2023 TRACK & FIELD INDUCTEE TODD REICH The modern Olympic Games have always featured track & field. Known as “athletics,” it dates back to 1896. Exactly 100 years later, in the summer of 1996, Todd Riech became a part of Olympic history. Riech grew up in Hot Springs, Montana. A small town of only a…
2022 COACHING-BASEBALL INDUCTEE RON SCOTT From 1958-2022, the Fresno City College baseball team had just two head coaches: Len Bourdet and Ron Scott. Bourdet won 722 games and four state championships before retiring in 1988. Scott took over in 1989, and he won a state championship in 1992. He also won a total of 1,100…
2022 COACHING-WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL INDUCTEE MARIAN BATTLES Marian Battles was 23 years old when she accepted a job at Kerman High School in 1978 to be both an English teacher and a coach. And not the volleyball coach, but rather an assistant swim coach and the junior varsity basketball coach. “They needed coaches,” said Battles, who…
2022 BOXING INDUCTEE MAC FOSTER On April 1st, 1972, Muhammad Ali won a 15-round fight in Tokyo by unanimous decision. His opponent was Mac Foster, whom Ali predicted he would beat in five rounds. And via knockout. Mac Foster was born in Louisiana in 1942. And “Mac” is short for “MacArthur”; he was named after…
2022 GOLF INDUCTEE KATHLEEN MCCARTHY In the early 1980s, the best place to find Kathleen McCarthy was at San Joaquin Country Club. She was there almost every day, especially in the summers when she estimates that she spent between six and ten hours each day on the course. Believe it or not, Kathleen McCarthy did…
2022 BASKETBALL INDUCTEE CONNIE GOOCH In 1975, Connie Gooch became the first woman from Fresno to receive a full college scholarship to play basketball. Believe it or not, she had only been playing the sport for two years. Connie Gooch was born in France in 1957. The daughter of a sergeant major in the army,…
2022 BASKETBALL TEAM INDUCTEE 1974-1976 HOOVER HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS BASKETBALL 1974 was an important year for the California Interscholastic Federation as it was the first year that girls’ high school basketball was a sanctioned sport. That meant that section champions were decided for the first time in girls’ high school basketball, and the winner of…
2022 BASEBALL TEAM INDUCTEE 1955 FRESNO CARDINALS BASEBALL In 2001, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues celebrated its 100th year. As part of that celebration, a couple of historians put together a list of the top 100 minor league teams of the previous century. The 1955 Fresno Cardinals were on that list, checking in…
2021 BASEBALL INDUCTEE 1961-1963 FRESNO CITY COLLEGE BASEBALL It is a feat that has only been accomplished twice in the 70-year baseball history of the California Community College Athletic Association: back-to-back-to-back state championships. And the first team to do it was Fresno City College from 1961-1963. Coached by Len Bourdet, who took over the program…
2021 GOLF INDUCTEE KEVIN SUTHERLAND Kevin Sutherland is amazed at what he does for a living. “I tell people I’m still doing what I did when I was ten,” he says. Sutherland, a professional golfer since 1987, started playing the game when he was eight years old. However, it was not until he was 15…