The 2014 class of the Clear Fork Valley Athletic Hall of Fame was enshrined during a ceremony held at the high school auditorium on Saturday night.
The 1961 Bellville High School football team, Mike Hamilton, a player on that team, Steve Miller, the 2009 Clear Fork girls’ softball team, and a player on that team, Rachel Wilson, were honored with their inclusion as part of the hall.
The 2009 softball team was Ohio Cardinal Conference champion as well as sectional, district and regional champ, and the division two state runner up. They finished the season 29-5.
Coach Jeff Gottfried told the audience of time out he called in a game in a regular season tournament in Ashland that year when they were getting their butts kicked by Greenville. He said he had a meeting on the mound with everybody on the field. “I called them into the middle of the diamond and said you know you are a pretty good team? And then I just walked off the field. We didn’t lose another game until the state final,” he said. Gottfried said the team was a family and everybody knew their role.
The slogan the team used that season was “Go Ugly Early” because they were going to be aggressive no matter what.
Rachel Wilson was a member of that team and was All-Ohio in 2007, 2008 and 2009. She is the school’s all time leader in hits and runs scored. Plus, she won 58 games on the mound. Gottfried says she really wasn’t a pitcher, she just kind of ended up there. “I kept telling everyone she wasn’t a pitcher, but I had all of the rest of the positions filled and I didn’t know where to put her, so I just put her their in the middle of the diamond and she did pretty darn well,” said Gottfried.
Rachel is a RN at MedCentral Hospital in Mansfield and an assistant softball coach at Clear Fork. She thanked Gottfried, his wife Kerri, and the other assistant coaches she had as a player. “They pushed me to be a student of the game, a better teammate and a better person,” he said.
Mike Hamilton, a 1962 grad of Bellville High School, and the MVP on the ’61 football team, was twice all Mohican Conference and as a senior was an All-Ohio safety. Teammate Gaary Walker introduced him by saying. “There would have been more people that nominated Mike for the Hall of Fame. I just happened to be the first. It’s long overdue,” he said.
Hamilton was brief in his acceptance speech taking less than a minute, but he knew what he wanted to say. “I want to thank my teammates for all the great memories we have had,” he said.
That 1961 team was 9-0-1, beating rival Butler High School 40-6. They scored 288 points and allowed only 28. Walker, also a member of the team, said he always wondered what they would have faired if their had been a playoff system in place. “I kind of wish there was a state playoff back them. I don’t know how good we would have done, we might have lost or first game, but I think we would have done pretty good,” said Walker.
1983 Clear Fork graduate Steve Miller almost made the front of a Wheaties cereal box for his exploits in high school, including the fact that he was never pinned in his career. He twice qualified for the state at 167 pounds.
Miller, the owner of Vector Security, lives in Ontario, where he has coached some wrestling, including two sons. He says they have a motto they live by as a family. “If you always do what you have always done you will always get what you always got,” he said.
After years of toil and sweat behind radio station microphones, longtime broadcaster, Jeff Swank joined the new generation of sports followers on the web.
Swank launched his internet radio station with nothing more than some wire, a box with some knobs and switches, and an itch to do much more than just scratch the surface of everything sports.
Richland Source is proud to introduce Jeff as a writer focused on high school sports. He will contribute a weekly column and analysis of a featured game of the week from one of our area high schools.
In addition to his work at Richland Source, Jeff provides complete high school sports coverage for over 70 Ohio schools at his web site, http://www.swankonsports.net76.net/.
