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Wittrock, Karen

Karen Wittrock

Induction Year : 2016

Sport: Basketball

A girls basketball coaching legend, Karen Wittrock, 71, compiled a record of 657 wins and 198 losses in 41 years as the girls basketball coach at Lutheran West High School in Rocky River. She ranks fourth in career victories on Ohio’s all-time girls coaches’ list.

Not only was she the first girls basketball coach at Lutheran West, she was the first coach in every girls sport there.

When Karen arrived at Lutheran West fresh out of Concordia Teachers College in Nebraska in 1967, Lutheran West had no girls sports teams. She must have felt like a fish out of water. In college at Concordia, she was the athlete of the year, earning letters in basketball, softball, field hockey and track. Her pioneer instincts immediately kicked in.

Karen started the entire girls sports program, starting with basketball. Nothing was easy. Her girls team was not permitted to practice in the main gym. They used the hallways to practice dribbling and passing but not shooting. They pretended to shoot layups at an imaginary basket. They bought their own uniforms, raising money through car washes and bake sales. They rented practice time at a nearby recreation center. Today the gym is named after her, referred to as the “Rock,” her college nickname.

Next she started field hockey, track and softball for girls. Soon she added volleyball and cross country. She coached them all. Later she coached the boys golf team.

She is forever identified with basketball, however. He teams won seven district tournament championships and 21 conference titles. Her teams experienced only two losing seasons. The Ohio High School Athletic Association honored her four times with its prestigious James Naismith Meritorious Service Award. She was the Ohio girls coach of the year four times and conference coach of the year 20 times.

Tonight marks her induction into her fourth hall of fame, including the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame which included her in its 2006 inaugural class.

She has twice fought off cancer but refuses to slow down. She still fills in regularly as a substitute teacher in math and phys ed at Lutheran West. She takes vacation trips in her motor home to Florida where she visits a brother and to her native Missouri to visit other family members. She enjoys those quiet moments when she drops a line in the river.

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Radosevich, Jeff

Jeff Radosevich

Induction Year : 2016

Sport: Horse Racing

Jeff Radosevich earned his way into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame by making thoroughbred racing history at Thistledown.

Some of the greatest jockeys in North American have won titles at Thistledown; among them Kentucky Derby champions Bill Hartack, Bobby Ussery and Mike Manganello, as well as 2011 Hall inductee, Tony Rini.

The same holds true for trainers. Loyd Gentry, who saddled 1967 Kentucky Derby winner Proud Clarion, was a champion in Cleveland.

But none of these men have accomplished what Radosevich has at Thistledown. Not only is he a champion jockey (1988), Radosevich has gone on to be a champion trainer (eight times, the first in 2005), making him the first and only horseman in Greater Cleveland racing history to prevail on a thoroughbred as well as at one’s side.

Radosevich retired from riding in 1993 after suffering a broken leg, the result of a race spill. As a jockey he had rebounded from five broken arms, four broken collarbones and a broken foot.

He immediately began training horses, and 20 years later continues to be Thistledown’s top trainer. Radosevich has ranked in the Top 10 winningest horsemen in North America in three of the last 12 years.

Jeff is from a large racing family. His father, Joe, as well as brothers, Joey and Jake, are horse trainers.

Radosevich won his first race as a jockey at Thistledown on November 9, 1980. He was 19. He also won his first race as a trainer at the North Randall track on December 10, 1993.

Radosevich hit a training milestone last year. On December 12 he saddled his 2,000th career winner at Mahoning Valley Race Course in suburban Youngstown.

A native of Joliet, Illinois, Radosevich has a farm in Geauga County where he lives with his wife Yvonne and their children.

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Moran, Mike

Mike Moran

Induction Year : 2016

Sport: Basketball

Mike Moran is a marathon man among Ohio basketball coaches.

The head coach of John Carroll University’s men’s team, Moran has been winning games and molding young athletes on Buckeye hardwood courts for 45 seasons.

Later this year he will celebrate his silver anniversary campaign at John Carroll. Previously, he was the head coach at St. Joseph High School for 11 years where he won two state championships. There were also nine seasons of freshman and junior varsity coaching at St. Joe’s and Cincinnati Elder.

As a head varsity coach at John Carroll and St. Joseph, Moran has won 667 games. While scholastic freshman and junior varsity records are sketchy, it’s believed Moran has won more than 750 basketball contests.

Moran, a 1973 graduate of Xavier University, is the winningest (443 games) and longest serving head coach in John Carroll basketball history.

He is coming off a season in which his Blue Streaks set a school standard with 21 consecutive victories on their way to a 26-4 record, the second winningest season in the annals of JCU basketball, a program that dates back to 1919.

Moran has won 10 Ohio Athletic Conference regular season championships and four OAC tournament titles.

His outstanding work has been copied at the highest level of collegiate basketball. Two seasons ago, Kentucky coach John Calipari adopted Moran’s “five in, five out” platoon system.

Moran not only wins basketball games, he makes basketball coaches out of players. More than 50 of those who played for Moran have gone on to emulate their former head coach. Many cite his enthusiasm for the game that he loves as their motivation to get into coaching.

Moran and his wife, JoAnn, live in Russell Township. They have six children and 14 grandchildren.

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Mack, Kevin

Kevin Mack

Induction Year : 2016

Sport: Football

Kevin Mack is a Cleveland Brown, through and through. His entire nine-year career as a National Football League running back was in the orange and brown, and today he continues in the team’s front office as the Alumni Relations manager.

Mack played in 99 games for the Browns, rushing for 5,123 yards and scoring 46 touchdowns. He also caught 197 passes for 1,602 yards and eight touchdowns.

If the Browns needed a tough yard, Mack usually got the ball.

He ranks ninth on Cleveland’s all-time scoring ledger with 324 points. He is also the franchise’s fifth all-time leading rusher and joined the Cleveland Browns Legends in 2007.

Nicknamed “Mack Truck,” he was named to two Pro Bowls in 1985 and 1987 and was considered not only an all-star runner but an exceptional blocker.

A native of Kings Mountain, N.C., Mack played at Clemson University and then one year for the Los Angeles Express of the United States Football League before the Browns made him the 11th overall selection in the 1984 NFL Supplemental Draft of USFL and Canadian Football League players.

During his rookie year in 1985, Mack ran for 1,104 yards, seven touchdowns and 5 yards per carry. He combined with Earnest Byner (1,002 yards) to become just the sixth running back tandem in NFL history to each rush for 1,000 yards.

One of Mack’s most significant runs came in the final game of the 1989 season when, with 39 seconds on the clock, he dragged defenders over the goal line for a four-yard touchdown that earned the Browns a 24-20 victory over the Houston Oilers and the AFC Central Division title.

Earlier this year Mack received the Dino Lucarelli Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Football Foundation and Cleveland Touchdown Club Charities Athlete-Scholarship Awards banquet.

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Palumbo, Sam

Sam Palumbo

Induction Year : 2016

Sport: Football

It was all about football and family for Sam Palumbo.

Growing up in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood, he made a name for himself playing football and basketball for the Railroaders. He captained both teams into his senior season in 1951. As a defensive lineman, he earned All-East Side Senate, All-Scholastic and All-Ohio honors. He could have played in the City Championship basketball game, but as a mid-year graduate, he was already enrolled at the University of Notre Dame.

Earning a role as a defensive tackle, he was on the Fighting Irish varsity as a freshman under legendary coach Frank Leahy. He was an All-Midwest selection as a sophomore and on the once-tied 1953 team. After earning four letters, he was a first team All-Catholic pick and played in the North-South game in Miami.

The 195-pounder caught the eye of another legendary coach as he was selected by Paul Brown to play linebacker for the Browns as a fourth-round draft pick (No. 49 overall) in 1955. In the self-proclaimed highlight of his career, he replaced an injured Chuck Noll and helped the Browns defeated the Los Angeles Rams, 38-14, for the NFL title that year. Palumbo contributed an interception to the victory.

After another year with the Browns, he was traded to the Green Bay Packers for his final season of pro ball in 1957.

But football remained in his blood for the next 40 years as he became a dean of Northeast Ohio’s officiating ranks, retiring from both the gridiron and his insurance business in 2001. He was always helpful lending wisdom to young officials learning their way through the rules and regulations of the high school game.

He was honored with the Cleveland Touchdown Club Bobby Brown service award in 2002 and a member of the first class in the Greater Cleveland Football Officials Hall of Fame in 2009. He had been in the Collinwood HOF since 1992.

Through it all, he was with his high school sweetheart, Catherine,for more than 60 years of marriage. The couple raised five sons and a daughter, residing in Lyndhurst.

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Bartley, Mike

Mike Bartley

Induction Year : 2016

Sport: Hockey

Mike Bartley was born to be an ice guy. He had the perfect makeup to coach winning hockey games.

No high school coach in Ohio has ever won more games than Bartley, who retired from coaching Shaker Heights High after winning the school’s fourth state title in 2013. Bartley’s final victory gave him 640, all of them with the Red Raiders for 37 seasons.

Beginning in 1976, he compiled a record of 640-346-36. His teams won state championships in four decades: 1981, 1993, 2001 and 2013. He took 10 teams to the state finals, with three of them as runner-ups in 1979, 1998 and 2005.

The Red Raiders won nine Baron Cup Tournament titles during his tenure, more than any other coach can claim for Northeast Ohio bragging rights.

But bragging rights would not be how the low-keyed Bartley would ever approach the accomplishment. It was not in his nature to put his wins above victories for the team. In his cramped office at Thornton Park, all of the Red Raiders’ team trophies and photos took the high-profile spots.

For Bartley, cozy Thornton Park was more of a classroom than rink. Throughout all the seasons, in both summer and fall outside the high school schedule, coaching younger players also played a part in the program’s success.

From mites and squirts to pee-wees and bantams, Bartley could be found going about his patient way teaching the game he loved. You could call him the minister of Thornton Park.

“It’s been sort of a ministry I’ve had in my life,” he said.

Growing up in Sarnia, Ontario, Bartley learned the game at the grass roots level like many Canadians in the junior ranks. He took his lessons to Bowling Green State University, and then played in the minor leagues.

Settling on his teaching role in elementary physical education, he took over the Shaker Heights High program during the disco era. With his trade-mark Maple Leaf tie, he weathered all the tough times and the good ones in the dedicated fashion he wanted – that of a teacher.

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Friedel, Brad

Brad Friedel

Induction Year : 2016

Sport: Soccer

Brad Friedel epitomized both saving grace and stamina on the soccer field.

For more than a quarter century he staked his claim as one of the top goalkeepers in the collegiate, professional and international ranks. The 6-3 keeper, who switched from forward to the goalmouth growing up in Bay Village, holds the record for playing in 310 consecutive games in England’s highly-competitive Premier League with teams Blackburn, Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur from 1998 to 2015.

Beginning with an NCAA national championship at UCLA in 1990, he earned collegiate honors through 1992 as he won the Hermann Trophy as a junior before opting for a professional career. After stints in Scotland, Denmark and Ireland, he was Major League Soccer’s Goalkeeper of the Year with the Columbus Crew in 1997. That opened the opportunity to play in England, initially with Liverpool and eventually as a starter with Blackburn in 2000 to begin his Premier League reign.

In his first season with Blackburn, he helped the Rovers return to the top division Premier League. He was Blackburn’s player of the year when he had 15 shutouts during the 2002-03 season.

He also played for the United States national team in the 1992 Olympics and in three World Cups. He was dubbed “the human wall” for his outstanding work during the 2002 World Cup as the U.S. reached the quarterfinals with stirring wins against Portugal and Mexico along the way.

He totaled 82 games for the national team from 1992 to 2005.

Before concentrating on soccer, Friedel was an all-state basketball selection at Bay, where he also played tennis. He was the school’s athlete of the year as a senior in 1990. Later that year he was invited to walk-on the UCLA basketball team as freshman.

Hoping to further establish the game at home, he founded the non-profit Premier Soccer Academy in Lorain for youth from 2007-2011. In 2016, he was named head coach of the United States Under-19 team.

 

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