In the two decades-plus history of the Riverside Sport Hall of Fame, this might be the ultimate coaches’ moment.
Through the first 16 induction classes since this organization honored its first group of enshrinees in 2003, there were one, or at most two, coaches included per class. And a couple of those were honored more for their exploits as local athletes than as coaches later in life.
But the 2024 class featured three coaches: basketball’s Mike LeDuc, volleyball’s Sheri Sanders and tennis’ Becky Gagnon, plus Tony Masi, who coached hoops but was inducted as an athletic director.
And in the class to be inducted May 5 at CBU’s Fowler Events Center, those who have wielded whistles – or fungo bats – bring much of the star quality.
Tom Craft, who resurrected a dormant Riverside City College football program when he was hired in 2010, heads that list. Craft, who announced his retirement earlier this week, led teams that won state titles in 2019 and ’23, finishing No. 1 in Brad Hoiseth’s JC national rankings in ’19 and sharing the top spot with Iowa Western in ’23. RCC fell in this season’s regional final to Mt. SAC last Saturday, but one of the defining moments of 15 scintillating seasons of Tigers football came two Saturdays ago, when RCC wiped out a 30-0 deficit in the final 22 minutes to beat San Diego Mesa 37-30 in a Southern California playoff semifinal.
If you asked Craft, though, he’d change the subject from his personal honor to his team’s performance. He did precisely that when Geoff Gorham, vice president of the Hall of Fame and a local sports broadcaster, informed him he’d be inducted. It’s not about him but about his players, which is why when the Tigers defeated San Mateo last December to win the state title at Wheelock Field, Craft quickly made himself scarce and let his players have the spotlight.
That trait, letting others bask in the limelight, is often a trend among those coming into the Hall – and not just the coaches, either.
Doug Smith, who replaced Jack Smitheran as UC Riverside’s head baseball coach for the 2005 season, follows his former boss into the Hall of Fame. Smith was part of UCR’s program for more than four decades as a player, assistant coach and head coach, helping the Highlanders’ program transition to Division I, guiding it to its first Big West title in 2007 and sending nearly 150 players into professional baseball and 15 to the big leagues, including 2024 big-leaguers Joe Kelly, Matt Andriese and Rob Brantly.
Ron Edmundson is also a baseball guy. He was involved with the sport at Norte Vista for 33 years, and as head coach from 1973 to 1994 his teams reached the CIF playoffs 15 times, made four appearances in the Southern Section finals and won a championship in 1988. Among the players he sent to the big leagues were Wayne Housie and his son Brian Edmundson. And, as the info sheet notes, he was “responsible for the first on-campus high school dugouts in the City of Riverside.” He later was athletic director at La Sierra High and is a member of the Citrus Belt Area Athletic Directors Association Hall of Fame.
Gene Hughes, meanwhile, was J.W. North boys basketball for 17 seasons, a Husky lifer from the moment the school opened its doors in 1965. His teams reached the CIF playoffs 10 times, reached the CIF Finals in 1978 and ’79 and won the first three of what would turn out to be the school’s 12 Riverside County Holiday Basketball Classic championships at the downtown Convention Center (and at last look, those “Raincross Tournament” banners still adorned their gym wall). Hughes also was the school’s varsity boys tennis coach for 27 years and the girls tennis coach for 11. But maybe his true impact was seen in his former players who became successful coaches themselves, including former North coach (and 2009 Hall of Fame inductee) Mike Bartee and current RCC coach Phil Mathews.
Oh, yes, the athletes.
Riverside Poly’s Andrea Loman, a 1999 graduate, was a letter winner and star in basketball, track and softball, and was an All-CIF softball player and concurrently a CIF qualifier in the shot put and discus, and ultimately was an all-conference player and record holder in several categories at the University of Notre Dame.
(They still tell the story of how a Poly superstar from a previous generation, charter RSHOF member Bobby Bonds – aka Barry’s dad – won the 100-yard dash in 9.8 and the broad jump in 24 feet, 11 inches … in his Poly baseball uniform, between innings of a game he was playing on the adjacent diamond. If Andrea had any achievements like that, or even close, we need to hear about them, please.)
Future big-league slugger Lucas Duda was a star at Arlington High School, a CIF Player of the Year and member of the 2004 Division 1 champions, and that season he received 42 walks, 26 of them intentional. Beyond that, throughout his major-league tenure with the New York Mets, Tampa Bay Rays, Kansas City Royals and Atlanta Braves, Duda displayed what he’d learned well from coach Gary Rungo, a 2019 Hall of Famer – it was often best to cede the spotlight to others.
Bud and Clara Luppino will be inducted as contributors, largely for their support of CBU athletics. Bud, who recently sold Bud’s Tire and Wheel but is still involved with the business, is an Air Force veteran who was instrumental in starting the Veterans Recognition program at Lancers basketball home games.
And then there is Pete King, whose induction is long overdue.
King was the godfather of soccer in the Riverside community. When he arrived from England in 1962, the sport was barely on the radar. He joined the Riverside United team, which journeyed through L.A. and Orange counties in search of opponents, and when the American Youth Soccer Organization – what we know now as AYSO – reached the area in the early ’70s, King became a coach, then a board member.
He opened Pete King’s Soccer Shop in 1983, and in so doing established what would become the nerve center of the sport in this community, a meeting place for players, coaches and referees. He and then-mayor Ab Brown were instrumental in the development of multi-field soccer complex that became home of the AYSO Region 47 in north Riverside.
But he wasn’t done. King founded women’s and adult leagues, coached high school soccer, imported young coaches from England to teach the game, and basically planted the seed of the Beautiful Game in this area. King died in 2009, and it would have been nice that he received this honor while he was alive.
But in another sense maybe it’s appropriate he goes in this time, with a class full of coaches. King not only coached a team, he guided an entire community in the direction of the sport he loved.
jalexander@scng.com
