1963 DIVING INDUCTEE RUTH HUFFMAN (NURMI) The first female to be inducted into the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame, Fresno High graduate, Ruth Nurmi-Huffman competed at a high level in diving for three decades. Nurmi’s high point came in 1933 when she won the National AAU Junior Diving Championship. Two years later, she placed third…
1963 BASEBALL INDUCTEE DICK ELLSWORTH Dick Ellsworth can’t recall a time when he wasn’t throwing something at a stationary object. Ellsworth said. “I was blessed with a good natural throwing motion, so it was always fun to throw something.” The tall Ellsworth converted that smooth left-handed throwing motion into a thirteen-year major league career that…
1963 FOOTBALL INDUCTEE BOB BAXTER Fresno State College has had many great athletes but none has ever equalled the record set by its first great all-around athlete-Bob Baxter. In four years between 1922 and 1926, Baxter won 12 varsity letters in four sports. The record has never been equalled nor, in this day of specialization,…
1962 RIFLE SHOOTING INDUCTEE HENRY WRIGHT Henry Wright was a precision mechanic by trade and developed into a master of precision with a target rifle as a hobby. Wright is one of a handful of Fresnans to achieve national recognition in any category of shooting. He won three National Gallery Rifle Championships and represented California…
1962 DIVING INDUCTEE ALBERT WHITE Albert C. White is probably one of the least-recognized great athletes with Fresno connections. The bull-shouldered White was the first person (man or woman) to win an Olympic Games double in diving. During the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, White took gold medals in the three-meter high springboard and ten-meter…
1962 TRACK & FIELD INDUCTEE ELROY ROBINSON It would take a historian to recall the accomplishments of Elroy Robinson. The shy, 5’10”, 165-pound middle distance runner couldn’t make his Fresno High School team, yet set three world records. Robinson was a hard-working honors biology student at Fresno State College. He began a teaching career at…
1962 BASEBALL INDUCTEE ORVAL OVERALL When Orval Overall was traded to the Chicago Cubs from the Cincinnati Reds midway through the 1906 National League season, it was history in the making. The powerful-throwing right-hander, who was born in Farmersville and raised in Visalia, joined one of the greatestpitching staffs in major league history: Mordecai “Three…
1962 MOTORCYCLE RACING INDUCTEE LLOYD ELDER If you’ve never heard of the “Racing Farmers” of Caruthers, well, pull up a hay bale, sit a spell, and learn somethin’. Ray Elder sat behind the steering wheel, wore a crash helmet, and put the pedal to the metal. His brother, Richard was inconspicuously in the background, carrying…
1962 BASEBALL INDUCTEE STAN BORDAGARAY Frenchy Bordagaray, a former Fresno State football star from Coalinga who ended up playing eleven years in the major leagues, was one of the most colorful performers in an era of free-spirited players. It was the 1935 and 1936 seasons with the Dodgers where most of his zany antics occurred.…
1961 ATHLETIC ADMINISTRATION INDUCTEE DEL E. WEBB Fresno was a small, young town when Del E. Webb was born in 1899. He learned carpentry as a hobby, but like many young boys of the time, he developed a love for the game of baseball. Webb was born into a family of means, but before Del…