1988 FOOTBALL INDUCTEE KENNETH GLEASON The handsome Santa Cruz-born Kenneth “Kenny'” Gleason was what some would call a “natural.”It didn’t matter what sport he tried; he excelled in football, basketball, and track at Santa Cruz High School and football, basketball, and baseball at Fresno State. After his playing days, Gleason turned to coaching. He coached…
1988 FOOTBALL INDUCTEE TOM FLORES Desire, dedication, and determination characteristics which best define accomplishments of Tom Flores during his exemplary career from high school to all levels of college play to the punishing ranks of professional football. Flores was a barrier-breaking rarity during two decades of competition at a time when very few Mexican-Americans were…
1987 TRACK & FIELD INDUCTEE RANDY WILLIAMS Fresno-born Randy Williams has the distinction of being the only local athlete to make three United States Olympic track and field teams. He still holds the world junior long jump record of 27’4″ accomplished in his first Olympic trials in 1972 when he was eighteen years old. He…
1987 ATHLETIC ADMINISTRATION INDUCTEE J. R. TOBY LAWLESS This man did it all and did it well. Lawless was a player, student, coach, official, administrator, and a motivator. In May 1963, this native Fresnan succeeded James “Rabbit” Bradshaw as head of the city schools’ physical education department. One year later, he died at the young…
1987 BASEBALL INDUCTEE TRUMAN CLEVENGER Being in the right place at the right time with the right team usually trumps being a big star. Truman “Tex” Clevenger is a case in point. The former Fresno State All-American pitcher from Ivanhoe has two World Series rings with the New York Yankees and never threw a pitch…
1987 TRACK & FIELD INDUCTEE FRED BARNES Fred Barnes had just switched from a bamboo vaulting pole-made famous by his world-renowned coach and mentor Dutech Warmerdam-to the more consistent steel pole when he enrolled at Fresno State in 1950. Barnes had completed two and a half years of service in the Armed Forces during the…
1986 FOOTBALL INDUCTEE CHARLE YOUNG Charle Young, an Edison High School graduate who went on to compete for the University of California and four NFL teams, played tight end as if he had invented the position. He is among those athletes who attained a degree of excellence that vaulted him into a select class, an…
1986 TRACK & FIELD INDUCTEE FLOYD WILSON His nickname lets you know that Floyd Wilson wasn’t very large, but his legs were like well-oiled pistons. His claim to fame at Riverdale High School was that he eclipsed Jesse Owens’ high school national long jump record. From 1930 through 1935, he was one of the premier…
1986 ATHLETIC ADMINISTRATION INDUCTEE “J.C.” TROMBETTA It was a long trip from Trombetta’s birth place in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1904 to Italy in 1907 and finally to Oakland in 1908. He played both football and baseball at Oakland and Stockton High Schools. Trombetta earned a Block ‘S’ at Stanford in football and also played…
1986 BASEBALL INDUCTEE TOM SEAVER Tom Seaver said he was more nervous when his wine-master Thomas Brown took the first swallow of vino from his Napa vineyards than he was while pitching his first World Series game. Why would a pitcher elected to Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992 with the highest-ever percentage of votes…