By Gary Ogle
gogle@wbcowqel.com
It took four ballots, but the Crawford County Sports Hall of Fame’s Nominating Committee put out the final roll call for its Class of 2014 on Sunday afternoon.
President Don Miller said when all the votes were tabulated, “We have a good class going in.”
The newest inductees will be Crestline native and alumnus Joe Gottfried, Leesville graduate Charles Armstrong, former Telegraph-Forum sports writer and editor Dick Edmond, Galion graduate Dustin Fox, Wynford Cherri Harrer, and the state champion Galion volleyball team.
Gottfried is already a member of the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame and earned those stripes in coaching stints at Bloomville and Lima Central Catholic. Gottfried made his way into the college coaching ranks at both Ashland College and Southern Illinois University. Gottfried’s teams at Ashland earned top 10 rankings and three NCAA tournament appearances. Gottfried also served as athletics director at the University of South Alabama.
Armstrong starred in both baseball and basketball at Leesville where he played for another Crawford County Sports Hall of Fame member, Robert Morrison. Armstrong played on back-to-back regional basketball and baseball teams as a sophomore and junior. Armstrong went on to played professional baseball in the Cleveland Indians’ farm system and also played semi-pro baseball for the Leesville Reds and Galion Merchants. Armstrong also coached summer youth baseball for several years.
Edmond was the longtime sports writer and editor for the Telegraph-Forum in Bucyrus before moving to the Tiffin Advertiser-Tribune. Edmond covered Crawford County sports extensively and introduced the Walker Award at Bucyrus which is still given out today.
Fox had an outstanding wrestling career at Galion which mushroomed at the collegiate level. Fox was not only a Big 10 champion at Northwestern University, but also an NCAA Division I national champion as well.
Harrer played at Wynford in the pioneer days of girls basketball. She starred in basketball as well as track in high school. But perhaps she is best known as one of the top NCAA Division III women’s basketball coaches in the nation. Harrer is the all-time winningest coach at Baldin-Wallace where her teams have won several Ohio Athletic Conference titles and made multiple NCAA tournament appearances. Harrer has coached several All-Americans and her teams are routinely ranked in the top 10 of Division III schools. Harrer is also a member of the Wynford Athletics Hall of Fame.
The Galion Lady Tigers of the late 1990s were unstoppable on the volleyball court. Under the leadership of Coach Jill Wilt, the Lady Tigers won back-to-back Division II state titles in 1999 and 2000 and were state runner-ups a third season.
The induction dinner and ceremony for the new class will be on a Saturday evening, March 22, at the VFW in Bucyrus.