The University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor, founded in 1978, recognizes

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

athlete An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance. Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-devel ...

coaches Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Coac ...

, and administrators who have made significant contributions to the university's athletic programs.University of Michigan Hall of Honor
. GoBlue (University of Michigan Athletics official website). Retrieved 2011-09-09. To qualify for induction into the Hall of Honor, an individual must have been an All-American, set an

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

, U.S., or world record, won an NCAA title, or made significant contributions to the university's athletic department as a coach or administrator. The nomination and selection process is conducted by the Letterwinners M Club executive board.

Hall of Honor firsts

The first group inducted into the Hall of Honor in 1978 was

Gerald R. Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...

Bill Freehan William Ashley Freehan (November 29, 1941 – August 19, 2021) was an American catcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire 15-year career with the Detroit Tigers. The premier catcher in the American League for several years from the 19 ...

Tom Harmon Thomas Dudley Harmon (September 28, 1919 – March 15, 1990), known as Tom Harmon, as well as by the nickname "Old 98", was an American football player, military pilot, actor, and sports broadcaster. Harmon grew up in Gary, Indiana, and playe ...

Ron Kramer Ronald John Kramer (June 24, 1935 – September 11, 2010) was a multi-sport college athlete and professional American football player. Kramer attended the University of Michigan from 1953 to 1957, winning a total of nine varsity letters in fo ...

Bennie Oosterbaan Benjamin Oosterbaan ( ; February 24, 1906 – October 25, 1990) was a three-time first team All-American football end for the Michigan Wolverines football team, two-time All-American basketball player for the basketball team, and an All-Big Ten C ...

, Cazzie Russell, and Bob Ufer. The second induction class in 1979 consisted of

Fritz Crisler Herbert Orin "Fritz" Crisler (; January 12, 1899 – August 19, 1982) was an American college football coach who is best known as "the father of two-platoon football," an innovation in which separate units of players were used for offense and ...

DeHart Hubbard William DeHart Hubbard (November 25, 1903 – June 23, 1976) was a track and field athlete who was the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event: the running long jump at the 1924 Paris Summer games. He s ...

, Ray Fisher,

Charlie Fonville Charles Edward Fonville (April 27, 1927 – July 13, 1994) was an American track and field athlete who set a world record in the shot put. In 1945, he had been named the Michigan High School Track & Field Athlete of the Year. He won the Nati ...

Willie Heston William Martin Heston (September 9, 1878 – September 9, 1963) was an American football player and coach. He played halfback at San Jose State University and the University of Michigan. Heston was the head football coach for Drake University ...

Chuck Kocsis Charles R. Kocsis (January 27, 1913 – May 30, 2006) was an American amateur golfer. Kocsis was introduced to the game as a caddie at the Phoenix Country Club, which is now Rogell Municipal Golf Course. One of fourteen children, he grew up in the ...

George Sisler George Harold Sisler (March 24, 1893 – March 26, 1973), nicknamed "Gorgeous George", was an American professional baseball first baseman and player-manager. From 1915 through 1930, he played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis B ...

Germany Schulz Adolph George "Germany" Schulz (April 19, 1883 – April 14, 1951) was an All-American American football center for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1904 to 1905 and from 1907 to 1908. While playing at Michigan, Schulz is credited with ...

Rudy Tomjanovich Rudolph Tomjanovich Jr. (born November 24, 1948) is an American former professional basketball player and coach who is a consultant for the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association (NBA). His professional playing career, whic ...

and

Fielding H. Yost Fielding Harris Yost (; April 30, 1871 – August 20, 1946) was an American football player, coach and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at: Ohio Wesleyan University, the University of Nebraska, the University ...

. The first women inducted into the Hall of Honor were Olympic diving gold medalist

Micki King Maxine Joyce "Micki" King (born July 26, 1944) is an American former diving (sport), competitive diver and diving coach. She was a gold medal winner at the 1972 Summer Olympics in the Diving at the 1972 Summer Olympics - Women's 3 metre spring ...

in 1986 and athletic administrator Marie Hartwig in 1989. The first African-American athletes inducted were Cazzie Russell (1978),

(1979) and

(1979). The first players inducted by sport are: *

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

–

(1978) and

(1979) * Men's

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

– Cazzie Russell (1978) and

(1979) * Women's Basketball – Diane Dietz * Cross country –

Sue Foster Sue Foster is an English former snooker player. She won the Women's World Snooker Championship in 1983.World Cham ...

(2004) and Melanie Weaver-Barnett (2007) *

Diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), a ...

(men's) –

Richard Degener Richard Kempster Degener (March 14, 1912 – August 24, 1995) was an American diver. He won a bronze and a gold medal in the 3 m springboard at the 1932 and 1936 Olympics, respectively. In April, 1936, Degener, along with many other sports ...

(1980) and

Dick Kimball Dick Kimball (born c. 1935) is an American former diving champion and diving coach at the University of Michigan. He was the NCAA springboard champion in 1957 and the Professional World Diving champion in 1963. He coached the University of Mich ...

(1985) * Diving (women's) –

(1986) and Chris Seufert-Sholtis (2007) *

Field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

– Mary (Callam) Brandes (2006) *

Football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

–

and

(1978) *

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

–

(1979) and Johnny Fischer (1980) *

Gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shou ...

(men's) – Newt Loken (coach, 1981) and Ed Gagnier (1992) * Gymnastics (women's) – Beth Wymer *

Ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

–

Vic Heyliger Victor Heyliger (September 26, 1912 – October 4, 2006) was a National Hockey League center and the head coach of the University of Michigan ice hockey team. Career Born in Concord, Massachusetts, he attended the Lawrence Academy in Groton, Ma ...

(1980) and John Sherf (1981) *

Softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

– Penny Neer (2002) and Vicki Morrow (2004) *

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

(men's) –

Matt Mann Matthew "Matt" Mann II (1884–1962) was a British-born American college swimming coach and was coach of the men's swim team in the 1952 Summer Olympics that won four gold medals, two silver medals and one bronze medal. He learnt to swim at eight ...

(coach, 1980) and Harry Holiday (1981) * Swimming (women's) – Melinda (Copp) Harrison (2006) and

Ann Colloton Ann Colloton is a former competitive Swimming (sport), swimmer. She was a five-time Big Ten Conference champion, an eight-time All-American, and the NCAA breaststroke champion in 1989. She was the first athlete in University of Michigan history to ...

(2007) *

Synchronised swimming Synchronized swimming (in British English, synchronised swimming) or artistic swimming is a sport where swimmers perform a synchronized choreographed routine, accompanied by music. The sport is governed internationally by FINA (the ''Fédérati ...

–

Ruth Pickett Thompson Ruth Pickett Thompson is a former All-American synchronized swimmer for the University of Michigan. A native of Richmond, Virginia, she was named an All-American in four consecutive years from 1978 to 1981, and also placed among the top three ind ...

(2008) *

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

– Barry MacKay (1980) and William Murphy (coach, 1983) *

Track & field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

(men's) – Bob Ufer (1978),

(1979) and

(1979) * Track & field (women's) –

Francie Kraker Goodridge Francea ("Francie") Norma Kraker Goodridge (born February 9, 1947 in Ann Arbor, Michigan) is a former women's track and field athlete and coach from the United States. She set a world record in the 600-yard indoor event and was the first Michigan-bo ...

(1994) *

Volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

–

Diane Ratnik Diane Ratnik-Cooper (born July 14, 1962 in Toronto, Ontario) is a retired volleyball player from Canada, who competed for her native country in two Summer Olympics: 1984 and 1996. A resident of Scarborough, Ontario, she finished in eighth and tent ...

(2009) *

Wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

–

Cliff Keen Clifford Patrick Keen (June 13, 1901 – November 4, 1991) was an American coach who served as the head coach of the University of Michigan collegiate wrestling team from 1925 to 1970. He led the Michigan Wolverines to 13 Big Ten Conference cha ...

(coach, 1980) and

Ed Don George Edward Nye "Ed Don" George Jr. (June 3, 1905 – September 18, 1985) was an American amateur and professional wrestler, and wrestling promoter. A former Olympic freestyle wrestler, George competed in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics and turned pro ...

(1981)

Sortable list of inductees

For alphabetical listing of inductees, see footnote For listing of inductees by induction year, see footnoteMichigan Athletic Hall of Honor
(By ''Induction Year''). Bentley Historical Library (archives of the University of Michigan and the Michigan Athletic Department) website. Retrieved 2011-09-09.

References

External links

University of Michigan Hall of Honor
GoBlue (University of Michigan Athletics official website)

Bentley Historical Library (archives of the University of Michigan and the Michigan Athletic Department) website {{DEFAULTSORT:University Of Michigan Athletic Hall Of Honor

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

Hall of Honor Awards established in 1978 Halls of fame in Michigan 1978 establishments in Michigan

Hall of Honor firsts

Sortable list of inductees

See also

References

External links