From the football field to the volleyball and basketball courts, the 2009 class of the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame made an impact on the local scene throughout the last century.
The newest indcutee class was named last Tuesday at a news conference inside the Hall of Fame’s at Drivers Village in Cicero, and will be formally inducted at a dinner on Oct. 19 at Holiday Inn in Liverpool.Tickets are $60 per person and can be purchased by calling 657-3718.
The class includes, in alphabetical order:
– Edmund Dollard, who helped build the Syracuse University basketball program in the early part of the 20th century
– Larry Kimball, SU’s long-time sports information director
– Keith Moody, who went on from football fame at SU to the National Football League
– Beth Mowins, women’s basketball star and noted ESPN commentator
– John Sherlock, a well-regarded leader among basketball and golf officials
– Kris Terrillion, who built a volleyball dynasty at LaFayette High School
Edmund Dollard was the selection of the Old-Timer’s Committee. He coached basketball at SU for 14 years, from 1911 to 1924, earning a record of 148-56, a win percentage of .725.
That included 11 consecutive winning seasons and, in 1913-14, a perfect mark of 12-0. In 1917-18, the Helms Foundation awarded Dollard’s SU team its national championship, a precursor to the current NCAA championships.
A member of one of the first graduating classes at Christian Brothers Academy in 1904, Dollard went on to become a tax commissioner and real estate executive following his coaching career. He passed away in 1964, at the age of 79.
Larry Kimball was working in the sports information office at the University of Vermont when, in 1966, the Massachusetts native came to SU to take the SID job.
For 31 years, Kimball kept that post, proving so reliable that he never missed an SU football game during that time — 383 games in all. In turn, he became one of the nation’s most repsected SID’s, even becoming the ECAC Sports Information Directors Association president and working at both the National Sports Festival and Pan-American Games.
Kimball has been honored many different times for his work, by both football and lacrosse associations, and is an inductee in both the COSIDA (college sports information directors) Hall of Fame and SU Varsity Club. He is the longtime president of Blind Men and Criers and has worked as the co-director of the IRA Regatta (the nation’s oldest collegiate rowing event) for more than 30 years.
Keith Moody first made his name on the football field at Nottingham High School, where he was an all-state selection at both running back and defensive back from 1968 to 1970. At SU from 1972 to ’75, he was both a defensive back and punt returner, earning six interceptions as a senior.
Moody would go on to the NFL, first playing for the Buffalo Bills and setting a team record for longest punt return (91 yards against the Cleveland Browns) while also returning three interceptions for touchdowns. As a member of the Oakland Raiders, Moody was part of the team that won Super Bowl XV in 1981 over the Philadelphia Eagles.
Staying in football after retirement, Moody coached for 10 years, then went to school administration and is now the principal at Mountain View High School in California, near San Francisco. He and his wife Kathy have six children.
Beth Mowins first gained local notice as a basketball star at Cicero-North Syracuse High School, where she accumulated 1,245 career points. She played three sports at CNS, also excelling at softball and soccer.
At Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, Mowins continued to play basketball, setting season (200) and career (715) marks in assists, plus 1,159 points and 309 steals (second in school history) before graduating in 1989. She is a 2005 inductee into Lafayette’s Maroon Club Hall of Fame.
Mowins has gained her greatest fame in the broadcast booth, though, as she went from Syracuse Cable Sports to what is now a 15-year career at ESPN covering every kind of sport, including NCAA Championships in basketball, softball, soccer, tennis and volleyball, plus the NBA and college football. She also writes for ESPN.com.
John Sherlock has spent his entire life in Syracuse, making his biggest imprint in basketball and golf after attending CBA and LeMoyne College, where he graduated in 1952 after four years on the Dolphins’ basketball team.
Sherlock started officiating basketball game in 1956, earning so much acclaim that, by 1974-75, he served a term as president of the International Association of Approved Basketball Officials, where he has national lifetime membership.
Starting in 1980, Sherlock assigned local officials for high school games, working for nearly three decades in that role before retiring this past spring while also founding the annual Zebra Classic all-star game.
In the summer, Sherlock could be found on the golf course, where for 10 years he was president of the Syracuse District Golf Association, twice elected president of the New York State Golf Association. He and his wife Reggie have six children.
Kris Terrillion spent her college days at SUNY-Cortland and got a Masters degree at Ithaca College. Then, in 1972, the year Title IX became law, she went to LaFayette High School and started a girls athletic program.
Eventually, Terrillion would coach three sports, including soccer and basketball, but on the volleyball court, Terrillion built a dynasty with the Lancers. In 29 years of coaching, her teams went 506-76, a win percentage of .869, winning 26 league titles, 17 Section III championships and 10 regional crowns.
This came in two parts, for in the mid-1980s Terrillion got lured away to SU and served three seasons coaching the women’s volleyball Orange, even getting Big East Coach of the Year honors in 1984. But Terrillion went back to LaFayette in 1987 and continued to win until her retirement in 2005.
A member of the SUNY-Cortland Hall of Fame (inducted in 1992), Terrillion received a National Coaching Award in 1989 and a Walt Disney American Teacher Award in 1991. She also was a coordinator for the Empire State Games.
