By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
Five individuals and one team were the latest to be enshrined in the Crawford County Sports Hall of Fame Saturday night.
Held at the Trillium Event Center for the first time, Bill Durtschi, Jack Hewitt, Chuck Huggins, David Katterhenrich, Natalie Winkelfoos, and the 1985 Buckeye Central Buckettes’ State Championship basketball team were inducted as the class of 2015.
Inducted posthumously, Bill Durtschi was a 1939 Galion graduate. Durtschi played halfback and was part of the 1937 and 1938 NCOL League Champions. Durtschi went on to play for Paul Brown at Ohio State as part of the 1942 National Championship team.
Bill was inducted by his sons Bob, Bill and David. David explained how it felt to be inducting their father.
“It’s pretty special. Dad considered Crawford County and Galion as home, and loved the area,” David said. “If he was alive he would be very honored into the Crawford County Sports Hall of Fame.”
Natalie Winkelfoos was the first player in Bucyrus high school basketball history to score 1,000 points. After graduating in 1999 she went on to Baldwin-Wallace where her team went 100-17 and appeared in three NCAA tournaments under fellow Crawford County Hall of Famer Cheri Harrer. Winkelfoos was also inducted into the Bucyrus Hall of Fame earlier this year. Winkelfoos explained what it felt like to be part of both halls of fame.
“I don’t know if I have been home this often in a long time,” Winkelfoos said. “It feels good, I mean that is a very generic response, but I am flattered to be here, and just walking here you see the people who have touched your life and remember your playing and it is a very humbling experience.”
Jack Hewitt was a four-sport athlete for the Bucyrus Redmen, In 1990 Hewitt was hired as the Bucyrus Lady Redmen softball head coach. That season the Lady Redmen went 27-2 and captured the state championship. Afterwards Hewitt went back behind the scenes helping area pitchers improve their throwing abilities never charging for his services.
Hewitt explained how it felt going into the hall of fame.
“It feels good, it is kind of a validation of somebody appreciated what you did all of those years and you must have done something right,” Hewitt said.
Chuck Huggins, a graduate from Colonel Crawford, returned to his alma mater as the softball head coach and was at the helm of the Lady Eagles’ squad for 28 years. During that period Huggins amassed a 568-204 record with 63 total championships including a state championship in 1995 as well as coaching state runner-up teams in 1993, 1999, and 2013.
Huggins explained what he enjoyed out of coaching.
“It is just fun each year to see how far you can take each team from where we are at the beginning of the year to where we end up, and it is so neat to see each team develop and the camaraderie that we have and the fun that we have,” Huggins said. “Our mantra at Colonel Crawford softball is, ‘We have fun and get it done.’ It is huge, because the girls want to be girls sometimes, but yet they understand when they get between the lines it is time to get after it and get the job done.”
The 1985 Buckeye Central Buckettes were the NCC runner up to River Valley who had handed the Buckettes their only loss of the season. The Buckettes had the last laugh though as they went on to win the Class “A” State Championship.
Lisa Marcum, who played forward on the team, reflected back on the season.
“It was the NCC back then and it is kind of like it is now it is a lot of Carey, and Pleasant, and Elgin was in it, and it was tough,” Marcum said. “The NCC was tough and we lost one game all season and that was to River Valley. We were not the NCC champs. We were the state champs, but not NCC champs because we lost to River Valley, and that is something I still can’t believe to this day that we were state champs and not NCC champs. I think if I remember Vainard (Spiess) wasn’t happy with us we didn’t play well and we didn’t deserve to win, I think that kicked us into gear and get our act together to play well the rest of the year.”
David Katterhenrich was a multi-sport athlete for Bucyrus High School in 1958 Katterhenrich was part of the relay team that set the school record in the mile relay. In Football Katterhenrich excelled as a fullback and linebacker. Katterhenrich went on to Ohio State where he was a three-year letter winner in football including being part of the 1962 National Champions. Katterhenrich was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, but gave up a career in football for a career in education in 1967 when the Browns were going to trade him to the New York Titans.
Prior to the ceremony beginning a donation was taken up to help Noah Lear’s family pay for medical expenses incurred.
The VFW had held the banquet and dinner since the first class in 2009, however prior to the induction ceremony President of the Crawford County Sports Hall of Fame Don Miller announced that the event had moved to the Trillium Event Center because the sports hall of fame came to an agreement that the event center would lease a portion of the building in order to house the physical location of the Crawford County Sports Hall of Fame.