1970 COMMUNITY LEADER INDUCTEE EARL WIGHT Earl Wight surfaced in Fresno in 1924 following three seasons as basketball coach at the University of California. Wight accepted the job as director of athletics and physical education at Fresno State which fielded its first football team in 1921. Wight was a star quarterback at Pomona College where…
1970 ATHLETIC ADMINISTRATION INDUCTEE J.W. WARNER Thirty-four years of high school coaching in Fresno have firmly established J.W. “Pop” Warner in the history of H.S. athletics in the San Joaquin Valley. Warner began coaching in 1907 at Fresno High. He remained there until February 1922 and then went to Fresno Tech, where he stayed until…
1970 PLAYGROUND ADMINISTRATOR INDUCTEE RAYMOND QUIGLEY Early in his life, Raymond Quigley participated in athletics to combat a frail constitution. On one-Fourth of July in Central City, Colorado, he won a foot race for eight-yer-olds, then a race for 10-year-olds and a few minutes later a race for 12-year-olds. Then he was barred from further…
1970 FOOTBALL INDUCTEE ROY NISWANDER In 1920, Roy Niswander began an illustrious career on the gridiron as a fullback on the Fresno High School team. He was famed for his line smashing and was the terror of the local prep competition. He was captain of the Warriors in 1922. Matriculating to the University of California,…
1970 FOOTBALL INDUCTEE E. A. MAUL In 1926, E.A. “Tuffy” Maul pioneered in professional football. A far cry from present-day pro-ball, the pro players of Tuffy’s day were rugged and barnstormed and played throughout the nation, traveling long distances by train and bus. Maul played with the Los Angeles Buccaneers, the first West Coast team…
1969 COMMUNITY LEADER INDUCTEE J. MARTIN WINTON Grizzled veteran and pioneer of the Fresno chapter of Ducks Unlimited, J. Martin Winton was known as “Mr. Duck.” He probably knew more history about the days of the so-called “market hunters” and the heydays of the Dos Palos and Los Banos Grasslands Duck Clubs than anyone in…
1969 SKEET SHOOTING INDUCTEE LLOYD SCIARONI They sent a boy to do a man’s job and they got a surprise. Lloyd A. Sciaroni was only a freshman at Fresno High School when he tied the 410 shotshell world record in 1938 at the Western Open Skeet shoot. From 1935 to 1940, Sciaroni competed against the…
1969 FOOTBALL INDUCTEE DALE MESSER Dale Messer inherited some of his drive to excel from his father, but most of his early sports instruction came from then Island Elementary School principal Marion Jones. Messer became a famous track and football star at Lemoore High School, College of the Sequoias, and Fresno State, through the teaching…
1969 FOOTBALL INDUCTEE JOHN KAZANJIAN Eligibility rules were a little different when Fowler product John “Casey” Kazanjian played two years at fullback for the first two football teams in Fresno State history. Three years later, he enrolled at Stanford University and played guard for two years. Today, he would have had to complete his four…
1968 BASEBALL INDUCTEE LLOYD MERRIMAN Lloyd Merriman graduated from Clovis High School in 1942 when Daryle Lamonica was only a year old. Two of the most famous Clovis High athletes have stadiums named after them. There is the Lloyd Merriman Field for baseball and the Lamonica Stadium for football. Lamonica’s collegiate and professional achievements far…