A half-dozen people milled about outside Petersen Events Center Friday evening, some waiting for a bus, others just waiting to begin their weekend as dusk approached in Oakland.
More than likely, they were completely unaware that in the building just behind them, the most remarkable athletes in the University of Pittsburgh’s 231-year history were gathered together to be feted like none before them. Inside, fans, donors and trustees were blissfully well aware of the greatness in their presence.
Pitt inducted its inaugural 16-person Hall of Fame class on the arena floor, from Dan Marino to Mike Ditka to Hugh Green to Tony Dorsett, the culmination of one of second-year athletic director Heather Lyke’s first visions when she arrived.
The only honorees not in attendance were the four posthumous inductees — Doc Carlson, Marshall Goldberg, Jock Sutherland and John Woodruff — and former All-American offensive lineman Bill Fralic, who’s dealing with health issues.
Sure, the usual suspects such as Marino and Dorsett got rousing applause, but track and field great Herb Douglas, the oldest living inductee at 96, received a standing ovation.
“Let me give you a little history,” said Douglas, who grew up in Hazelwood and still owns the property his father bought in 1918. “I’m old enough to be everyone up here’s father.”
There were several other humorous moments on the dais, with longtime broadcaster Bill Hillgrove conducting a Q&A with each former athlete. Marino mistakenly said he threw his first college touchdown to Kenny Stills — a current wide receiver for Marino’s pro team, the Miami Dolphins — rather than Ralph Still. Pitt’s head coach at the time, Jackie Sherrill, was in attendance and had to help him out from the crowd.
“I’ve thrown a lot of touchdowns,” Marino joked.
Ditka, who’s serving as the Pitt football team’s honorary captain Saturday against Penn State, was right at home in embellishing some of his old exploits — and not on the football field, either. Many don’t know Ditka also played varsity basketball at Pitt, and he recalled a game way back when at West Virginia, where he was matched up with the NBA logo.
“I guarded Jerry West,” Ditka roared. “I guarded him for about 15 — no, maybe 12 minutes. He had 27 points, I had five fouls. That is the truth; you can look it up.”
Hillgrove also asked Ditka, who originally enrolled at Pitt for its dental school, if he had any regrets about his path veered from that discipline.
“No,” Ditka replied, “but there’s probably a lot of happy people out there that I didn’t make it. I forgot you had to take chemistry. What the hell’s chemistry got to do with dentistry?”
Even among those college and pro football Hall of Famers, it might’ve been 1982 national champion gymnast Lisa Shirk — one of three female inductees with Trecia Kaye-Smith (track and field) and Kathy Stetler (swimming) — who had the largest contingent of friends and family present.
Kaye-Smith, a Jamaican native who won seven individual NCAA championships as a Pitt versatile track athlete in the late 1990s, recounted the early days of her recruitment.
“Where the hell is Pittsburgh?” was her thought back then, drawing some laughs. “I had no idea. I had to look it up.”
All the inductees received lithographs of action shots from their college days, and they’ll be announced at halftime of Saturday night’s football matchup with Penn State.
Nominations are now open for the 2019 Hall of Fame class, which will be the second of its kind and still has plenty of worthy candidates. Lyke said that when her selection committee first reported back to her, their collaborative list had more than 100 names.
You can expect the likes of Pop Warner and Don Hennon, who got beat to the punch by fellow men’s basketball jersey retirees Billy Knight and Charles Smith, to receive heavy consideration. And if Pat Narduzzi and Kenny Pickett lead the way to two more victories against Penn State this year and next, maybe they’ll get fast-tracked into the pantheon.
Full list of 2018 inaugural Pitt Hall of Fame inductees:
• Henry Clifford "Doc" Carlson (athlete: football, basketball, baseball; coach: basketball)
• Mike Ditka (football)
• Tony Dorsett (football)
• Herb Douglas (track and field)
• Bill Fralic (football)
• Marshall Goldberg (football)
• Hugh Green (football)
• Trecia-Kaye Smith (track and field)
• Roger Kingdom (track and field)
• Billy Knight (basketball)
• Dan Marino (football)
• Lisa Shirk (gymnastics)
• Charles Smith (basketball)
• Kathy Stetler (swimming)
• John Bain “Jock” Sutherland (athlete: football; coach: football)
• John Woodruff (track and field)
CORRECTION, posted Sept. 8, 2018: In an earlier version of this story, John Woodruff was misidentified as Roger Woodruff.
Brian Batko: bbatko@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrianBatko.
First Published: September 8, 2018, 2:28 a.m.
