MAC ON SPORTS: DISTRICT 61 HALL OF FAME CLASS ANNOUNCED BY COMMITTEE
J. Thomas McNamara
“A good solid class” is the way Greg Collingwood described the most recent District 61 Hall of Fame Class that the committee he chairs selected at its Monday (June 29) meeting which was well-attended with some members personally convening in a third floor Keil Building conference room and others participating virtually through zoom.
Eisenhower’s 1992 semi-final football team will be inducted October 2nd at the annual Eisenhower/MacArthur game. Their coach, Steve Smith, was voted “Coach-of-the-Year” and will be enshrined with his team at that same game.
The game is scheduled to kickoff at 5 o’clock at Matheson Field.
Moe Dampeer headlines the 10-member class for his play with the football Generals and later at Oklahoma and for Division II national champions Northwest Missouri State.
The other nine included the elder Al Lawson, who excelled in football and basketball at MacArthur, Eisenhower’s cross-country and track and field runner Lindsay Martin, MacArthur’s basketball Lexy Carson, Stephen Decatur’s brilliant tennis player Mike Nolan, Eisenhower’s all-around athlete, but especially baseball, Harry Cook; MacArthur’s standout track and field sensation Adrian Walker, Eisenhower’s late superb lineman Leon Fonville, Lakeview’s football standout Tim Cox and Stephen Decatur’s outstanding swimmer Kostaki Chiligiris.
Dr. Fred Bouchard, assistant superintendent for support services, including athletics, asked the committee to create a special category to recognize non-District 61 athletes, who have contributed significantly to district athletics. He called it “Significant Contributors to District 61 Athletics.” He suggested this writer and Scott Busboom as the first two to be honored in this category which the committee approved.
They, too, will be recognized at the October ceremonies.
The only possible hangup for the October program will be if the Illinois High School Association cancels the fall sports season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If the game is not played, everyone will be recognized at the Friday luncheon which is held for every class.
I will have more on this developing story in a future print edition of the Decatur Tribune.
Mac:
I am pleased to see so many deserving candidates being selected to the HOF. However, I am curious about the candidate that I nominated and how he finished in the selectiion process. I promoted Jim Jarrett, DHS Class of 1954(?), since he was an outstanding tennis player in high school and 40 year athletic director at Old Dominion University in Virginia. He was generally considered a pioneer of recognizing women athletes as scholarship-worthy at the collegiate level in the early years, circa mid-1960’s. Just curious, but it seems that without his pioneering work, several, if not all, of the female members of the HOF may never have had the chance to showcase their athletic abilities. I thought that alone would be an express train to induction. Do you know if he will be submitted for further consideration? Is there anything you can think of that I could do to help his cause? And by the way, congratulations on earning the HOF nod. Thank you and with my respect…… Terry Miller, MacArthur ’66