William DeHart Hubbard was the epitome of the unsung hero. Only a close inspection of the record books reveal the remarkable accomplishments of a true historical figure.
At the 1924 Olympics in Paris, Hubbard became the first African American to win a gold medal in an individual event when he won the long jump, notching a leap of 24 feet, 5.5 inches on his sixth and final attempt. That international stage was only part of his legacy.
A standout athlete and student at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Hubbard had to withstand the racism of the day, but did secure admission to the University of Michigan. The Wolverines benefited as he went on to become a three-time NCAA champion and seven-time Big 10 champion in track and field.
In 1925, Hubbard set the world long jump record with a leap of 25 feet, 10.75 inches. A year later, he tied the world record in the 100-yard dash at 9.6 seconds.
In perspective, Hubbard’s little-known status can be summed up in his Big 10 record of 25 feet, 3.5 inches set in 1925. It stood until heralded Jesse Owens broke it in 1935. The men would become friends years later when Hubbard left Cincinnati for Cleveland in 1942 to work for the Federal Housing Authority until retirement in 1969.
In 1948, Hubbard told The Plain Dealer of his Paris gold medal. “I was determined to become the first of my race to be an Olympic champion and I was just as determined to break the world (long jump) record,” said Hubbard.
Hubbard was named to the National Track Hall of Fame in 1957 and was posthumously selected in the second class of the University of Michigan Hall of Honor in 1979.
“He was not a boisterous person,” said friend and gold medalist Harrison Dillard of Cleveland. “There was a sense of gentleman about him.”
A longtime bowler, Hubbard was president of the National Bowling Association in the 1950s and was a founder of the baseball Cincinnati Tigers of the Negro American League.
Hubbard died in Cleveland at age 72 on June 23, 1976. The William DeHart Hubbard Scholarship Fund was established in 2010 through the University of Michigan.
Deceased 1976
Meyer, Urban
Urban Meyer
Induction Year : 2019
Sport: Football
One of the most successful coaches in college football history, Urban Meyer won three national championships and compiled a career record of 187 victories and only 32 losses in 17 seasons, averaging exactly 11 wins per year. His teams were ranked in the top 25 at the conclusion of all but two seasons and won 12 of 15 bowl games.
His national championships came in 2006 and 2008 at the University of Florida, but he celebrated the apex of his career at Ohio State, where he won the inaugural college football playoff national championship in 2014 and won Big Ten titles in 2014, 2017 and 2018. Meyer’s Buckeyes dominated the Big Ten with a 54-4 record, including a 7-0 record versus Michigan. His teams enjoyed winning streaks of 24 and 23 games, longest in Ohio State history.
Meyer, 55, is a native Buckeye. He was born in Toledo on July 10, 1955. His family moved to Ashtabula where he launched his football career at Ashtabula St. John, one of the smallest high schools in the state. From there he went to the University of Cincinnati where he played defensive back. He graduated in 1986 and set out to become a coach. His first job was at Illinois State as an assistant. From there he moved on to the University of Toledo as an assistant under Nick Saban.
His first head coaching job was down the road at Bowling Green in 2001 where he stayed two years and compiled a 17-6 record, which propelled him to the University of Utah where he continued to attract attention with a two-year mark of 22-2. Florida was next from 2005-2010 and Urban became a national coaching star with two national championships and a 65-15 record. Both Sports Illustrated Magazine and The Sporting News named him Coach of the Decade for the years 2000 to 2009.
Meyer took a one-year sabbatical from coaching in 2011 before returning to Ohio where he became the first college coach to win national championships in two different conferences. His teams won every division championship since the Big Ten adopted the division format. He produced 31 first-team All-Americans and 12 Academic All-Americans over his 17-year career.
Meyer stepped away from coaching after the 2018 season and moved into athletic administration as assistant athletics director in charge of fund-raising and community relations.
He and his wife Shelley have three grown children and continue to reside in Columbus.
Miller, Tony
Tony Miller
Induction Year : 2019
Sport: Basketball Football
Tony Miller remains to this day one of the best all-around athletes produced by Cleveland’s athletic-rich Villa Angela-St. Joseph High School.
Born in Cleveland on April 16, 1973, Tony first made his mark in football, becoming the starting quarterback in his sophomore season, succeeding the heralded Elvis Grbac. As a junior, Tony led the VASJ Vikings to the 1989 Ohio state football championship in Division II, a time when the state football tournament was sub-divided into only three divisions. Today, the state football tournament consists of seven divisions. That remains VASJ’s only football title.
Tony excelled equally in basketball. He was a four-year starting point guard and led the Vikings to the Division I state championship in 1992. He was the captain of both football and basketball teams.
He was not heavily recruited for basketball because it was believed he intended to play football in college, which was not the case. Marquette basketball coach Kevin O’Neil, however, was persistent and landed Tony as his star recruit. Tony actually exceeded expectations. He was the starting point guard for all four years from the beginning of the season in 1991 to the end of the season in 1995. He was the catalyst for Marquette’s back-to-back NCAA tournament teams. In 1994, Tony was the primary reason Marquette could break Kentucky’s full-court press and advance to the sweet sixteen. The next year, with Tony again in the starring role, Marquette reached the championship game of the NIT tournament.
For his college career, Tony averaged 8.3 points and 7.8 assists. His total of 956 assists ranks eighth all-time in Division I college history.
Tony continued to play professionally for 13 years, mostly overseas in Belgium, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and England. He was an all-star in the Dutch League.
After returning to the United States, Tony coached at Southern Cal, St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, Cal., and Cal State Los Angeles. He is now retired.
He was inducted into the Marquette Hall of Fame in 2011.
Malloy, John
John Malloy
Induction Year : 2019
Sport: Hockey
Hockey in Northeast Ohio had a good friend in John Malloy. Make that a great friend.
The veteran high school and prep team coach was also instrumental as an administrator and coordinator at numerous levels of the game. Whether it was winning a record number of games from the bench, establishing competitive balance for levels of play, or helping to increase skating programs, Malloy maintained a principled focus of respect.
A native of Cincinnati and graduate of Miami University, Malloy’s high school coaching career began in 1981 at Cleveland Heights High, where he went 292-88-5. The Tigers were state champions in 1987 and runner-up the previous season. During two seasons at Rocky River High, his teams went 36-24-2 and won a pair of Baron Cup II titles.
He joined Gilmour Academy as the school’s first prep team coach in 1998 and became the school’s high school coach in 2004, going 278-225-33 through the 2018-19 season. The Lancers were state runner-up in 2008 and a final four club in 2011. His winning totals place him near the top of the Ohio High School Athletic Association coaching ranks.
Malloy was instrumental in establishing parity for the growing Greater Cleveland High School League with the formation of divisions for competitive play. To that end, the Great Lakes Hockey League was formed in recent years for the top-tier area teams.
Just as important during his Gilmour Academy tenure, the school’s arena was expanded and opened to the community with skating classes and youth hockey. Malloy’s duties expanded beyond coaching as an administrator.
As a player at Miami University, Malloy still held the records for most assists in a season (52), assists in a game (6), assists in a period (5) and points in a period (5). In foretelling his future behind the bench, he coached the school’s club team in 1980-81 to a 30-0-1 mark.
Malloy is married to wife Erin, with children J.T. and Jayne.
Chapman, Otis
Otis Chapman
Induction Year : 2019
Sport: Racquetball
Otis Chapman is one of the most decorated players in the history of racquetball. From 1987 through 2010, he collected 32 national and international championships in either singles or doubles play.
For his extraordinary accomplishments, he becomes the first-ever inductee into the racquetball wing of the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame.
Remarkably, the induction is Chapman’s fifth in a sports Hall of Fame.
His first, for softball in 1970, was into the Jewish Recreation Council/Jewish Community Center. Next came entrance into the Ohio Racquetball Association in 1989. Induction into the Greater Cleveland Softball Hall of Fame came in 1991, followed by inclusion into the International Masters Racquetball Hall of Fame in 1996.
Chapman turned to racquetball after a torn Achilles tendon ended a very productive slow-pitch softball that saw him win seven national and city championships.
He didn’t start competing on the courts of the Cleveland YMCA until he was 45 and won his first racquetball title at the age of 53 in 1985 in the national doubles tournament.
Before he put down his racquet, Chapman had won 15 international championships in just 13 years (from 1998 through 2010). All but one of the titles came in doubles, including the 2010 Men’s 75+ division when Chapman was 77 years old.
He also won eight national singles championships (from 1987 through 2000), five national doubles crowns (from 1985 through 1998) and four consecutive national masters doubles titles from 2007 through 2010.
Chapman, at age 87, remains in top physical shape and while he has dozens of trophies, plaques, and medals, he says he is most proud of an award that cites him for good sportsmanship and fair play.
Urbas, Greg
Greg Urbas
Induction Year : 2018
Sport: Wrestling
Greg Urbas retired this past spring as head wrestling coach at St. Edward High School where in 29 years his Eagles won four national championships and 24 state championships. In addition to the team success Urbas coached 76 individual state champions.
In March, when Domenic Abounader advanced to the semifinals of the NCAA wrestling tournament, it marked the 35th consecutive year that the St. Edward program had produced at least one college All-American.
Born and raised in Collinwood, Urbas went to St. Mary grade school and then to St. Joseph High School where he played football and wrestled. After playing football for four years at Grove City College he served four years as a Marine Corps officer.
A math teacher during his entire career at St. Edward, Urbas will remain with St. Ed’s as a math tutor and also with the wrestling team in what they’re calling a “support capacity.”
John Heffernan, a former St. Edward state champion and college all-American at the University of Iowa, will succeed Urbas as head coach. He has been Urbas’ assistant coach since 1991.
“Actually, we’re changing titles but not the jobs,” Urbas said. “He has done the coaching alt these years and I’ve done the paper work.”
Urbas recalled that when his predecessor, Howard Ferguson, died suddenly in 1989, the wrestling staff pooled their thoughts and picked him to take over the head job. Greg had been an assistant coach for almost a decade.
“They said the assistant coaches would handle the coaching and I’d do the interviews,” Urbas said. “That’s the only difference from now on. I’ll do the paperwork but not the interviews.”
“Beyond his success as a coach and a teacher, Greg is a man of incredible character, integrity and wisdom,” said St. Edward president Jim Kubacki. “For a generation of students, he is the model for a life rooted in faith, the formation of genuine relationships, and a commitment to service.”
Naccarato, Jeanne
Jeanne Naccarato
Induction Year : 2018
Sport: Bowling
Her classmates at Brush High School in Lyndhurst remember her as Jeanne Marie Norton, where she was the most precocious teenage bowler in Greater Cleveland. At the age of 14 she bowled in adult leagues, and six years later she turned pro.
She married in 1980 at age 22 and became Jeanne Maiden, which is how the local bowling world knew her. She was Cleveland’s “Queen of Bowling” in 1981, ’82 and ’83. She continued to dominate women’s professional bowling for the rest of the decade.
In the 1986 Central States Tournament at Ambassador Brookpark Lanes, she rolled 40 consecutive strikes. She had her last seven in a row in the doubles. In singles, she rolled consecutive 300 games and added nine more strikes in a row in the third game en route to an 864 series, which was a world record since broken several times.
In 1992, she married Stan Naccarato and became Jeanne Maiden-Naccarato, the name on the plaque when she was inducted into the Women’s International Bowling Congress Hall of Fame in 1999, and to the Professional Women’s Bowling Association Hall of Fame in 2002.
Her husband, Stan, died in 2016 at the age of 88. Jeanne lives in Tacoma, Washington, where she owns a bowling center: Tower Lanes.
Ferguson, Howard
Howard Ferguson
Induction Year : 2018
Sport: Wrestling
Coach Howard Ferguson transformed St. Edward High School wrestling into the most dominant program in Ohio’s history in 1974 and continuing long after his death to the present day.
Ferguson, who began wrestling at John Marshall High School under hall of fame coach Gene Gibbons, turned to coaching in the 1960s at the West Shore YMCA. In seven years his YMCA teams compiled an incredible dual meet record of 138-2, which caught the attention of St. Edward High School.
He was handed the reigns of St. Edward wrestling in 1974 and almost immediately turned the Eagles into a powerhouse. In 15 seasons from 1974 through the spring of 1989, St. Ed’s won 11 team state championships. His wrestlers won 32 individual state championships and 20 runners-up. He produced one 3-time state champion and four 2-time state champions.
In college, his wrestlers captured three NCAA individual titles. Thirteen were college All-Americans a total of 26 times. At one time or another Howard’s alumni wore the singlets of nine of the original Big Ten teams.
Both the wrestling world and business world were shocked when Howard died of a heart attack in the prime of his career in October 1989. In his alternate life he became a millionaire in real estate. He was a pioneer in converting high-rise apartment houses into condominiums.
He also authored an acclaimed coffee-table book called “The Edge,” an accumulation of the quotes, beliefs and life lessons of the leading coaches and athletes of the day. The book was published not long before he died and is still in demand. It is out of print but can be located on e-bay for as much as $150.
In one of the final passages of the book, under the heading, “Leave something behind,” he wrote about his own principles:
“You can never pay back those who helped you. What you can do is follow their example and help others. Help some people get started. Teach them how to play the game the right way. Teach them about class. Show them how to overcome adversity. Take all your knowledge, experience and love and share it. Reach out to as many people as you can.”
Deceased 1989
Manganello, Mike
Mike Manganello
Induction Year : 2018
Sport: Horse Racing
Mike Manganello reached the pinnacle of a jockey’s career when he won the world’s most famous horse race: the Kentucky Derby.
Manganello was in the saddle of Dust Commander in 1970 when they upset the 96th running of the Run for the Roses. The margin of victory was five lengths, thanks largely in part to Manganello’s rail-hugging ride that helped save the colt valuable ground in the testing 1¼-mile race.
A native of Hartford, Conn., Manganello was far from a one-race wonder. In a career that spanned nearly 30 years, and included five Kentucky Derby mounts, Manganello won the Blue Grass Stakes (on Dust Commander), the Ohio Derby at Thistledown, and numerous riding titles.
Manganello scored his first winner at the age of 18 in 1960 at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans. Soon afterward, he moved his family to Bedford Heights and began a stretch of successful seasons at tracks around Greater Cleveland: Thistledown, Randall Park and Cranwood.
His domination of the jocks’ colony saw him win or share every Thistledown championship from 1964 through 1968. He also added Randall and Cranwood crowns.
Manganello was aboard Te Vega in the 1968 Ohio Derby as the colt became the first Ohio-bred to win the state’s most prestigious race.
The pull of the Blue Grass State eventually landed Manganello at Churchill Downs, Keeneland and Turfway Park, a move that led to his association with Don Combs, the trainer of Dust Commander.
In the winter, Manganello rode at Sunshine Park (now Tampa Bay Downs) where he won six riding titles. It’s also where he registered his 2,500thcareer winner.
But it’s the Kentucky Derby victory that Manganello will be best remembered for. He says to this day he can feel the song “My Old Kentucky Home” reverberating through his body.
Hubbard, DeHart
DeHart Hubbard
Induction Year : 2018
Sport: Track & Field
William DeHart Hubbard was the epitome of the unsung hero. Only a close inspection of the record books reveal the remarkable accomplishments of a true historical figure.
At the 1924 Olympics in Paris, Hubbard became the first African American to win a gold medal in an individual event when he won the long jump, notching a leap of 24 feet, 5.5 inches on his sixth and final attempt. That international stage was only part of his legacy.
A standout athlete and student at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Hubbard had to withstand the racism of the day, but did secure admission to the University of Michigan. The Wolverines benefited as he went on to become a three-time NCAA champion and seven-time Big 10 champion in track and field.
In 1925, Hubbard set the world long jump record with a leap of 25 feet, 10.75 inches. A year later, he tied the world record in the 100-yard dash at 9.6 seconds.
In perspective, Hubbard’s little-known status can be summed up in his Big 10 record of 25 feet, 3.5 inches set in 1925. It stood until heralded Jesse Owens broke it in 1935. The men would become friends years later when Hubbard left Cincinnati for Cleveland in 1942 to work for the Federal Housing Authority until retirement in 1969.
In 1948, Hubbard told The Plain Dealer of his Paris gold medal. “I was determined to become the first of my race to be an Olympic champion and I was just as determined to break the world (long jump) record,” said Hubbard.
Hubbard was named to the National Track Hall of Fame in 1957 and was posthumously selected in the second class of the University of Michigan Hall of Honor in 1979.
“He was not a boisterous person,” said friend and gold medalist Harrison Dillard of Cleveland. “There was a sense of gentleman about him.”
A longtime bowler, Hubbard was president of the National Bowling Association in the 1950s and was a founder of the baseball Cincinnati Tigers of the Negro American League.
Hubbard died in Cleveland at age 72 on June 23, 1976. The William DeHart Hubbard Scholarship Fund was established in 2010 through the University of Michigan.
Deceased 1976
Tupa, Tom
Tom Tupa
Induction Year : 2018
Sport: Football
Tom Tupa left a lasting imprint on football at every level. From his state championship days at Brecksville High School to Ohio State to the NFL, Tupa established himself with both his passing arm and punting skills.
As quarterback at Brecksville, he helped lead the Bees to the Ohio title in 1983. He also lettered in basketball and baseball. He joined Ohio State, where he was the punter for four seasons, setting the top two seasonal punting averages as a freshman and senior. He was the starting quarterback in 1987, passing for 2,252 yards and 15 touchdowns. He was named All-American and All-Big 10 punter that year and played in the 1988 Hula Bowl.
Tupa was drafted by the Phoenix Cardinals in the third round, the 68th pick overall, to begin an 18-year professional career. Primarily a punter after joining the Indianapolis Colts in 1992, he was with the Browns for three seasons where he became notable for scoring the league’s first two-point conversion off a fake extra-point attempt against Cincinnati in the 1994 opener. As holder, he scored two more conversions that year to earn the moniker “Two Point Tupa.”
He kicked for New England and the New York Jets, earning Pro Bowl and All-Pro honors in 1999 with the Jets. He was with Tampa Bay for two seasons, punting for the Buccaneers in 2002 as they won Super Bowl XXXVII against Oakland.
Tupa finished his pro career after two years with the Washington Redskins in 2005. As a pro, he averaged 43.4 yards per punt, passing for 3,430 yards and 12 touchdowns.
He returned to his home town to help coach at his alma mater high school, where his three sons and daughter played. Married to Beth, he is also Brecksville Recreation Director.