It took a long time to finally become a reality, but the Centre County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame has released the names of its first class of inductees.
The chapter officially became a member of the Pennsylvania Hall of Fame last May, and it immediately began working on nominating and electing its first class. The chapter announced that the honorees will be inducted Sunday, Oct. 15, at the Ramada Hotel and Conference Center in State College.
According to chapter treasurer Lloyd Rhoades, there were more than 40 nominees for the 13 positions available, which were divided into three categories — legends, deceased and living.
Nominees can be from any sport or related activity and from any time period, but every athlete must either have been a native of Centre County or spent significant time here after retiring.
The purpose of the hall, according to the bylaws, is to perpetuate the memory of individuals who have brought fame and recognition to the people of Pennsylvania through their achievements in athletics.
The members of the class of 2017 include:
■ Living — Dave Adams, two-time PIAA wrestling champion from Bellefonte; Joe Hammaker, Penns Valley wrestling coach; Joe Humphries, noted fly fisherman, Penn State wrestler and BEA and Penns Valley coach; Denny Leathers, Bellefonte baseball coach and player; Rich Lorenzo, Penn State wrestling coach; Doug McDonald, editor and sportswriter from the Centre Daily Times; Bruce Parkhill, State College basketball player and Penn State head coach; Thad Turner, Philipsburg-Osceola wrestler and Lehigh All-American and coach; and Ward Whitehill, Bellefonte County Baseball League pitcher.
■ Legends — John Montgomery Ward, Bellefonte baseball player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1964, and Myles Thomas, State College baseball player.
■ Deceased — Bill Luther, Bellefonte football coach, and Gene Wettstone, Penn State and U.S. Olympic gymnastics coach.
“It’s the inaugural class, and we are indeed excited about it,” Rhoades said. “Centre County has needed one of these for a long time. Ron Bracken, who wrote for the Centre Daily Times, was pushing this for a number of years, but he couldn’t gather any momentum on it.
“But then, about two years ago, a few of us got together and decided it was far beyond time and that we were going to make it happen. So we started doing everything we had to do to get the organization established.”
The initial class is made up entirely of men.
“Girls athletics really did not get underway (in a big way) until the ’80s,” Rhoades said. “For the most part, there might have been a couple here and there, but to earn the kind of criteria that you would need to have to be elected into a lifelong thing like this with a hall of fame, a lot of those women are just now coming of age.
“I mean there will be women going in there for sure. There were women nominated this year, but they didn’t get the vote. But it will happen. There are women who I plan to nominate.
“We do have a woman on our board of directors, Nan Sichler Moerschbacher. She was an outstanding softball player for State College and led them to great heights in high school. Then she was a four-year starter for Penn State. I think she still owns the career homerun record by a Penn State softball player.”
The chapter is led by a 12-person board of directors that includes representatives from all the area school districts, private high schools and Penn State, and four at-large directors.
The officers are Ron Pifer, president; Bucky Quici, vice president; Don Burris, secretary; and Rhoades, treasurer.
Membership is open to anyone, and members can nominate and vote for inductees in this chapter as well as the state hall of fame. Information is available from any of the officers or board members, as well as on the chapter’s Facebook page.
“This will be every year,” Rhoades said. “We will put together a slate of nominees, probably in the fall, about the time we’re having the banquet. We’ll put them out before Thanksgiving again and our members will vote on them. We will just reiterate the process annually from there on out.”
But this class and this induction banquet will be the first one, and, according to Rhoades, that will make it always special.
