Springfield Sports Hall of Fame to gain 13 new members Monday
It’s lucky number 13 for the Springfield Sports Hall of Fame at its 31st induction ceremony later today.
The 2023 induction class grows by a baker’s dozen, including six Friends of Sport. The event gets underway at the Bank of Springfield Center with cocktails at 5 p.m. before the program begins at 7 p.m.
This year’s group includes a father and son, three state champions, one national champion and two former sports editors at The State Journal-Register.
Nathaniel Browning
The 2004 Lutheran High School graduate won back-to-back Class A state track titles in the 400-meter spring in 2003 and 2004 then went on to become a two-time All-American track and field athlete at the University of Kentucky. While at Kentucky, Browning’s 4x400-meter relay teams set the school’s indoor (3 minutes, 5.87 seconds) and outdoor (3:02) records and his best time of 46.30 seconds in the 400-meter race has him in the Wildcats’ all-time top 10. While in high school, he also scored more than 1,000 points for the Crusaders’ basketball team and got into mountain climbing after college.
Major Clay
Lanphier’s two-time state high jump champion earned eight varsity letters with the Lions (four in track and field and four in basketball). As a junior in 2006, Clay won the Class AA high jump with a mark of 6-foot, 10-inches. The following year, Clay successfully defended his title with a 6-9 jump as a senior. He holds the Lanphier school record with a leap of 7-0 ¼ — also the state’s indoor high school high jump record. The 2007 Central State Eight Conference’s Male Athlete of the Year earned a track and field scholarship to Indiana State and cleared the 7-foot mark in 35 of his 38 indoor events, including a school indoor record of 7-5. He also won four Missouri Valley Conference outdoor championships and competed in the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials. His father is former Lanphier basketball standout and current Lanphier girls basketball coach Doug Collins, who will also be inducted.
Doug Collins
A 1987 Lanphier graduate, he scored 986 points in two seasons for the Lions’ basketball program, including a city-high 647 points in the 1986-87 season. He led the 1987 City Tournament with 64 points in three games. After two seasons at John A. Logan College, Collins transferred to Iowa State and averaged 8.6 and 14.3 points per season in his two seasons. In the 1990-91 season, he was 14th in the Big Eight Conference in scoring, second in assists, 11th in steals and 19th in rebounding.
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He was invited to the Phoenix Suns’ free-agent camp and was drafted into the Continental Basketball Association in 1991 but returned to Iowa State to finish his degree. He just finished his 22nd season as the Lanphier girls’ basketball coach and was a finalist for The State Journal-Register’s First Citizen Award in 2018 for his work in the community. He will enter the Springfield Sports Hall of Fame alongside his son, Major Clay.
Phil Eck
The Springfield High soccer star and 1980 graduate went on to win the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics national soccer championships in 1980 and 1981 at Quincy College. He returned to Springfield and became the Senators’ boys soccer coach in 1985. He led SHS to the 1997 Class A state championship and finished with a 352-131-43 record. He won 15 regional titles and six sectional championships and coached one National Soccer Coaches Association of America (now United Soccer Coaches) All-American in Adam Scyrock. Shyrock and Justin Stone were both named Parade Magazine All-Americans. The Illinois High School Soccer Coaches Association named him a two-time coach of the year and the 1999 soccer person of the year. Eck was a 2008 inductee into the IHSSCA Hall of Fame. The 1997 Springfield High boys soccer team was inducted into the Springfield Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.
Jim Files
The 1980 Lanphier graduate remains the only boys runner in the city’s history to win a state cross country championship. He won the 1979 state title with a 3-mile time of 14 minutes, 18.3 seconds in a come-from-behind win just 0.7 seconds ahead of the race’s runner-up finisher. Files’ 3-mile Lincoln Park time of 15:03 remains the school record and was a three-time state cross country meet qualifier. He also set distance records for the Lanphier track and field team with a time of 9:29 in the 3,200 run and a 4:24.9 in the 1,600. He also qualified for the state track and field meet in the 3,200 run as a senior in 1980.
John Fox
The four-year Lanphier starter scored more than 1,400 points for the Lions’ basketball team before he graduated in 1976. He also played four years in baseball and golfed one year to earn a total of nine varsity letters at Lanphier. The Lions’ pitcher and catcher earned a scholarship to play baseball at Eastern Illinois University before he transferred to Quincy College. His one year of high school golf turned into a serious affection and he won the 2004 Round the Town Tournament.
Tracy Tate Wilson
The 1983 Springfield High graduate won seven of the first eight Women’s City Golf Tournament titles from 1980-87 and won two high school state golf championships in 1980 and 1981. She placed fifth in 1982 as a senior. After high school, she golfed collegiately at Oklahoma State and at the University of South Florida. Wilson is the only golfer in Springfield city history to win multiple state championships.
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Friends of Sport
Mike Chamness and Jim Ruppert are more than just former sports editors for The State Journal-Register. They both helped establish the Springfield Sports Hall of Fame, which had its first induction in 1991. Chamness also created The State Journal-Register's Baseball Classic in 1990. He left the newspaper in 1991. That’s the same year Ruppert took the SJ-R sports department’s reigns. Ruppert, who worked for The State Journal-Register since 1976, retired in 2016 and continued as a correspondent until 2021. He still works on Neuhoff Media radio broadcasts and hosts afternoon radio shows twice a week and a sports talk show on Saturday mornings on WFMB-AM. Ruppert is on the Springfield Sports Hall of Fame’s selection committee as well as its board of directors and is the master of ceremonies for the annual hall of fame banquet.
Larry Chaney spent 16 of his 33 years serving District 186 schools as the Southeast head baseball coach and was the Southeast athletic director for eight years. He helped form the Central State Eight Conference, which began in 1993 and brought together eight Springfield-area schools into one league. He was named a Class AA Outstanding Athletic Director in 2001 and in 2006 was inducted into the Illinois Athletic Directors Association Hall of Fame.
Cress Maddox and John Raynolds brought girls soccer to District 186 in the late 1980s. When the district began to offer the sport, it quickly grew to become the No. 1 sport offered in the district to high school girls. Maddox and Raynolds also helped procure Lee Field for use by all District 186 teams then Raynolds and Maddox secured funding to install lights and construct the field. It remains in use.
Paul Pachlhofer, a 1974 Griffin High School graduate, started as a baseball umpire in 1976 and remains active. He was picked to work games at the Illinois High School Association’s baseball state tournament in 2021 and in 2022. He worked as a professional umpire but now is a high school and college umpire. He was also licensed to officiate high school football and basketball games until 2015. Pachlhofer, who has been the public address announcer of the City Basketball Tournament since 1984, was the voice of football games at Memorial Stadium from 1981-2005, was a sports reporter for WTAX radio from 1991-96, and has worked at WFMB-AM since 1996.
This year’s guest speaker is Deon Thomas, the 1989 Illinois Mr. Basketball who became a standout on the University of Illinois men’s basketball team. Tickets are $50. For more information and to inquire about ticket availability, call Lesa Schaive at (217) 529-0008.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Springfield Sports Hall of Fame's 31st induction ceremony on Monday
