With the Olympic Games in Atlanta just completed, it is fitting that five of 12 new inductees into the Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame have had Olympic compe tition experience.
The new class will be inducted at the 19th annual ceremony on Friday night, Sept. 20, at the Statler Hotel. After this year's induction, the Hall of Fame will include 353 members.
This year 14 sports are represented, and the inductees include a former trainer.
Heading the list of former Olympians is Michael Richardson-Bach '82, who won a silver medal at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles as part of the U.S. four-man with coxswain crew. As an undergraduate he rowed on a varsity eight that won the Intercollegiate Rowing Association championship in 1981 and 1982.
The late Philip W. Allison '11 made the United States Olympic team in both foil fencing and the modern pentathlon at the 1924 Games in Paris. He chose to fence and compiled a 1-3 record at the '24 Games. At Cornell, he captained the 1911 fencers who went undefeated and won the National Intercollegiate Fenc ing Association championship.
Hockey goaltender Darren Eliot '83, a first-team All-American at Cornell, was the netminder for the 1984 Canadian Olympic team. He later played for Los Angeles, Detroit and Buffalo in the National Hockey League.
Others who experienced the Olympic challenge were the late Jacob Goldbas '34, a boxer, and Grant Whitney '86, a runner. Goldbas, who also played football at Cornell, reached the quarterfinals of the Olympic tryouts in 1932. As a boxer, he was the university's undefeated champion in three weight classes over four years. Whitney, a three-time All -American, qualified for the 1988 Olympic Trials in the 5,000 meters, just miss ing the finals by two seconds.
If lacrosse were an Olympic sport, Craig Jaeger '78 most likely would have competed. He did play for the winning U.S. team in the World Championships in England in 1978. At Cornell he was a two-time first-team All-American at midfield and led the football team in rushing and scoring in 1977.
All-Americans in this year's class, in addition to Eliot, Jaeger and Whitney, are Jon Ross '75 and Paul Steck '79. Ross was a soccer goalie who won All-America second-team honors in 1974. Steck was a diver who won four Eastern titles on the men's swimming team. He finished 11th on the 1-meter board at the 1978 NCM championships to earn his All-America recognition.
Karin Dwyer '86 is just the second Hall of Fame inductee from the women's basketball team. She set four school career scoring records, including points, and she was second in rebounds, scoring average and in 20-point games. Dwyer is joined by two-sport athlete Robyn Ewing '82 in this year's class. Ewing set a Cornell single season lacrosse scoring record as a sophomore and broke it as a senior. She also set five other best marks and played on the Big Red field hockey team.
Representing wrestling in the '96 class is Pat Welch '85. He was a two-time Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Associa tion champion at 150 pounds and participated in the NCM championships in 1984 and 1985. He was inducted into the New York State Intercollegiate Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1995.
The final member of the new induction class is the late Dick LaFrance, who was an assistant athletic trainer from 1945 until his retirement in 1980. He worked with all sports, but football and track were his specialties.
The Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame was initiated in 1978 and became a real ity through the thoughtfulness and generosity of the late Ellis H. Robison '18, whose gift to the university resulted in the construction of the Robison Hall of Fame Room that houses Hall of Fame memorabilia in Schoellkopf Hall.