ASHLAND – Nine individuals and one team will be inducted into the Ashland County Sports Hall of Fame during a ceremony Saturday.
The 17th Bi-ennial Banquet and Induction Ceremony will start at 6 p.m. in the John C. Myers Convocation Center at Ashland University.
Winners of the ACSHOF Bill Mills Scholarship for 2016 are Ashland’s Olivia Groves and Hillsdale’s Shelby Long. Seventy scholarships have been awarded by the Hall of Fame in the past 20 years.
Ev DeVaul will again serve as Master of Ceremonies, and Hall of Fame President Dave Grey will give remarks and special recognitions.
Since inductions began in 1984, a total of 167 inductees, 15 Trustee Achievement Award winners and 24 teams have been honored.
The inductees include eight Hall of Fame inductees and one Trustee Achievement Award. Honorees are:
Jaime Chenevey. A 1995 graduate of Hillsdale High School and a 1999 graduate of Ohio State University, Chenevey was a four-year letter winner in softball and served as a team captain in 1994 and 1995. As a freshman, she was named the 1992 Times-Gazette Player of the Year and led the Falcons to the Division III State title game. Her junior year, the Falcons won the Division III state title when she hit the game-winning home run in extra innings. At Ohio State, she earned four letters and was named second-team All Big Ten in 1998. Following graduation, she was drafted in the third round by the Akron Racers pro softball team. Chenevey took part in the 1998 and 2002 USA Softball Olympic Trials. Currently, she is the Agricultural Education Instructor at West Holmes where she has taught since 2000. She took over as head softball coach for the Knights in 2006 and has a 103-181 record.
Darrell Crall. Crall was introduced to golf by PGA pro George Valentine at the age of 13 and immediately fell in love with the game. At Ashland High School, he played varsity basketball and golf for three years. Crall was the golf team co-captain his junior and senior years, won eight individual titles and helped lead the Arrows golf team to a 53-2 record his final two years. Crall started his collegiate career at Greensboro College where he claimed two individual titles and was named a Division II Al-American. He then transferred o Duke University where he was named team captain his senior year and earned the University’s Clifford W. Perry award for academic excellence. He started his professional career with the National Golf Foundation of Japan before returning to the U.S. to work for the PGA of America in the Carolinas Section and the Northern Texas Section. Currently he is the Chief Operating Officer of the PGA of America, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the world’s largest working sports organization.
Gil Dodds. In 1935, Dodds set state records in Nebraska in the half mile and mile. The young runner never lost a high school race. After graduation, Dodds wanted to attend the University of Nebraska but his father urged him to attend Ashland College so he could follow in his footsteps in the ministry. Although Ashland did not have a track and field team when Dodds enrolled, a team was formed shortly after and Dodds improved and excelled. He won the Men’s Cross Country Championship in 1940 in E. Lansing, Michigan. He set a new American record for the mile (4:06.5) in Boston and eventually lowered the world record for the indoor mile to 4:06.4. In 1943, he was awarded the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the U.S. He traveled the world giving motivational talks on running and coached track and cross country in Wheaton, Illinois. Dodds died in 1977 of a brain tumor.
Carl Leedy. A 1957 graduate of Ashland High School and a 1961 grad of Ashland College, Leedy developed an interest in tennis playing on Ashland College’s clay courts close to his childhood home. He and his friends petitioned for the creation of a varsity high school team at AHS, so a team was formed for his senior year. He continued his career, playing at Ashland College. Following graduation, Leedy taught and coached for five years in Pontiac, Michigan, before returning to Ashland. He served as coach in various capacities at AHS from 1971-2000. Leedy won 13 conference titles with the girls team and six titles with the boys teams. In 2001, Leedy began coaching the Ashland University women’s tennis team. They qualified for the GLIAC tournament seven years and for the NCAA Tournament three times. Overall, Leedy won 831 career wins out of 1,257 matches.
Beth (Mallory) Lesch. Lesh, a 2002 graduate of Ashland High and a 2006 graduate of the University of Alabama, earned 10 varsity letters in tennis, basketball, softball and track. She was a regional qualifier in tennis, 2nd team All-Northwest District in basketball, and a three-time state champion in discus and one-time state champ in shot put in track. Lesch still holds the AHS records in discus and shot put. At the University of Alabama, she won several Southeastern Conference Championships and numerous All-America honors. Lesch won two silver medals at the 2003 Junior Pan America Games and competed in the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials. She served as assistant tennis coach at AHS for seven years and coached throwing events at the school for two years. Currently she lives in Nova with her husband and three children.
David Potter. A graduate of Ohio State University, Potter made his way to Ashland in the mid-1980s, when he coached seventh-grade basketball and football at Ashland Middle School. During this time, he and good friend Ron Whitehill took over the AMS cross country program. The program enjoyed great success with many undefeated seasons. In 1990, Potter joined the Ashland High School cross country program as an assistant under Dave Smalley. Two years later, he became head coach of the boys and girls teams. The boys’ team won six consecutive conference championships, five district championships and three Top 10 finishes at the state meet. The girls’ team won 14 straight conference titles, nine district championships, one regional title and five state meet appearances. Potter was named Conference Girls Coach of the Year 14 times. Following retirement, Potter has worked at Ashland University as a supervisor for student teachers and also works as a personal trainer at the YMCA.
John Schaly. After 19 seasons as coach of the Ashland University baseball team, Schaly is the winningest coach in school history with 706 wins. He is a four-time regional coach of the year and a six-time Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference coach of the year . The Eagles have played in the NCAA postseason 14 times under Schaly, with four regional championships and four trips to the NCAA Division II College World Series. His teams have won five GLIAC titles. Overall in his career, Schaly is 1,069-575-7. In 2015, he and his late father, Don, became the first father-son duo in college baseball history to each win 1,000 games at four-year institutions. Schaly played college ball at Marietta College under his father, earning All-America honors in 1981 and 1982.
Duane Yoder. Yoder earned nine varsity letters at Loudonville High School: three in football, two in basketball, two in baseball and two in track. At Ashland College, Yoder earned two varsity letters in football and two in track. In 1954, he was part of the first undefeated football team at AU. After graduation, he became the first head football coach at Milan High School. He later served as a defensive coordinator and basketball coach at Genoa and the head baseball coach and defensive coordinator at Toledo Macomber. Yoder transitioned to school administration, serving as assistant principal at Wooster High, principal at Madison High and finally retired after serving as assistant superintendent at Madison.
Norman Fierbaugh. Fierbaugh, the Trustee Achievement Award winner, was a multiple sport varsity letterman at Ashland High School, earning letters in football, basketball and baseball. After graduation, he enrolled briefly at Ashland College before enlisting in the U.S. Navy. After two years of service, Fierbaugh returned home to Ashland. He was very active in the Ashland sports scene and coached youth sports in Ashland. He worked hard to attend as many of his three children’s games as possible, including his son Randy, who is a 1996 inductee of the ACSHOF and played professional baseball. Fierbaugh joined the ACSHOF Board of Directors in the late 1980s. Among his duties within the organization was heading up the fund-raising activities. Fierbaugh passed away in 2010.
The team honoree is the 1996 Hillsdale softball team. Head coach Cathy Applegate led the Falcons to a 25-4 record and the program’s third state championship. The team went 12-0 to win the Wayne County Athletic League. In the State semifinals, the Falcons topped Canal Winchester, 3-0. In the final, Hope Gardner tossed a no-hitter, leading Hillsdale to a 3-0 win over Coldwater.
