Ohio State Buckeyes: Fascinating group in this year’s HOF class

It’s always interesting to see who is inducted into the Ohio State Hall of Fame each year. This year’s group of inductees is a fascinating one.

The players and coaches in this year’s Ohio State Hall of Fame class are an extremely interesting group. One player hung up his cleats a century before two coaches put down their whistles, and several sports are represented.

I’ll share some of the accomplishments of the new Hall of Famers as reported on Ohio State.com, but there are more interesting facts on each if you want to go to the site.

First, let’s look at the football players and I’ll start with the three-sport star Boyd Cherry (1912-14).

The Columbus native was one of the building blocks of the Ohio State football program. The Buckeyes were just moving from the Ohio Athletic Conference to the Western Conference (Later the Big Ten) during Cherry’s playing days. He was the first Buckeye football player to win All-American honors. Cherry was also team captain on the basketball and baseball teams.

Other football players in the HOF Class were linebacker A.J. Hawk and kicker Mike Nugent. Both were key players in Ohio State’s run to the 2002 BCS Championship.

Hawk finished his collegiate career as the Buckeyes’ fifth leading tackler of all time. No small feat with the number of outstanding linebackers who have passed through the Ohio State football program over the years.

Simply put, Nugent was the best who ever kicked a football in Ohio Stadium. He was as clutch as any kicker could be and hit 24 consecutive field goals in one stretch.

Nuge was a consensus All-American in 2002 and 2004.

Now for a look at players and coaches from other sports.

It’s certainly appropriate Thad Matta and Jim Foster were inducted into the HOF so soon. Matta is the winningest men’s basketball coach in school history and Foster the most successful women’s coach.

Coach Matta took the Buckeyes to two Final Fours and nine trips to the NCAA Tournament. He also had three 30 win seasons in addition to winning a few Big Ten Championships.

Coach Foster won 77 percent of his games during his 11 years as the Ohio State women’s basketball coach. His teams made the NCAA Tournament 10 times and won six straight Big Ten Championships and four Big Ten Tournaments.

Justin Frye (1995-99) was one of the greatest pitchers to step on the mound for the Buckeyes. He still holds the record for wins (36), innings pitched (419.2) and strikeouts (382).

Now for the track and field stars.

Stan Lyons was a four time Big Ten Champion in the pole vault winning both the indoor and outdoor titles in 1957 and 1958. He also tied for the National Championship his final year.

Andrew Pierce’s accomplishments were too many to share here. He was a six time All-American and holds records to this day even though he hasn’t run a 400 meter dash for Ohio State since 2001.

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Now for the stars in a sport that’s fun to watch but I don’t understand, hockey.

R.J. Umberger (2001-03) recorded 129 points during his Ohio State career. He also went on to a successful NHL career with the Philadelphia Flyers and Columbus Bluejackets.

Natalia Spooner put the puck in the net 100 times and recorded 163 points for the Buckeyes and earned All-American honors in 2012. Spooner also won a gold medal playing for Canada in 2014 and a silver medal in 2018.

To check out more achievements of the former players and coaches in the 2019 HOF class click on Ohio State.com.

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This is a fascinating HOF class. It spanned a century of Buckeye excellence and there are members from several sports. And each of them set high standards for others to follow which enabled the Ohio State athletic program to become one of the best in the nation. Congrats to each of them.

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