Kitsap Sports Hall of Fame's 2022 inductee class full of star power
The Kitsap Sports Hall of Fame is about to get some new additions.
And the 2022 class is arguably one of the best since they started inducting Kitsap’s finest athletes.
Where do you start?
How about Bremerton’s Marvin Williams? Nobody from this area has come close to achieving what he did on the basketball court. They tried to lure him across the water to play high school ball for a Seattle power, but Marvin stayed home to play with his pals. He didn’t win a high school title, but he won an NCAA title with North Carolina as a freshman before declaring for the NBA draft. He was the No. 2 overall pick in 2005 and became a consummate pro and teammate during a 15-year pro career.
The inductees include three special 2010 high school graduates — Larry Dixon of Olympic, who left as West Sound’s all-time leading rusher before becoming one of the leading rushers in Army history; offensive lineman John Fullington, a three-sport star at North Mason who wound up in the NFL after a stellar career at Washington State; and Drew Vettleson of Central Kitsap, a two-time state player of the year who was the 42nd overall pick in the Major League Baseball draft.
That’s not all.
The rest of the class that will be enshrined on Jan. 28 at Kiana Lodge in Poulsbo includes a four-time state wrestling champion from North Kitsap, a legendary wrestling coach from South Kitsap, a Bremerton High basketball star who won a state title as a coach at Olympic High, a tennis player from Bremerton’s golden age, a golfer who has won five Kitsap Amateur championships, one of the most talented female athletes to ever come out of Kitsap County, and two iconic teams that would stand the test of time in any era.
Former East High standout athlete Morrie (Miller) Black Eagle, who served as an executive director of the Suquamish Tribe for 15 years, will be honored with the prestigious Rex Brown Award for his athletic exploits and service to our community. And West High grad Rickie Brown, who worked as a football official for over 30 years with the Peninsula Football Officials Association, is the recipient of the Dick Todd Award.
The individuals
Marvin Williams: The McDonald’s and Parade All-American and Washington Player of the Year averaged 28.7 points, 15.5 points, 5.1 blocked shots and 5.2 assists as a Bremerton High senior. A who’s who of college basketball coaches made their way to Bremerton’s gym to woo him, and North Carolina won out. Williams earned ACC Rookie of the Year honors, as a freshman, averaging 11.3 points and 6.6 rebounds in 22.2 minutes per game. He scored the go-ahead basket in the Tar Heels’ NCAA championship victory. During 15 years in the NBA with the Hawks, Jazz, Hornets and Bucks, Williams averaged 10.5 points and 5.2 over 1,072 NBA games.
His even-keeled demeanor was appreciated by his coaches, and he became a role model for his young teammates later in his career. He’s currently working with the basketball operations department for the Charlotte Hornets, focusing on player development off the court. It’s noteworthy that Williams was the first one-and-done college basketball player to earn his college degree.
Larry Dixon: The 2010 Olympic High grad ended his career as West Sound’s all-time leading rusher with 5,182 yards. He scored 59 touchdowns during a sensational three-year football career. He also placed third in the shot put at state and averaged 19.2 points during his senior year in basketball, where he earned first-team All-Olympic League honors and was named to The Sun’s Super Six squad.
The model student-athlete, and weight-lifting freak, didn’t slow down at West Point, where he was the fullback in Army’s triple-option attack, running for 3,204 yards, which ranks him No. 4 on the Black Knights’ career list, and 26 touchdowns (No. 8 on career list).
An Army captain, Dixon was elected to the hall a year ago, but his induction was pushed back a year when a storm canceled his flight on the eve of last year’s ceremony.
John Fullington: The pride of Belfair lettered four years in football and basketball for the Bulldogs and was also a standout in track and field. He earned all-league honors four years in football and was a two-way all-league and all-state pick as a senior. He was a tight end and defensive tackle in high school. He averaged 16.3 points and 10.4 rebounds in basketball as a senior and was a first-team all-Olympic League pick while joining Dixon on The Sun’s Super Six team.
Fullington started 43 consecutive games on the offensive line at Washington State, playing guard and tackle. He received WSU’s Mike Utley Award for Offensive Lineman of the Year as a senior in 2013 and signed a free agent-contract with the Packers. He played three years on NFL practice squads (Packers, 49ers, Saints) before being promoted to the Saints’ roster for a regular-season and playoff game in 2017.
Drew Vettleson: He wowed us an ambidextrous pitcher and was a two-time Gatorade Washington Player of the Year during his days at Central Kitsap before the Tampa Rays selected him with the 42nd overall selection in the 2010 Major League Draft. Aaron Sele, 23rd pick in 1991, is the only Kitsaper to be drafted higher.
Vettleson hit .490 with seven home runs and 28 RBI his senior year, and had a 1.35 ERA, striking out 71 batters in 41 1/3 innings. He was an outfielder in the pros. He hit .252 with 51 home runs as he battled through several injuries during a seven-year minor-league career with the Rays, Nationals and Rangers.
Chad Nass: He retired as one of the most successful high school coaches in Kitsap County history. Nass, who won an individual state title as a wrestler in 1992 at South Kitsap, coached seven state champs at his alma mater and his Wolves won a team title — the first in Kitsap County history — in 2018 when two wrestlers won titles and six others placed fourth or higher while routing the Class 4A competition at Mat Classic. South totaled 160 points while winning at Mat Classic. Mead with 106.5 points was a distant second.
Nass’ teams were 175-23 during dual matches in 17 years at SK (2004-2021) and won 14 regular season titles. He considered himself a life coach, and wrestling was the vehicle that allowed him to teach those lessons.
Nass was 91-19-1 during his own wrestling career at South, and he wrestled three years for Pacific Lutheran University.
Jake Velarde: He left North Kitsap as the most decorated matman in West Sound history when he earned All-American honors. The 2013 NK grad was an incredible 157-5 over his four-year career. Four of his losses were to Washington state champions and the fifth was to an Oregon state champ.
Velarde won at 112 pounds as a freshman, 125 as a sophomore and 138 as a junior and senior. At the time, only nine other wrestlers in state history had been four-time champions. He wrestled in college for Old Dominion and Boise State.
Nicole Zygmontowicz: She helped Klahowya win a Class 2A state soccer title as a freshman and earned multiple all-league honors in soccer, basketball and softball after transferring to Class 4A Central Kitsap. She was The Sun’s Female Athlete of the Year in 2001 as a 15-year-old sophomore.
Some say she’s on a short list when it comes to naming the best natural athletes to come out of Kitsap County.
She tore an anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee playing basketball late in her junior year but came back as a senior to average 16.6 points and was named to The Sun’s Super Six team. In her only year of organized softball, she hit .397 with 15 RBI for CK.
Zygmontowicz played soccer year-round and was on the state’s Olympic development team. She earned a scholarship to the University of Houston, where she made the Conference USA All-Freshman team and played multiple positions in 2003 and ’04. She transferred to Evansville and earned second-team Missouri Valley Conference honors as a defender. She also played two years in the Women’s Professional Soccer League with the Houston Stars.
Ryan Kelly: The 1992 Central Kitsap grad played college golf at Oregon State. He turned pro, winning the Lilac Open in Spokane on his second start in the play for pay ranks, and his future looked promising. Chronic back injuries, however, held him back and he stopped playing competitive golf for a while. Ryan caddied for his brother, Kitsap Hall of Famer Troy, on the PGA Tour and eventually regained his amateur status in 2006.
Kelly won his third Kitsap Am in 2006 and won again in 2019 and 2020. He’s now won five. He also won the Capitol City, Gig Harbor, and Tacoma City amateurs in 2020 and was selected to represent Washington in the PNGA Lamey Cup, a Ryder Cup-style team competition, that year. Kelly and Tres Kirkebo won Washington Four-Ball Championships in 2019 and 2021, and he teamed with Ryan Welborn to qualify for the U.S. Four-Ball Championship in 2017.
Winfred Lim: When Bremerton was churning out great athletes in the late 1940s and early ‘50s, Lim emerged as one of the all-time tennis greats. He grew up near the Warren Avenue Playfield and learned to play on the Warren Avenue courts. Lim led Bremerton High to the 1951 Cross-State League championship, won a junior college championship while attending Olympic College, and played three years as the No. 2 singles player on highly successful Seattle University teams.
Lim and his brother Danny, also a Bremerton grad, won numerous doubles championships around the Pacific Northwest. Lim was inducted into the USTA’s Pacific Northwest Hall of Fame in 2011 for his play and continuing contributions to the sport of tennis.
Howard Thoemke: He goes into the hall as a basketball player — the dynamic shooter was an all-state selection in 1959 for Ken Wills at Bremerton High — and coach. Thoemke helped the Wildcats get to the state tournament three straight years. West placed sixth in 1957, fifth in 1958 and reached the semifinals in ’59.
He played at Washington State as a freshman, leading the team in scoring, but returned to Olympic College for his sophomore season before finishing at Central Washington.
Thoemke coached every year from 1967 to 2010, with the high point coming in 1983 when he guided the Chris Welp-led Olympic Trojans to a 24-1 season and state championship.
The teams
1995 South Kitsap fastpitch: The Kathy Ballew-coached Wolves won the Class 4A state title, capping a 24-2 season with a 1-0 victory over Rogers of Spokane in the championship game. South had just three seniors (Linda Shadbolt, Michelle Stanton, Tawny Townsend) on its roster, and ended the year on a 17-game winning streak. Pitcher Megan Boardway did not allow an earned run in 20 innings at state. Center fielder Frenchy Nix drove in Keri McCallum, a catcher who would go on to play at Mississippi State and with the USA national women’s team, with a ground-rule double for the only run in the title game. Boardway, Nix, McCallum, and second baseman Coni Posey, who later helped Western Washington win the 1998 NAIA World Series, were all-Narrows League first-team selections.
The 1969 West Bremerton football team didn’t have a chance to win a state title as the WIAA’s playoff system did not start until 1973. The deep and talented Wildcats ripped off nine straight wins (seven by shutout) after a season-opening 3-0 loss against eventual Class AA state champion Central Kitsap when they were without three key starters – quarterback Rick Ormiston, halfback/defensive back Jim Spencer and two-way end Chuck Larson – because of injuries. Chuck Semancik’s senior-laden team — only two juniors started — featured all-state nose-guard Mike Wright and fullback/linebacker Pete Elswick, who would go on to start as an offensive guard at the University of Washington. West finished No. 4 in the state’s Class AAA poll.
Special awards
Rex Brown Award: Morrie (Miller) Black-Eagle was a three-sport athlete at East High, where he graduated in 1967. A neck injury suffered during his senior year ended his dreams of playing college football and the man with Lakota/Arapahoe/Cherokee Indian heritage graduated from Washington State, where he helped develop and establish the school’s Native American Studies Program, serving as the acting program director while still an undergraduate. He established Title IV Indian Education programs in Federal Way, Bremerton and Highline school districts and was the Information Systems Director and Deputy Education Director for the Suquamish Tribe from 2004-2019. He served on the Board of Trustees at Olympic College from 1997-2001 and was named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Foundation.
Miller was a two-way mainstay on East’s unbeaten 1965 football team that beat rival West for the first time, won an Olympic League title and ranked No. 4 in the final state poll. Miller set school records in the 800 (1:57) and mile (4:12) while competing in track and field and was a key contributor to East’s 17-2 regular-season basketball record in 1966 when the Knights ranked as high as No. 4.
Dick Todd Award: Rickie Brown, a graduate of West Bremerton who joined the Army when he was 17, is a passionate and dedicated supporter of youth athletics. He started officiating football games for the Peninsula Football Officials Association in 1982 and was selected to referee several postseason contests over the years. He’s a past president of the local association and served on the board for several years.
He’s also been a training observer for the Washington State Officials Association and officiated basketball games.
Brown coached football and baseball for the North Perry and Tracyton Pee Wee Associations in the past, and the retired federal government worker is now coaching his grandchildren in the Silverdale Pee Wee Association. He also teaches Sunday school and works with youth at Keyport Bible Church and is the videographer for Central Kitsap High’s football team.
KITSAP SPORTS HALL OF FAME CEREMONY
When: Jan. 28 (social hour at noon, induction ceremony at 1 p.m.)
Where: Kiana Lodge (14976 Sandy Hook Road NE, Poulsbo)
What: Annual banquet hosted by the Kitsap Athletic Roundtable honors athletes, coaches and officials from West Sound.
Tickets: $50 adults, $20 youth 6-12 (available by emailing requests to KAR treasurer Jodee Strickland at jodee.strickland@aol.com, or online at kitsapathleticroundtable.org)
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Kitsap Sports Hall of Fame's 2022 inductee class full of star power
