Legacy Series: Hall Of Fame Celebrating 50th Anniversary

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Legacy Series Part One - Legacy Weekend To Take Place In October
Legacy Series Part Two - Falcon Club Celebrating 50th Anniversary

This is the third in a series of stories over the next few months about the upcoming Falcon Athletics Legacy Weekend planned by the Bowling Green State University Athletics Department. BGSU Athletics will be recognizing the 50th anniversaries of both the Falcon Club and the Hall of Fame, while also promoting the BGSU Athletics Walk of Fame and History, featuring the Cochrane Cunningham Archive and Museum. As well, BGSU Athletics will recognize our Heritage sports -- those no longer fielded by the University.

BGSU Athletics is proud to announce that Jack Carle, who recently retired as beat writer for BGSU Athletics after more than 35 years of covering Falcon sports, will be providing his insight for our Legacy Weekend series. Among the stories planned are pieces about the Athletics Hall of Fame, the Falcon Club, Freddie and Frieda Falcon and BGSU's Olympic gold medalists. Please check BGSUFalcons.com regularly as Jack tells the stories of BGSU's rich athletics history.

In October 1957, Harold Anderson, the athletics director and legendary head men's basketball coach at Bowling Green State University, proposed an athletics Hall of Fame be started at the University. According to a story in the BG News, Anderson made the proposal at the Homecoming breakfast and Dr. Ralph W. McDonald, then the president at BGSU, backed Anderson's idea. The plan, as proposed by Anderson, was to create a Hall of Fame room in Memorial Hall, a building that would later be the home of Anderson Arena where the men's and women's basketball teams competed until the Stroh Center opened in 2011.

Although Anderson brought forth the idea in 1957, it was not until 1964 that the first class was inducted into the BGSU Hall of Fame. That six-person class covered a wide spectrum in Ivan 'Doc' Lake, Franklin 'Gus' Skibbie, Wyndol Gray, Robert Schnelker, Charles Share and Jack Heckler.

-- Lake (1924) was a member of the first BGSU football team in 1919. He was also the first letterman in BGSU tennis history. Lake lettered two times as a cheerleader, and served as a manager for football, baseball, and basketball. He also originated the nickname of Falcons for athletic teams. Lake was also the sports editor of the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune.

-- Skibbie (1926) was an outstanding student-athlete in football, basketball, baseball, and tennis. He was a catcher on BG's first championship team, while captaining the 1921 Northwestern Ohio Conference championship football team. He went on to serve three terms as mayor of Bowling Green, while teaching at Bowling Green High School for 38 years.

-- Gray (1946) was the first Falcon basketball player to be named first-team All-America. He was a member of the first Boston Celtics team in 1946.

-- Schnelker (1951) was an All-Ohio football player and also a track athlete at Bowling Green. He played for three different teams in the National Football League and made two Pro Bowls. Following his playing career, he was an assistant coach for seven different NFL teams, winning two Super Bowls with the Green Bay Packers.

-- Share (1950) set individual game, season and career marks at BGSU while helping make the Falcons one of the nation's top basketball teams in the 1940s. He was a 10-year performer in the NBA with Ft. Wayne and St. Louis. He was captain of the Hawks in 1957-59 when they were the world champions.

-- Hecker (1956) was an All-Ohio, All-MAC and Little All-American end in 1954 and 1955. He was the first BGSU player to participate in the Blue-Gray game and was a Cleveland Browns draft choice. He was a member of Bowling Green's 1954 National Invitation Tournament basketball team and also won honors in track.

In the 50 years since that first class, there have been 222 individuals and two teams (the 1983-84 NCAA hockey champions and the 1959 football team that went 9-0 while winning the college division national championship) inducted. While the vast majority of individuals inducted have been athletes, there also have been administrators, contributors, coaches, a trainer and an equipment manager. This year, in lieu of inducting a 2014 class, all Hall of Fame members will be recognized during Athletics Legacy Weekend, Oct. 17-18, at BGSU.

Brian McClure, one of those 222 individuals to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, was selected in 1991 after a standout career as a quarterback for the Falcons in the early 1980s.

"At the time I thought it was a great honor, and I think it's more of an honor the older you get," McClure said. "I am truly blessed to be up there with a lot of great athletes in all the sports, figure heads of the University, and coaches."

McClure completed his career second only to Boston College's Doug Flutie in NCAA history with 10,280 passing yards and 9,774 yards of total offense. A two-time Mid-American Conference Player of the Year, McClure earned the starting job just three games into his first season. He went on to become the first freshman in league history to earn first-team All-MAC honors. McClure led the Falcons to two California Bowl berths while directing the Falcons to a record of 32-9. BG won 30-of-36 league games during his career.

"I don't think I got there on my own. I was surrounded by a lot of good coaches and a lot of great players," McClure said. "There were a lot of great friends that I played with that helped me get to that situation. There are probably some guys that deserved to get in there that didn't because they weren't the stat guys or the prominent athletes. But I will share the honor with them until the end because you don't get something like that without being surrounded by people who can help you get you there."

33697 — Paulette Backstrom (left), Megan McGuire (center) and
Jackie Motycka (right) helped to bring BGSU women's
basketball to prominence.

Another Hall of Famer, Megan (McGuire) Harriel was a major part of the women's basketball team, which helped move that sport into the limelight at BGSU. She was one-third of a senior class with Paulette Backstrom and Jackie Motycka, all of whom are now in the BGSU Athletic Hall of Fame. Motycka was inducted in 1994, Backstrom in 1995 and Harriel in 2006. The trio helped the Falcons to an overall record of 96-23 (.807) and a 53-7 MAC mark (.883) during their four years. They won both the MAC regular-season and tournament titles in each of their last three seasons, capping off their careers by becoming the first MAC team to advance to the second round of the NCAA championships with a win over Cincinnati in the opening round.

Harriel said she was pleased to be the third member of the team to be inducted into the Hall of Fame

"The three of us achieved so much success together that it was only fitting to be in the Hall of Fame together," Harriel said about her four-year teammates.

McGuire earned all-conference first-team honors in her senior year, placing fifth in the balloting for MAC Player of the Year. She earned MAC All-Tournament honors that season after averaging 16 points, six assists and four steals per game in the Falcons' run to the title. She was the fifth player in school history to score 1,000 career points, and finished her career with 1,062 points. Following the completion of her four-year basketball career, she joined the Falcon volleyball squad for the 1989 season, and helped that team to its first-ever MAC regular-season title.

"Eight years later I'm so proud of all the players and coaches that have been inducted representing the women's basketball program. And I'm proud to say we have many more talented players that will be inducted in the near future," Harriel said.

But even before McGuire, Backstrom and Motycka, Dorothy Luedtke paved the way for their induction. The first woman inducted in the Hall of Fame, Luedtke was selected in 1985. Known to colleagues and students as "Bergen," she came to BG in 1943 and graduated in 1946. As an undergraduate she was active in field hockey, soccer, basketball, volleyball, badminton and softball. After graduation, Luedtke organized and coached several different sports opportunities for women, both on the intramural and intercollegiate levels. Luedtke completed 33 years of service to Bowling Green in 1984 and retired as an associate professor.

In 2003, the North Gym in the Eppler Complex was named for Luedtke.

In a letter supporting Luedtke's nomination for the Hall of Fame, Leanne Grotke, at the time the associate director of athletics at California State University Fullerton, wrote: "While I was at Bowling Green for 1959-1965, Ms. Luedtke 'was' our sport program for women … Ms. Luedtke was a truly a pioneer … It was not easy to break into the men's world of intercollegiate athletics. It took patience and dedication to make even the smallest of strides and people like Dorothy Luedtke were the ones to make it happen … true dedication, professionalism and a pioneering spirit describe Ms. Luedtke as I knew her."

More information on the athletics Hall of Fame can be found in the Stroh Center as part of the Cochrane Cunningham Archive and Museum.

A complete list of Hall of Fame members is available at bgsufalcons.com.

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