Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame's 40th Annual Induction Dinner

 

Sunday, June 2, 2024

This evening I attended one of my favorite events of each and every year.

The 40th Annual Induction Dinner

The event was held at Camarillo's Padre Serra Center to honor the five distinguished 2024 Hall of Fame inductees and 55 male and female Athletes of the Year.

These 55 Athletes of the Year hailed from Ventura County's 24 high schools, three community colleges and one university.

The Chairperson of the Hall of Fame, Brian FitzGerald, says that this function is tantamount to having to plan a wedding every year and I think he might be right.

Once the evening is over and you have seen the smiles on the faces of the 60 honored people and their families and friends, you know that it was well worth it.

As a member of the Hall of Fame's Executive Board, my main roll today was to greet the honored athletes, get their name badges and insure that the biographies that we had prepared on each of them were mistake free and up-to-date.

Mission accomplished.

The Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame's Class of 2024 included:

Elaine Cancholla, Nordhoff H.S.

Cross Country and Track

Cliff Farrar, Nordhoff H.S.

Football Coach

Jackie Newman, Oxnard H.S.

Men's Fast Pitch Softball

Natalie Sanderson, Buena H.S.

Soccer

Samantha Whitcomb, Buena H.S.

Basketball

With their induction tonight, the Hall of Fame has now inducted a total of 202 athletes, coaches, officials, administrators, organizers and sports reporters.

With Cliff Farrar

Cliff is one of the Class of 2024 Inductees and was a great football coach at Nordhoff H.S. in Ojai and simply a good human being wno always made things better for all of us in the coaching fraternity.

Some of the 202 Hall of Fame

plaques on display

This evening's honorees to the left

"GO RANGERS!"

The evening's Honored Guests

A crowd of approximately

400 guests were on hand

As I said at the start, this is a wonderful event that I look forward to every Spring.

While we were meeting, the ELF

finished Week#2 game's today

The Paris Musketeers (1-0) easily

defeated the Hamburg Sea Devils (1-1)

The Berlin Thunder (1-1) in a rout

over the Prague Lions (0-2)

The Cologne Centurions (1-1) over the

struggling Fehérvár Enthroners (0-2)

The defending ELF Champion

Rhein Fire (2-0) with a crucial win

over the Frankfurt Galaxy (0-1)

 

All of the ELF Week #2 Results

17 ELF Teams in three Conferences

all vying for the league's fourth

championship trophy

Only five undefeated ELF teams

remain after just two weeks

They are the Rhein Fire (2-0), Stuttgart Surge (2-0), Vienna Vikings (2-0), Madrid Bravos (1-0) and Paris Musketeers (1-0).

With the Bravos traveling to play the Fire next weekend, this number of undefeated clubs will be no more the four after Week #3. 

 

Speaking of the Bravos-Fire game

The Barcelona Dragons (1-1) are

looking to bounce back at home

against the Tirol Raiders (1-1)

European League of Football Schedule

Saturday, June 8, 2024

Madrid (1-0) at Rhein (2-0)

Tirol (1-1) at Barcelona (1-1)

Helvetic (0-1) at Milano (0-2)

Sunday, June 9, 2024

Frankfurt (0-1) at Paris (1-0)

Fehérvár (0-2) at Berlin (1-1)

Vienna (2-0) at Wroclaw (1-1)

Prague (0-2) at Munich (1-1)

BYES: Cologne (1-1), Hamburg (1-1)

and Stuttgart (2-0)

Results from the Italian DIII/9FL

Wild Card Weekend

Our beloved Sicilian club, the Catania Elephants (6-0), had a Bye and now play the Wild Card winning Bologna Doves (5-2) in the playoff Quarter-Finals in two weeks.

The Villeurbanne Falcons won a

French DIV regional title this weekend

Coach Michael Wood's Helsinki

Roosters (3-0) play a mid-week Derby

game against the Helsinki Wolverines (0-2)