never left the pool deck. And thousands of Hanover-area swimmers are glad of it.

Since starting the first boys and girls swim teams at South Western in the winter of 1974, Sterner has coached thousands of swimmers in hundreds of dual meets, amassing a combined record of 382-332 with two ties. His 1993 boys team was District III Class AA champion, and the state meet runner-up. Among his individual swimmers, Sterner has to date mentored 35 York/Adams Interscholastic Athletic Association meet champions, four District III champions; and one PIAA state meet Titleist - a 200-meter boys medley relay, again from that vaunted 1993 team.

In addition to his school-based duties, Sterner has done a lot for swimming, the sport. He started an age-group swim team serving the South Western School District in 1987, helped organize the PIAA District II Swimming championships for many years, and was president of the Pennsylvania High School Swim Coaches Association from 1991-93. "It's been an outstanding opportunity for me," Sterner said recently of a love for swimming and swim coaching that has grown to surpass his wildest imagination. That love, he said, grew from the excitement of watching his young charges improve, teaching them a skill they can use for the rest of their lives, and the ability to demonstrate through sports how hard work can lead to success. "It prepares the kids for what they'll experience later in life," Sterner said.

Though retired from teaching in 2003, he is still at poolside this fall for another season.

INDUCTED 2005

James Thomas has a slightly different measure of success when it comes to the high school playing field. Winning and losing wasn't the most important thing. As head trainer at Greencastle-Antrim High School for nearly three decades, what Thomas has wanted more than anything is that all his school's players get through without a serious injury. "That's how I gauged a game," he said. "That the kids didn't get hurt." It's a perspective he's come to honestly after becoming the school's first and only head trainer in 1971.

The Chambersburg native (Thomas's brother, Bob, is the longtime baseball coach for Chambersburg High and also a Hall of Fame member) joined Greencastle's staff in 1962 upon graduation from Penn State and held a variety of teaching and coaching positions, including starting up the school’s soccer program that fall. Thomas posted a gaudy 37-15 record through the '60s but found himself increasingly called away from his kids to tend to football or other injuries. His conversion to full-time trainer became complete when one of his soccer alums came back to Greencastle and expressed an interest in taking the soccer program over.

Thomas retained his vital role with Greencastle baseball, serving as an assistant coach since 1962 in a program that has posted a .609 winning percentage over these years and took a trip to the PIAA state championships in 2000. He plans to be back this spring for another tour of duty. If those duties weren't enough, he also spent two decades-plus as a high school and college soccer official.

But Thomas's biggest role has undoubtedly been his guidance of hundreds of Greencastle student-athletes through varied aches, pains and ups and downs. Thomas takes special pride in the group of former students who went on to become trainers in their own right, including Bill Zeigler, late of the Texas Rangers. "It seemed like he was always involved with something at the school, and he always wanted to help out any student in any way he could," recalled Becky Fitz, a 1999 Greencastle graduate who is working this year as a graduate assistant trainer in the athletic department at Shippensburg University. "It was nice to see that somebody cared like that."

Turns out that to Thomas, caring was one of the most important parts of the job, and it didn't necessarily end at graduation. "The biggest thing I take away from it is the relationships I have with the kids after they're out," said Thomas. "That's what it's all about.

INDUCTED 2004

When Harold Travis arrived at Carlisle High School in 1968, he walked into a school already full of coaching legends, plus more who were in the act of becoming one. One year later, he became coach of the boys cross country team, taking over a relatively new sport that - in these years before the running boom of the 1970s - probably was something of an afterthought to most. A nice way to get kids who didn't play football or march in the band a fall activity. Thirty-five years later, and it's the soft-spoken English teacher who all the other Thundering Herd legends are looking up to.

Travis' all-time record as a coach in dual meets is a gaudy 458 wins and 61 losses, and includes 26 league championships (18 boys, 8 girls), nine District III titles, 16 undefeated seasons and zero losing seasons. The .882 winning percentage is the absolute best in Carlisle athletic history. Travis stopped coaching after the 2003 season, but he is still reaping the rewards. "I get great enjoyment going to a 10k race and running into eight or 10 former runners," the old coach said recently. "What it says to me is they never gave up their running."

Nor do they forget the coach who inspired them. That was affirmed when dozens of Travis' former charges embarked on a letter-writing campaign to the US Olympic Committee in 2001 that won Travis, a Boston Marathon participant in his own right, a coveted spot in the 2002 Winter Olympics torch relay.

Travis' trail as a Carlisle coach began in 1969 when, he quips, he had to ask for help with scoring his first meet. (Travis ran track at Boiling Springs High School, but the school did not have a cross country program at the time.) In 1985, at the request of Athletic Director Dave Eavenson, he agreed to take

over a struggling girls program that was in danger of folding. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to girl runners at Carlisle: at one point Travis' girls reeled off a 58-meet winning streak.

Through all the wins and the championships, what Travis remembers most fondly is simply the process of helping hundreds of Carlisle-area kids realize their personal best. "What kept me so excited and interested in cross country was the pure excitement on the faces of these kids who just achieved far beyond their wildest dreams" he said. "In a lot of ways cross country gave more to me than I gave to it."

So, guess who's a legend now? Well, snaking around between Ken Millen Field, Gene Evans Gymnasium and George Bowen Field, is the Carlisle cross country course, fittingly dubbed "Travis Trail." Cross country is on the map at Carlisle, and the man who put it there will never be forgotten. 

Still running, Travis resides in Gardners, PA with his wife Ann. They have three children.

INDUCTED 2007

The best referees, the old adage goes, aren't noticed on game day. But Walter "Wally" Vogelsong's induction into the South Central Sports Hall of Fame is proof that they do, over time, become appreciated. Vogelsong, a 26-year high school and college basketball official, is being honored tonight for a career dedicated to the twin goals of fair play and creating as level a playing field as possible for the Midstate’s student-athletes.

Vogelsong didn't start out with a dream of becoming an official, of course. At the start of his teaching career in the 1960's, Vogelsong was a coach, and a pretty good one at that. After several years of heading a highly successful junior varsity team for Bob Craig's vaunted Cedar Cliff program, Vogelsong took over the football team at Boiling Springs High School in 1973, winning the coach of the year award from the Harrisburg Oldtimers' Association after a 9-0-1 season in 1975. Vogelsong then moved to Middletown High School for two years, before opting for a career in insurance in 1978.

By that time, Vogelsong had already had 10 years in and a sterling reputation as a basketball referee. But now he would take that avocation to a new level. Besides high school games, Vogelsong worked in 11 different collegiate conferences, and he listed among his personal highlights working two high school state championships and a number of Division II and Division III college playoff games. "He was totally impartial, and he always had a real good rapport with the kids and the coaches," recalled Meade Johnson, one of Vogelsong's running mates on the hardwood over the years.

But Vogelsong's lasting legacy isn't how he filled his own assignments. It is his interest in improving the quality of officiated around the region. For example, Vogelsong developed a rating system for Mid-Penn Conference basketball officials that is still in use today, helping to determine which crews get assignments to the most pressure-packed games. "He took a lot of the politics out of officiating," said Johnson. He is also credited with starting the Central Penn Basketball Officials' training school, and then helping to teach the course and mentor younger officials long after his own retirement from active duty. At a point when many men his age were retiring, Vogelsong decided to end his career like he started it, back in the classroom as an English teacher at Cumberland Valley High School.

Sadly, Vogelsong lost a battle with pancreatic cancer last year at age 64. But his wife Karen says those last years were very happy ones for a man who always seemed eager to do his part to make the world a better place, one kid at a time. "He was always looking for a way to make things better," she recalled. "I think he always wanted to pay back the help that was given to him along the way. That was his thing."

INDUCTED 2007

A lot of great coaches have been added to the Hall of Fame's basketball division in recent years. Tonight, Gerald "Gerry" Wilson, a leader of multiple District III and PIAA state championship teams, joins the list. In 19 years as head boys ' basketball coach at Scotland School for Veterans' Children,

Wilson's teams logged 391 wins against just 124 losses. That's more than 20 per campaign with a .759 lifetime winning percentage.

Wilson retired in 2003 season, walking away with the pleasant taste of back-to-back PIAA Class A state championships, three straight District III titles and five consecutive Mid-Penn Conference crowns often earned against foes one or two size classifications larger. There were an incredible 11 district championships and four state titles overall. It was a string of accomplishment Wilson, a graduate of Southwestern High School near Hanover, probably never imagined at the dawn of his career.

A lifelong athlete, Wilson had enjoyed his time running track and playing hoops at Southwestern enough to know he'd like a career in athletics. A family connection led him to Slippery Rock University for a potential career as a physical education teacher. He knew of Scotland from high school track meets but took a much closer look upon college graduation in 1968 when a position was open there.

Wilson fell in love from the start with the residential school's special mission - providing a better educational option to economically disadvantaged kids, often from the inner-city, of veterans or parents on active duty in the military. Scotland literally becomes those students' home, giving teachers and coaches a unique opportunity to make an impact. At a small school, of course, teachers are also expected to do extra duty. Wilson found his niche right away in coaching. He served 17 years at the junior high and junior varsity levels before taking the head hoops job in 1985. It was a great fit. His Cadets teams were blessed with great athletes, but Wilson also

used them the right way, employing a baseline-to-baseline running game that bothered opponents with presses and a player rotation that usually went 10 deep.

But there is another side to Coach Wilson that deserves mention on this special night. His involvement with kids. At Scotland, he noted, "It was a family ... You've got kids from grade 3 to grade 12, and it's just sort of neat to see them mature and become players for you. The personal involvement I had with the kids after school was worth ten times what it was in school."

Perhaps anticipating grandchildren, the 60-year-old Wilson is still running with teenagers. He stays busy officiating as many as four soccer games a week. "I'm a terrible spectator," he quipped in a recent interview.