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1-11-2007 By MICHELLE MILLER Staff Writer School board members have approved a proposal for an athletic hall of fame that will recognize those individuals who through their accomplishments have brought pride and distinction to CCS and the community either as an athlete, coach, administrator, or as a contributor to the development and success of the athletic program, school officials said. "This will give us a way to recognize the athletes who have been outstanding, and a way to recognize the coaches that have been so dedicated to helping young people," says Cring, who has been middle school principle for nine years and athletic director for 12 years. Cring also says an athletic hall of fame will give people who have not lived in Cooperstown their entire lives, like himself, a chance get to know a few of the people who were a part of making school traditions. A nine-member hall of fame committee has been formed. Cring says he was selected to be chairperson because he is in charge of athletics, and it "just made sense." The rest of the committee is made up of the president of the sports Booster Club Robert Snyder; board of education member Susan Mulligan; assistant football coach and high school guidance counselor Jay Baldo; retired Cooperstown superintendent and coach Paul Lambert; retired varsity boys track coach and middle school history teacher Don Howard; varsity volleyball coach Richard Jantzi; varsity soccer coach and high school history teacher Jennifer Pindar; and varsity field hockey coach Brenda Wedderspoon-Gray. Pindar says she thinks it's a great honor to be one of the first committee members for the athletic hall of fame. She says the hall of fame will be an excellent way to be able to recognize past coaches, athletes, special teams and even community members for their past accomplishments. "I think it's great," says Pindar. According to the Cooperstown High School Athletic Hall of Fame proposal, committee members will rotate every two to three years with the exception of the athletic director. The chairperson will always be whoever is acting athletic director. The existing committee will accept applications and make decisions regarding new members to fill vacated committee positions. The proposal says election to the hall of fame will be open to any male or female participants in any recognized form of sports competition who has made an outstanding contribution to the school as a superior competitor in athletics, and who last competed at CCS 10 or more years prior to the date of induction. Athletes must be CCS graduates and nominees must have demonstrated good citizenship and character in their lives. Athletic merit will only be based on the time the nominee spent at CCS. An outstanding team can be voted into the hall of fame as a team inductee, but the team must also wait 10 years after it competed last to be eligible for induction, says Cring. Cring says the first induction is expected to be next October, and pre-1970's graduates will be eligible. However, the eligibility timeline does not apply to coaches, athletic directors, administrators or boosters. As long as these candidates have completed their tenure with the district, they are eligible to be inducted into the hall of fame. "Those people are already established and known," says Cring. "They have shown their longevity in the program and have shown their character already. We hope to recognize those people while they are still actively involved in the community." According to Cring, the committee pondered over how many years to wait until athletes should be eligible for induction. He says they thought about maybe five or seven years, but decided on 10 years because committee members believed they needed time to watch the athletes mature into good citizens. "That is going to be a big factor when determining who to induct," says Cring. Cring says he thinks the 10 years will give the committee a chance to weigh each candidate's accomplishments fairly against one another. He says by then, the athletes should be in their late 20s and hopefully will be more mature and have had established who they are by then. "We didn't want to induct someone and then find out they are making choices detrimental to their character," says Cring. "That would take away from what we want the hall of fame to be." According to the proposal, the committee will vote for no more than five inductees in any given year. However, Cring says there will be an exception made for the first three years because there are just too many people to recognize from CCS' past. He calls them the "no brainers." Coaches such as Don Howard and Dick White would probably fall under that category, as would 1993 CCS graduate Seth Schaeffer. Schaeffer is the leading scorer in Cooperstown basketball history, boys or girls, with 1,719 career points. He was team MVP for three season and went on to play Division One basketball at Colgate University, where the team twice qualified for the NCAA Tournament. The proposal says nominations can be received from "any friend" of Cooperstown High School Athletics, and must be made in the appropriate format by completing the hall of fame nomination form to be considered. Information on the forms will be available after the committee's Jan. 15 meeting. The proposal also says nominees not voted into the hall of fame will automatically be considered for future elections. Nominations will be accepted through February, and nominees will be approved by consensus of the committee in March. No automatic elections based on performance such as pitching a perfect game or being an individual state champion or similar outstanding achievement will be permitted, according to the hall of fame proposal. Once committee members make their final selections, inductees will be honored with a dinner organized by the hall of fame committee. The banquets are scheduled to take place in the month of October of each year, and each inductee is encouraged to attend the induction, according to the proposal. If an inductee is deceased or otherwise cannot attend, a representative will be invited instead. It is not finalized yet, but Cring says the school is planning to have some sort of display for the inductees. He says the committee is still talking about it, but one suggestion is to have 3x5 inserts displayed on the boy's side of the foyer area at the school. According to Cring, not every detail has been worked out. He says there will be a committee meeting January 15 that will focus on the awards that will be given out at the induction dinner, pricing for chartering the dinner, the cost of the plaques and awards, and planning for a golf tournament to raise money to pay for event activities. Cring says a lot of other high schools and colleges have athletic hall of fames and they seem to work out fine. The first couple of years will probably act as a trial and error period to see what works best, says Cring. Jantzi, who is one of the current coaches on the hall of fame committee, says he thinks it is great the school is going to have an athletic hall of fame. "A lot of schools have them," says the varsity volleyball coach of eight years. "I think it's time for us to kind of get with the times." Jantzi says CCS is built on a lot of traditions, and he believes an athletic hall of fame is a great way to recognize athletes and coaches. |
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