Missouri Sports Hall Of Fame Induction Class Announced

The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame has released their 2024 Hall of Fame Class.  Below are some of this year’s inductees.

Tom Watson – Missouri Sports Legend

A graduate of Pembroke Country Day High School, Watson (MSHOF 1984) will be honored as a Missouri Sports Legend, as the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame will unveil a bronze bust of the golf great during the Enshrinement. The bust will later be on display at the Legends Walkway outside of the Hall of Fame in Springfield. It is a fitting honor for a golfer who won eight major championships, including five British Opens, two Masters and arguably the most dramatic U.S. Open in history. His career included 39 PGA Tour wins, 14 additional wins worldwide and 14 wins on the Champions Tour, six of them majors. And many still remember when, at age 59, he came within inches of winning a sixth British Open that would have made him the oldest golfer – by 11 years – to win a major title. Watson was the PGA Tour Player of the Year six times, the leading money winner five times, won the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average on tour three times, won the season-long Schwab Cup race on the Champions Tour twice and is the only man in history to shoot at least one round of 67 or better in all four majors in four decades.

Eric Hosmer – Kansas City Royals

Hosmer helped fuel the Royals’ second Golden Era, helping the team win the 2015 World Series a year after Kansas City won its first American League pennant since the 1985 World Series championship season. The third overall selection of the 2008 MLB Draft, he reached the big leagues in 2011 and retired after the 2023 season. He spent his first seven seasons in the majors with the Royals, joining Alex Gordon (MSHOF 2020), Lorenzo Cain (MSHOF 2023), Mike Moustakas, Alcides Escobar and Salvador Perez in resurrecting a franchise starved for success. Hosmer hit .284 with 127 home runs and had a .781 OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) and won four Gold Gloves as a first baseman. No one will forget his “Mad Dash” in the top of the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 2015 World Series, as Hosmer scored from third base on Perez’s broken-bat ground ball to third base, with Hosmer breaking for the plate after the throw to first base. The Royals won the game in extra innings. A year later, he earned his lone All-Star selection and was named All-Star Game MVP. He later played for the San Diego Padres, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, finishing with 1,753 hits, including 198 home runs and 893 RBI.

Casey Wiegmann – Kansas City Chiefs

A former University of Iowa standout, Wiegmann played 16 seasons in the National Football League, including nine seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs from 2001 to 2007, and again in 2010 and 2011. He made 175 career starts – and never missed one – and that covered 11,162 snaps. Both statistics are NFL records. In his time in Kansas City, the Chiefs won the AFC West Division and finished 13-3 in 2003, reached the playoffs again in 2006 in a 9-7 season, and won the division in 2010 when the Chiefs finished 10-6. It was quite a career, as Wiegmann played for three teams in his first three seasons in the National Football League and finished his career with the Chiefs after two seasons in Denver. Years earlier, he was hardly recruited out of high school but yet earned starts from 1991 to 1995 at Iowa, where he was the team MVP his senior year when the Hawkeyes played in the Sun Bowl.

Ben McCollum – Northwest Missouri State University Men’s Basketball Coach

McCollum is one of the most successful college basketball coaches in state history, and in NCAA Division II for that matter. This season marks his 15th in Maryville. His teams have won four national championships (2017, 2019, 2021, 2022), as well as 13 Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) regular-season titles and eight MIAA Tournament titles. He has been named the National Basketball Coaches Association’s Coach of the Year five times – the most in NABC D-II history – and in 2019 alone was the John McLendon National Coach of the Year for all divisions, and Coach of the Year for the Basketball Times, HoopDirt.com, and the Kansas City Sports Awards. McCollum also is a nine-time MIAA Coach of the Year and was the Clarence “Big House” Gaines National Coach of the Year in 2012 and 2020. After Tuesday night’s D-II Regional Championship, McCollum is 394-91 since his taking over the program ahead of the 2009-2010 season. McCollum is a native of Storm Lake, Iowa who played for Northwest Missouri State in the early 2000s.

Phil Dorman – Platte County High School Wrestling Coach

Dorman was the head coach of Platte County’s wrestling program from 1994 to 2013. He led the Pirates to seven state championships. Those years cover 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2010. The team earned a state runner-up finish in 1999, placed third in 1997 and fourth in 2003. Overall, he coached 31 individual state champions and 76 other medalists. Along the way, Platte County was 156-35-3 in duals and won 11 conference and nine district championships. He was the Missouri Wrestling Association’s Coach of the Year six times. Dorman has been inducted into five other halls of fame – the Missouri Wrestling Association, Platte County Wrestling, Pleasant Hill High School Wrestling, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame’s Missouri chapter and Platte County High School. He also served as Platte County’s athletic director from 2004 to 2020 and was named the Kansas City Interscholastic Activities Association Athletic Director of the Year in 2019. He is a graduate of Pleasant Hill High School and the University of Central Missouri.

Platte County High School Wrestling Era of 1999-2010

The Platte County High School wrestling program emerged in the late 1990s as one of the state’s best in the small-school ranks. The Pirates earned nine top four finishes in that stretch, including seven state championships. The state title years cover 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2010. The team earned a state runner-up finish in 1999 and placed fourth in 2003. The Pirates won 27 individual state championships in the era, with Chase Verdoorn (2000, 2001, 2002) and Tyler St. Louis (2005, 2007,2008) winning three each. The other state champions were Jeremy Duncan (1999), Bobby Fisher (2000, 2001), Brett Rolofson (2001, 2002), Jake Fisher (2001, 2002), Kiel Giese, Zach Sherman (2001, 2002), Jordan Hobbs, Brock Wittmeyer, Caleb Dixon, Jake Mallonee (2004, 2005), Julian Gunnels, Joe Pace, Collin Wittmeyer (2008, 2009) and Blaine Conner. The 2001 team set multiple records, including most points scored at a state tournament (265.5), the largest winning margin (133.5), most individual champions (seven, tied with two others) and most medalists at a single state tournament (12, tied with two others).

Plattsburg High School 1979 State Championship Football Team

Coached by Jim Freeman, the Plattsburg High School football team won the 1979 state championship, beating Marceline 12-7 and finishing 12-0 to win Class 2. In the finals, Plattsburg led 12-0 at halftime and then turned back its opponent twice inside the 5-yard line. An interception iced the game with about 2 minutes left. It was a remarkable season, considering Plattsburg had reached the playoffs only one other previous season, in 1972, with the state title coming a decade after MSHSAA first fielded a postseason tournament. The Tigers were not even picked to win the KC-10 Conference but outscored their opponents 287-39. Most games were blowouts, except for a 20-6 season-opening victory against West Platte. They also won 15-0 against Smithville in Week 6, and beat Stockton 28-6 in the state semifinals. Eleven players earned postseason honors, with offensive tackle Dan Booth, punter Troy McKay, defensive end David Adam, quarterback Cory Wohlford and guard Scott Taylor earning All-State honors. Assistant coaches were Joe Trotter, George Garrett and Bill Lankford.

DIAMOND 9 AWARDS

Greg Kastner – Christian Brothers College High School/Missouri Western State University

A 1970 graduate of Christian Brothers High School, Kastner has been involved in baseball his entire life. In three seasons (1971-1973) at Missouri Western, he was an Honorable Mention All-American pitcher, as well as a First Team NAIA All-District and a First Team NAIA All-Area. Overall, he compiled an 18-6 record and 2.20 earned run average, with 238 strikeouts — which for many years ranked in the top five in program history. In one stretch, he did not allow an earned run in 46 2/3 consecutive innings. At one point, he established single-season records for fewest hits and fewest runs allowed in a season. Kastner later signed with the Atlanta Braves and found his way back to Bishop LeBlond as head baseball coach and athletic director. He coached baseball from 1987 to 2016, with a 386-240 record (.626). His baseball teams won 12 district championships, including seven consecutive from 1988 to 1994. He also served as athletic director for 39 years. Kastner has been a public address announcer for multiple sports for 40 years, including the NCAA Division II Softball Championships.

Sarah Baldwin Miller –
Chillicothe High School/University of Evansville/Northwest Missouri State University

A 2012 graduate of Chillicothe High School, Miller was a four-time All-State selection as a pitcher, including First Team Class 3, as well as all-conference and all-district all four seasons. She also was named the St. Joseph News Press Softball Player of the Year three times (2009, 2010, 2011), finishing her career with 87 wins and 1,157 strikeouts. She helped the Lady Hornets to a state runner-up finish in 2011. Baldwin started 11 games at Evansville in 2013 and then had three memorable seasons in Maryville, where she ended her career ranked fourth in Northwest Missouri State history with 302 strikeouts and in the top 10 in innings pitched (405.1), shutouts (nine) and victories (30). She was All-MIAA her senior year, when she also was twice named MIAA Pitcher of the Week and threw a perfect game against Northeastern State, the Bearcats’ first no-hitter in more than six years. These days, she is a physical therapist in Columbia, where she owns Revive Rehab and specializes in women’s health and general orthopedics.