Last Friday night I had the great honor to emcee the annual Washington High School Athletic Hall of Fame ceremonies between games of the Warriors home doubleheader with Kennedy. Former Athletic Director Duane Kramer started the Hall of Fame back in 1988 and it has been in great hands since with Denny Goettel and now Paul James keeping the tradition going.

My point today is not to brag on the Warrior Hall of Fame, even though it is a great one, but to thank all the schools that have places to honor great athletes and contributors to their success over the years.

In addition to Washington High School, Jefferson, Kennedy and Xavier also have Halls of Fame that I know of ... that’s not to say that other schools do not, I just don’t know of them.

It is a great way to bring the athletes and contributors of today closer to the people they may have looked up to as children or as their contemporaries. For example, two of the inductees the other night at Washington I remembered watching play football while I was in school in the early 80’s at cross-town Kennedy. While I was sitting on the Cougar side, I enjoyed watching QB Brad White and RB Greg Bjornsen and remember what great players they were on a very fine football team that qualified for the playoffs, back when only eight 4A schools advanced to the post-season! The story of Hall of Fame swimmer Allyn Secor was a fantastic one as well. Secor was discovered in the PE swimming class he was required to take by legendary coach Jim Voss who asked him to join the team. He did and, as they say, the rest is history. He helped Washington to win four state titles while he swam for the Warriors.

Stories like that are out there in the Metro area and it’s great to hear about them and honor them in a Hall of Fame. If there are Metro schools that don’t have a place to honor these people, I would strongly encourage them to start one.

Best of luck to the Metro swimmers and wrestlers this weekend in the state meet and districts, respectively. No athletes work harder throughout the season than these largely unheralded athletes. Go out there Saturday and cheer them on!