WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
This Saturday at 2pm the latest class will inducted into the Knox County Sports Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the Knox County Historical Society Museum. This class is Kristin (Long) Clement, T.T. Crouch, Nick Gutman, Chet Looney, Jeff Robertson, Sally (Lambert) Simpson and Vanessa Oswalt.
We spoke with John Lambert the Chairman of the selection committee about the inductees. He said now there will be 38 inductees after Saturday’s class
Lambert says the first class was inducted in 2019. 2023 two classes were inducted and one was inducted last year.
INDUCTEES:
Chet Looney is being inducted as a coach. He has 207 career head coaching victories in High School Football at East Knox. Lambert said that when Looney left college he was just going to be an assistant coach at East Knox but he was offered the job that June and he stayed for 35 years. His 207 wins are the most of any Knox County Head Football Coach.
T.T. Crouch went to Florida Southern University after High School and was the NCAA Division Two Individual National Champion his Junior and Senior year. He spent four years there. He is also inducted into the Florida Southern University Hall of Fame. He’s currently the Head Coach of Mount Vernon’s High School Golf Team. He also has won the Lethbridge Paradise Canyon Open as a player.
Vanessa Oswalt grew up wrestling and had to wrestle on the club team around the country. She made the Olympic trials twice in 2004 and 2012. She won two high school national titles. She dedicated herself to get girls wrestling as a sanctioned sport. She has served in the Air National Guard and has coached wrestling at Olentangy Orange according to Lambert. She was also the first woman to be named Girl’s Wrestling Coach of the Year.
Nick Gutman scored over 2,300 points at Otterbein on their basketball team. He got Otterbein into the NCAA tournament 4 times and is in the Otterbein Athletics Hall of Fame. He was also the Player of the Year his Senior Year of High School in the state. He is the Mount Vernon Yellow Jackets all time leading scorer in boys basketball with 1,285 points and all time leading rebounder with 603. His team’s at Mount Vernon went 60-9.
Kristin Long Clement
Long was a three sport athlete at Danville High School and graduated in 1993. She also ended up with a PHD in Cell Biology from Cincinnati School of Medicine. Her Senior she led Danville to the Final Four in basketball. She is also in the Capital University Hall of Fame in 2006. She will joining from North Carolina Saturday.
Jeff Robertson was a three sport star at Centerburg High School in Football, Basketball and Track. He played quarterback until his Senior Year and moved to running back and he amassed 1,300 yards rushing and led Centerburg to a 37-17 record in football. Jeff scored on a 70 yard run to beat Newark Catholic 8-0 his Senior year. Robertson broke the 220 year dash and finished in the top 5 in the 100. Lambert says Robertson is considered Centerburg’s best all around athlete.
Sally Lambert Simpson
Sally was a star basketball and volleyball player at Centerburg but John Lambert said she tore her ACL in High School her Senior Year. She was going to go to college to play volleyball. She went to the YMCA for rehab and was discovered by a coach as she was swimming. Simpson went to Fairmont State was a 23 time All American in four years. She set two national records with her championships in the butterfly. She also coached volleyball for 28 years at Centerburg. Sally didn’t play volleyball for four years and because the school offered to buy her books if she played she joined that team and played her Senior Year. She made All Conference in volleyball. She is married to Centerburg’s leader in wins in basketball as a coach Jim Simpson.