2015 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Corey Erickson
The 1995 Lanphier graduate started all four years as a quarterback in football, a guard in basketball and a shortstop in baseball. He was The State-Journal-Register's Central Eight Conference Male Athlete of the Year and CS8 Baseball Player of the Year in 1995, when he batted .424 with 12 home runs and 39 runs batted in.

He was drafted in the fourth round by the New York Mets in 1995 and played 10 seasons in the Mets, Cleveland, St. Louis and San Francisco organizatioins, making it as high as Triple-A with the Indians in 2001.

Doug Hembrough
The 1988 Griffin graduate played on the offensive and defensive lines. He was a three-time-all-city selection in 1987. He was a team captain for the 1988 Shrine All-Star High School game and received a scholarship to Missouri, where he was a three-year starter, four-year letterman and the 1992 team captain.

He received All-Big Eight Conference honorable mention honors in 1991 and 1992 and was Academic All-Conference both years. He was honorable mention Academic All-American in 1992.

Hembrough died age 35 in 2005 after battling cancer.

Jim Moughan
He started his racing career in 1950 at Springfield Speedway and raced until 1977 in stock cars, modified, midgets, late models and sprint cars. He won six track championships: 1953 Chmpaign modifieds; 1959 Lincoln and Macon modified; 1973 Springfield sprints; 1974 Springfield sprints; 1975 Springfield late models.

He was inducted into the CARS Club Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Springfield Speedway Hall of Fame in 1987. Known as "Gentleman Jim," he was one of the most popular drivers in Springfield racing history

 

Mike Pilger
The 1995 Sacred Heart-Griffin graduate played baseball, football and basketball in high school before moving on to the University of South Florida, where he played baseball for four years.

In high school, Pilger was a two-year starter in football, and he caught a city-record 91 passes for 1,848 yards and was the CS8 Player of the Year in 1994, when he caught 61 passes for 1,241 yards. In basketball he scored 1,240 points, second all-time in school history at the time of his graduation.

He batted a city-best .549 as a senior, when he was All-Central State Eight, first-team Illinois High School Coaches Association All-State and special mention all-state by the Chicago Tribune. He batted .391 as a junior and .456 as a sophomore. He was a four-year starter at South Florida, where he set five major school records that he still holds: games played, at-bats, hits, doubles and runs scored. He's second all-time in stolen bases and total bases.

Eleanor Rudolph

The 1946 Lanphier graduate grew up in an era when there weren't a lot of athlete opportunities for girls. She played softball with the Madison Furniture women's team while she was in high school, and after graduation from Lanphier she went to Peoria to play for the Caterpillar Company's Dieselettes fast-pitch team.

She played shortstop her first three years with the team, then was a catcher until the company dropped its sponsorship of athletics in 1955. She stayed with the team when it moved to Sunnyland and then Pekin, becoming the lettes, one of the nation's premier women's fast-pitch softball organizations.

She was named to the Amateur Softball Association Hall of Fame in 1974. She's the Lettes' all-time leader in RBIs and triples, is second in hits and doubles, third in at-bats and stolen bases and seventh in home runs.

TEAM

2000 Lincoln Land Community College Baseball
The Loggers won the NJCAA Division II World Series, setting a school record for wins with a 46-19-1 record. They won the regional and district titles along the way, and Justin Knoedler -- one of five players on the team to play professionally along with his twin brother Jason Knoedler, Ryan O'Malley, Scott Blackwell and Frank Stefano -- was the NJCAA Player of the Year.

FRIENDS OF SPORT

Dick Dhabalt
He was a founding faculty member at Lincoln Land Community College, where he served as a professor for 25 years, the men's basketball coach for 20 years and the athletic director for 20 years before his retirement in 1993.

As the first athletic director at Lincoln Land, he started and developed 11 sports and was instramental in hiring Claude Kracik as baseball coach. He played on Bradley's 1957 NIT championship basketball team.

 

Hal Pilger
He spent 35 years as a sportswriter at the State-Journal-Register before his retirement in 2009. He covered 25 consecutive Indianapolis 500s, 13 Brickyard 400's, four World Series, three Super Bowls, two NFC Championship games, 16 NFL training camps, six major league spring trainings, 35 summers of Illinois State Fair auto racing, 20 state basketball tournaments and countless other Cardinals, Rams, Illinois, junior college and high school games.

During his career he interviewed, among of others, Paul Newman, Lou Brook, Mike Ditka, Mario Andretti, Ozzie Smith, JoDee Messina, Alber Pujols, both Dale Earnhardts, Jack Buck, Walter Peyton, Shirley Muldowney, Moose Skowron, Kurt Warner and Whitey Herzog.

 

Jim Schaive
The 1951 Lanphier graduate was a three-time cross country MVP at Western Illinois and a three-time track captain at WIU. He was the first Springfield cross country runner to qualify for the state meet(1950), and he placed 32nd.

He served as an official at the state high school track meet for 12 straight years and also was a track official for Big Ten meets, the NCAA Division III Nationals and NJCAA Nationals. He was the Illinois Track and Field Official of the Year in 2004.

 

John Wallenstein
He was born and raised in the Chicago area but wound up in Springfield in 1978 as a member of the Class AAA Springfield Redbirds' front office. He spent four seasons as the team's director of sales.

When the team moved to Louisville in 1981, he stayed in Springfield and later served as general manager of the independent Springfield Capitals.

He worked for the LPGA Rail Charity Classic for several years and created programs for the Illinois State Fair harness races. He served on the Springfield Sports Hall of Fame board of directors until his death in August of 2014.