Dedicated to those individuals making significant contributions to sports history in the Greater Peoria area.

President: Larry Dunn • 1st Vice President: Roger Monroe • 2nd Vice President: Mike Burns Treasurer: Susie Stockman • Secretary: Rhonda Parker • Newsletter Editor: Bob Sulaski

—— Website: www.gpshof.org ——

hGREATER PEORIAh

GREATER PEORIA SPORTS HALL OF FAMELocated at the Peoria Civic Center

GREATER PEORIA SPORTS HALL OF FAME1105 East War Memorial DrivePeoria Heights, IL 61616

PRESORT STD.U.S. POSTAGEPA ID

PEORIA, ILLINOISPERMIT NO. 789

hGREATER PEORIAhThe 30th Annual

Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame Induction Banquet

Sunday, March 13, 2011Peoria Civic Center

(Visit our website at: www.gpshof.org)Tickets are on sale now for the 30th Annual Induction Banquet to be held Sunday, March 13,2011 at the Peoria Civic Center, Rooms 401-404. Doors open at 10:30 a.m. for the reception and dinner is served at 12:00 noon. Introduction of the new Hall of Fame inducteesfollows dinner. Come early and say hello to former inductees that will be in attendance.

Advance tickets are $30 and after March 1st, $35.Call 309-682-4255 or e-mail Rhonda at gpshof@gmail.com

to make a reservation.

The 30th Annual Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame Banquet will be held Sunday March 13, 2010 at the Peoria Civic Center. Advance tickets are $30 and after March 1st, $35.

Call 309-682-4255 to make reservations.These individuals and teams will be inducted.

——————— 2010 INDIVIDUAL INDUCTEES ———————TOM WIERZBA - Basketball/Softball CoachTom coached basketball for 38years. His last 26 were at Farm-ington High School where histeams amassed 611 wins. Hewon 5 of the 7 times his teamswere in the super sectional. His1998 team were undefeated andfinished 3rd in the state tourna-ment. His 2007 team won 4thplace in the state tournament.He coached girls softball atFarmington for 10 years where

his teams won state championships in 1989 and 1991.

RON FAHNESTOCK- Athlete, Coach, and OfficialRon did it all. A 3-sport athleteat Limestone High School, hepitched his high school to the1956 IHSA state baseball finalsand signed with the New YorkYankees after high school. Aftercollege he was baseball coachand athletic director at CantonHigh School and and a long-time basketball and football of-ficial. He worked 3 seasons as aMissouri Valley Basketball of-ficial.

1947 & 1948 Pekin Basketball Teams Pekin High School’s 1947 (pictured at left)and 1948 (pictured at right) Basketball teamscombined for a school record 59 wins over the2-year period. The 1947 team finished 4th andthe 1948 team was 3rd in the one-class IHSAtournament.

1980 Bergan Basketball Team (right)The Bergan 1980 Basketball Team had a 23-9record and put together a late season run tofinish 2nd in the Class A IHSA State Tourna-ment.

——————— 2010 TEAM INDUCTEES ———————

NEWSLETTER ADVERTISING The cost of producing and mailing our newsletter is offset by bene-factor donations, Hall of Fame memberships and ads in our ban-quet program and Newsletter. Business Card size ads are $100 ayear. We mail the newsletter to 2,000 addresses. Please considersupporting us by including your ad in our next newsletter, pleasesend your business card and $100 check to the:

GPSHOF Newsletter Advertising1105 E. War Memorial DrivePeoria Heights,IL 61616Thanks for your support!

309-685-6000 -- Ask for Mike or Larry

Dan Shea, a longtime board member of the Greater Peo-ria Sports Hall of Fame, died November 27, 2010 at hiswinter home in New Port Richey, FL. Dan was active inrunning events for 20 years, having run in 7 marathons and13 triathlons. Dan started as a copyboy at the Peoria Jour-nal in 1951 and became a sportswriter which was his highschool dream. He retired in 1992 as the Day News Editor.

Del Bireline and Lee Utt passed away during the pastyear. They were members of the outstanding 1958 BradleyBaseball Team that tied for 3rd in the 1958 College WorldSeries. The team was inducted into the Greater PeoriaSports Hall of Fame in 1993.

Bob Jauron, the outstanding former Manual High Schoolfootball coach, died on January 20, 2010 in Massachusetts.Mr. Jauron coached the undefeated 1949 and 1950 Man-ual teams that were inducted into the Great Peoria SportsHall of Fame in 1990.

Al Fuhrman, a member of the 1947 Gipps Junior All StarNational Championship Softball Team, died on August 21,2010 in Lafayette, CA. His team was inducted into theGreater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame in 1992.

Steven Yang died in Peoria on December 23, 2010. Hewas one of the coaches of the 1967-1971 Peoria CentralTennis teams that were inducted into the Greater PeoriaSports Hall of Fame in 2003.

Gary Paulson died on December 29, 2010. Gary was arunning back on the undefeated 1957 Woodruff Footballteam that was inducted into the Greater Peoria Sports Hallof Fame in 1992.

Bobby Lowder died in Peoria on January 3, 2011. Bobplayed on the undefeated 1949 and 1950 Manual Footballteams that were inducted into the Greater Peoria SportsHall of Fame in 1990.

Death Notices GREATER PEORIA SPORTS HALL OFFAME BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Larry Dunn, PresidentRoger Monroe, 1st Vice PresidentMike Burns, 2nd Vice PresidentTreasurer, Susie StockmanSecretary, Rhonda Parker

Welcome to two new Hall of Fame board members – Mike McDonald andRichard Kestner. Both have extensive knowledge of Greater Peoria sportshistory.

Regular Board MembersGary Childs Matt GeorgeMike Higgins Richard KestnerDon Mathews Mike McDonaldEd Murphy Bobby ParkerGene Petty Corky RobertsonPhil Salzer Sue Sinclair Doug Sluser Bob Sulaski

Scotty Sullivan Junior WatkinsKirk Wessler Lee Youngman

Associate Board Members Ron Ferguson Lorene Ramsey Paul King

Special gifts available for individual and team inductees.

Former individual and team members may order duplicates of their 12 x20 inch plaques displayed at the Peoria Civic Center. You may orderthem by contacting Don Gustin at Joan’s Trophy. don@awardsnow.com309-674-6500. The cost is $135.

THANKS FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS

The Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame wishes to thank the benefac-tors that made contributions to us last year. All of our board membersare unpaid volunteers. Your generous contributions support our mis-sion to honor the athletes and teams that have contributed to the richsports history of the tri-county area.

Recent Obituaries

1983, 1984 & 1985 Elmwood Cross Country Teams (pictured below)The Elmwood boys cross country team won back to back to back Class A IHSA titles in 1983, 1984 and 1985.

August 20, 1921, Johnny Weissmullerbroke the world record for the 500 meterswim at Peoria’s Glen Oak Pool. Heswam the distance in 6 minutes and 34.6seconds. Weissmuller later won threegold and one bronze medalin the 1924 Paris Olympicsand two gold medals in the1928 Amsterdam Olympics.He set sixty-seven world

records. He was, however, probably best knownas Tarzan in the twelve Tarzan movies he madefrom 1932 -1948.

The Bradley Fieldhouse was replaced bythe Bradley Renaissance Center in 2010.The historic Fieldhouse opened on Decem-ber 6, 1949. On opening night Bradley’sstarting five were Squeaky Melchiorre,Billy Mann, Paul Unruh, Bud Grover andMike Chianakas. They defeated Houston73 to 57. The Bradley freshman played thepreliminary game and won 89 to 51 overthe Hopedale Stags. Three members of that

Bradley’s freshman team Stan Albeck, Buzz Ott, and ZackMonroe were years later inducted into the Bradley Hall of

Fame. Stan Albeck played 4 years atBradley, was Bradley’s head coach from1986 to 1991, and was the head coach ofseveral NBA teams. Freshman Buzz Ott, amulti-sports high school star from Hills-boro, IL, playedbasketball 4 yearsfor Bradley andwas named teamcaptain two times.

Zack Monroe was an all state basketballplayer at Woodruff High School andcame to Bradley as a basketball player.He also pitched for the Bradley Base-ball team and later gained fame pitch-ing for the New York Yankees in the1958 World Series.

In late 1800s Peorian Hudson B. Saurs wasknown in the Peoria area as the “fastest mor-tal on legs”and was the perennial Peoria footrace champion. In 1889 a challenge race witha speedster named Pierce from Bartonvillewas staged at the intersection of Howett andWestern. A massive crowd gathered for thebig race and the backers for both men bet heavily on their favorite. Saurs, as usual, broke to an early lead but as he nearedthe finish line, his pet dog ran out of the crowd to greet him andtripped him. Saurs went down. Pierce sped by the fallen cham-pion and won the race and money giving Saurs the only loss ofhis career. His dog was tied up and excluded from future races.

Gus Moreland, 6-time City champion,was quoted in 1940 saying, “Every timemy golf game begins getting fuzzy Ispend a few days in the office.”

Over the yearsseveral worldchampion boxershave been Peoria

visitors. Tony Zale light heavyweightchampion in the 1940-1948 period was thereferee for amateur boxing bouts in 1947

at the Main StreetArena located atthe top of MainStreet hill. JackDempsey, heavy-weight champion,visited Peoriafriends over aweekend in No-vember 1938.Muhammad Alivisited CarverCenter in the early1970s, IngemarJohansson, 1959-1961 heavyweightchampion, was in Peoria in the late1960s to visit Caterpillar headquartersand factories.

SPECIAL AWARDS 2011 BANQUETEach year the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame honorsthe outstanding coaches and athletes for the year. The 2010honorees are:

2010 Female Coach of the Year Paula Buscher - Paula is the BradleyWomens Basketball Coach. In her10th season, she guided her team to a 3rd place finish in the Missouri Valley and got to the quarter finals of the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament.

2010 Male Coach of the Year Mike Bare - Mike,the Peoria NotreDame Soccer Coach, directed his teamto the IHSA Class 2A State title andfinished the season with a 26-1 record.

2010 Female Athlete of the Year Jodi Rebholz - Jodi was the pitchingace for the Metamora Redbirds andled her team with a 30-1 record to the3A IHSA State Women’s SoftballChampionship. During her 4-years atMetamora she had 83 career wins.

2010 Male Athletes of the Year Matt Elliott - Matt won his thirdIHSA Swimming title in the 200-yardindividual medley and regained thetitle in the 100-breaststroke. In August as a member of the USA National Youth Team he won silvermedals in the 100-and 200-meterbreaststroke at the Junior Pan PacificChampionships in Maui.

Dylan Reel - Dylan’s Washingtonhigh school wrestling record is 87- 2with state titles in his freshman andsophomore seasons. In July he wonthe 160-pound Junior Greco-Roman National Championship in FargoN.D. In the Fall he led the Mid- IlliniConference in rushing yardage.

The Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame’s mission is to promote the many and varied sports programs in the Greater Peoria area (Peoria, Tazewell, and Woodford Counties). Our aim is to

honor those men, women and teams that have contributed to the area’s rich sports history. With the cooperation of the Peoria Civic Center Commission, The Peoria Journal Star, and generous

community support we have served the area since 1979.

Otto Baum & Sons866 Main Street

Morton, IL 61550(309) 266-7114

CORE Construction866 Main Street

Morton, IL 61550(309) 266-9768

Check out the actionwww.icc.edu/athletics • (309) 694-5-ICC

MIKE HIEBEREXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Established 1967Tackle / Flag Football / Cheerleaders

Phone: 309-682-8910 J.F.L.O.C.I.Fax: 309-682-5250 506 E. Marietta Ave.Email: jfloci@sbcglobal.net Peoria Heights, IL 61616

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“A Friend of the Community”The Old Timers donate hundreds of volunteer hours

yearly to numerous charitable projects.MAILING ADDRESS & FURTHER INFORMATION

Mike Burns, Secretary-Treasurer1603 Woodbine Ct., Washington, IL 61571 • 444-8719

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IT HAPPENED IN GREATER PEORIA SPORTS HISTORY RECENTLY IN GREATER PEORIA

2010-2011 Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame OfficersFront Row (left to right) – Larry Dunn, President; SusieStockman, Treasurer; Back Row – Corky Robertson, PastPresident; Roger Monroe, 1st Vice President; Mike Burns-2nd Vice President.

2010 NEVE HARMS MERITORIOUS SERVICE TO SPORTS AWARD

For the past 60 years Glen McCulloughhas volunteered his time and manage-ment skills for many area sportingevents. In 1967 he established theBradley Sports Statistic Crew forBradley Football and Basketball gamesand developed and improved the proce-dures that enabled his volunteer crew tobecome the standard for the Missouri

Valley Conference. He currently volunteers as the gamemanager for all Bradley home games and the IHSA StateBasketball tournaments.

THANKS TO ROMOLO & ASSOCIATES The Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame wishes to thank Romolo & Associates, Certified Public Accountants. They havevolunteered their assistance and guidance to the Greater PeoriaSports Hall of Fame in the preparation of our required financialand government reports.

NOMINATIONSEach year in September the 25-member Greater Peoria SportsHall of Fame board of directors reviews a long list of nomineesto determine the select few individuals and teams to be inductedat the annual banquet in March. Do you want to nominatesomeone? Visit our website www.gpshof.org and under “Contact Us” you can pull up and print a nomination form.

Johnny Weissmuller

Stan Albeck

Buzz Ott

Zack Monroe

Gus Moreland

Tony Zale

Jack Dempsey

Muhammad Ali

Ingemar Johansson

——— Check Out Our Website: www.gpshof.org ——— Email questions to Rhonda at: gpshof.gmail.com