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OHSAA To Honor Five Former Standouts in
Circle of Champions Program At Boys State Basketball Tournaments
Other Special Awards Recipients Will Also Be Recognized
COLUMBUS, Ohio – For the seventh consecutive year, the Ohio High School
Athletic Association has selected individuals who had prominent roles
in the history of Ohio interscholastic athletics to be honored as part
of the Association’s Circle of Champions program. This year’s five
honorees will be recognized during the OHSAA Boys State Basketball
Tournament March 21-23 at Ohio State’s Jerome Schottenstein Center.
Honored during the Division IV semifinal game that tips off at 10:45
a.m. on Friday, March 21, will be Chris Spielman. He will also receive
the Association’s 2012 Ethics and Integrity Award. Recognized during
the Division IV championship game that begins at 4:30 will be Michael
Redd, Earle Bruce, Paul Warfield and Rex Kern.
Chris Spielman first gained recognition as an All-American football
player at Massillon Washington High School. He went on to become a
two-time All-American and three-time All-Big Ten linebacker at Ohio
State, where he won the Lombardi Award in 1987 and team MVP. He was
inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2010. Spielman went
on to play in the NFL, spending his first eight seasons with the Lions.
He never missed a game, led the team in tackles each year, was twice
All-Pro and played in four Pro Bowls. He then played in Buffalo in 1996
and 1997 before a neck injury ended his career in Cleveland two years
later. Chris is well known nationally as a college football analyst for
ESPN Television and locally as a sports talk show contributor with
WBNS-Radio in Columbus.
Chris has also shown tremendous dedication to his family. His wife
Stefanie was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998, and the couple
worked tirelessly to raise awareness for the disease and support for
the Stefanie Spielman Breast Cancer Awareness Fund, which has grown
into a nationally recognized fund. Stephanie lost her battle to cancer
in 2009, but Chris has carried on her fight and spirit in breast cancer
awareness along with his daughters Maddie, Macy and Audrey and son
Noah. A book released last fall called “That’s Why I’m Here” not only
provides highlights of Spielman’s playing career but also chronicles
Stefanie’s journey as a way to help other cancer victims in their
struggles. Ohio State also recently renamed its breast cancer facility
in Stefanie’s honor.
Michael Redd was a standout basketball player at Columbus West High
School and Ohio State. He started all 96 games as a Buckeye, is one of
OSU’s career scoring leaders and helped the team reach the Final Four
in 1999. Redd played in the NBA 12 seasons, including 11 with
Milwaukee. He was selected to the 2004 NBA All-Star Game and was on the
U.S. Olympic Team that won the gold medal in 2008 in Beijing. He holds
the Milwaukee record with 57 points in a game and the NBA record by
making eight three-point field goals in one quarter.
Michael has also dedicated his life to faith and has worked hard to
make life better for people in the Greater Columbus and Milwaukee areas
in his work with various foundations, charitable organizations and
events. He and his wife, Achea, live in the Columbus area and have a
son and a daughter.
While not a Buckeye by birth, there’s no question that Earle Bruce is
all Buckeye. A football player and student coach at Ohio State, Bruce
graduated in 1953, then began a stellar high school coaching career in
Ohio as an assistant at Mansfield Senior before compiling a 10-year
record of 82-12-3 as the head coach at Salem, Sandusky and Massillon
Washington high schools. His two Massillon teams went 20-0 with two
wire service state championships.
In 1966, Bruce was hired as an assistant by Woody Hayes at Ohio State,
where he served for six years and was part of the 1968 National
Championship team. He then embarked on a 21-year career as the head
coach at five different universities. The successor to Hayes at Ohio
State, Earle was the Buckeyes’ head coach between 1979 and 1987,
guiding his teams to an 81-26-1 record with four Big Ten championships.
Earle has four daughters, nine grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren. His wife of 56 years, Jean, passed away in 2011.
Earle spends part of the year in Central Ohio, where he is a college
football analyst for WTVN-Radio, and part of the year in Florida.
Paul Warfield graduated from Warren Harding High School in 1960. He was
a standout running back in football, and he was twice a state track
& field champion, winning the long jump as a sophomore and setting
a new state record in the 180-yard low hurdles as a senior. Warfield
attended Ohio State and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1970. He was a
two-time all-Big Ten halfback who helped the 1961 football team win the
Football Writers Association of America National Championship, and he
was a two-time All-American in track & field, winning the Big Ten
long jump two straight years.
A first round draft pick of Cleveland in 1964, Warfield helped the
Browns win their most recent NFL championship that year when he moved
to receiver full-time. Beginning in 1970, he spent five years in Miami,
helping the team win back-to-back Super Bowls in 1972 and 1973, with
the ’72 squad still holding the NFL record as the league’s only
undefeated Super Bowl champion. He retired in 1977.
Warfield was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983. He
was All-Pro six times and played in the Pro Bowl eight times. He earned
his master’s degree from Kent State in 1977 and served several years in
different scouting and executive positions for the Browns. Retired and
living in Rancho Mirage, Calif., Paul and his wife, Beverly, have two
children and one grandson, who will accompany Paul back to Ohio this
weekend.
Rex Kern was a three-sport star at Lancaster High School, graduating in
1967. He helped both the basketball and baseball teams reach the OHSAA
state tournaments. A high school All-American in football and
basketball, Kern was drafted by baseball’s Kansas City Athletics out of
high school but instead played both basketball and football at Ohio
State as a freshman when first-year players were ineligible for varsity
competition. A back injury during his freshman basketball season ended
his career on the hardwood.
Kern started at quarterback as one of the heralded “Super Sophomores”
in 1968, and helped lead the Buckeyes to the National Championship when
the team went 10-0, defeated Michigan 50-14 and beat O.J. Simpson and
Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl, when Rex was the game MVP. It would be
Ohio State’s last national title until the 2002 team won it 34 year
later. Kern helped the Buckeyes go 27-2 in his three years. Among his
many honors have been induction into the College Football, Rose Bowl
and Ohio State athletic halls of fame.
After college, he played defensive back for four years for the Colts
and Bills before retiring due to his back problems. Kern holds three
degrees from Ohio State and is retired as a business executive. He met
his wife Nancy at the 1969 Rose Bowl where she was a Rose Bowl
princess. The Kerns live in Camarillo, Calif., and have two sons and
four grandchildren.
Past honorees in the OHSAA Circle of Champions program have been:
2007-Todd Blackledge; Jay Burson; Dean Chance; Archie Griffin; Bill
Hosket; Clark Kellogg; Dante Lavelli (since deceased); Cindy Noble
Hauserman, and Katie Smith; 2008-Galen Cisco; Jim Lachey; Susan Nash
Sugar, and Bill Willis (posthumously); 2009-Robin Freeman; LeBron
James; Larry Siegfried (since deceased); Dick Schafrath, and Mary
Wineberg; 2010-Howard “Hopalong” Cassady; Jerry Lucas; Al Oliver; Jesse
Owens (posthumously), and Tony Trabert; 2011-Harrison Dillard; Wayne
Embry; John Havlicek; Jim Houston; Madeline Manning Mims, and Phil
Niekro, and 2012-Barry Clemens; Bob Hoying; LaVonna Martin-Floreal;
Butch Reynolds; Dick Snyder, and Gene Tenace.
Other awards that will be presented during Saturday’s championship
games at this year’s boys state tournament are as follows:
• The OHSAA Naismith Memorial Awards, presented to two people for
their meritorious service to the sport of basketball or interscholastic
athletics: Mike Rotonda, who spent 44 years with the Columbus City
Schools, including the last several years as director of student
activities, before retiring in 2012, and the late Richard “Dick” Potts,
a former basketball coach in Monroe County who spent 40 years coaching
at Bethel, Skyvue and Hannibal River high schools and won 589 career
games.
• The OHSAA Coaches Sportsmanship, Ethics and Integrity Award:
Joe Balogh, the head coach at Ontario High School since 1985 who has
won over 400 career games.
• The OHSAA Commissioner’s Award for Exceptional Sportsmanship:
Dublin Sells Middle School.
• Recognition of special Ohio Athletic Trainers Association award
winners: Trainer-of-the-Year Carrie Fister, an instructor and clinical
education coordinator for the athletic training education program at
the University of Akron since 2008; Hall of Fame inductee Kim
Blackburn, who retired last year after 26 years as the athletic trainer
at Strongsville High School, and Hall of Fame inductee Glade Pauley, a
Hudson resident who is the general manager of companies specializing in
sports medicine and orthopedic sales.
• The 2013 OHSAA Ethics and Integrity Award recipient: Jolinda
Miller, the athletic administrator at Cincinnati Hughes High School.
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