As of this past Monday, the Riverside Sport Hall of Fame now has 98 inductees.
So who’s next?
It’s a pastime we indulge in with other Halls of Fame, sizing up currently active or eligible athletes/administrators/personalities to determine who could one day get the call.
In the case of this particular Hall, the criteria for getting in include bringing “honor and fame” to Riverside through athletics, whether as an athlete at a high level of competition, a coach guiding young athletes, or a contributor who promotes athletics and the community through philanthropy, promotion or day to day administration.
I’m hinging my own case for a red jacket on that “promotion” clause. It’s flimsy, true. And even if it was persuasive, there’s a long line ahead of me.
They’ve been doing this since 2003, and most years they induct seven per class. I can count at least 50 people right now who merit serious — no, smart aleck, I didn’t count myself — and that doesn’t even include those who are still competing such as Kawhi Leonard and Brenda Martinez.
“Since we are catching up on a century of athletics in the Riverside area, so many are qualified,” Hall president Jerry Hurley wrote in an email. “For many, it is not a question of if, it is a question of when.”
That said, if This Space had the deciding vote, here’s how the class of 2019 might look:
Pre-1970 athletes: Bob Geddes, a track athlete at Riverside Poly who took up football at Riverside City College, earned a UCLA scholarship and ultimately played six years in the NFL … Jim Shellenback (Ramona) pitched in 165 major league games over nine seasons and later was a longtime coach in the Twins organization.
Post-1970 athletes: Danny Reed (Ramona, RCC, UCR) needed 18 years to complete his college athletic career, because of injuries and the vagaries of earning a living. At age 35, he was a Division II All-American in track and cross country and graduated from UCR with a degree in business administration … Adam Kennedy (North, Cal State Northridge) played 14 big league seasons for six different teams, but he will forever be remembered for three home runs in one game to help get the 2002 Angels to the World Series.
Female athlete: Becky Bell. The former Poly athlete was among the nation’s best age group tennis players in the 1970s and earned All-America honors at UCLA. She has been on the University of Arizona’s staff since 1985, with 12 seasons as the head women’s tennis coach and more than two decades as an associate athletic director and head of the school’s life skills program.
Coach: Pete Lanzi, who ran the football program at the California School for the Deaf, Riverside, from 1961-85. As I wrote when he passed away in 1996, he used “equal doses of patience, good humor and caring to teach deaf kids about football.” And boy, could he tell a story.
Contributors: This would be a tie: Franklin A. Lindeburg, who was among the first employees at UC Riverside when it opened in 1954 and was a Highlander until the day he died, last Nov. 9; and Debbi Guthrie, still probably the most influential woman in town even after pulling back from the day-to-day grind with the Convention and Visitors Bureau and Riverside Sports Commission. Not to mention that Guthrie led the charge to get the Hall of Fame up and running again three years ago when it seemed close to going away.
Yes, she already has the red jacket. Now she deserves a plaque to go with it.
The trick, and the Hall’s next major task, will be to make sure there’s a place with ample space for all those plaques. That’s still a work in progress.
And this is meant to be an argument-starter. If you have a favorite, send an email and make your case. (I’ll make sure I forward them to Hurley.)
jalexander@scng.com
@Jim_Alexander on Twitter
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