The Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame will recognize 50 years of athletics at Northern Kentucky University during its December meeting on Wednesday at Villa Hills Civic Club. The meeting begins 1 p.m. and is open to the public.
The ceremony will include the induction of Marilyn Scroggin-Moore into the Hall of Fame. She was the first coach of the women’s basketball and volleyball programs at Northern Kentucky State College, which later became NKU.
The college’s first athletic program was men’s basketball, which began 50 years ago during the 1971-72 season. The first season of women’s basketball was 1974-75 and volleyball started in the fall of 1975.
After getting hired in 1974, Moore spent seven years as women’s basketball coach and compiled a 137-73 record. Her best season was 1975-76 when the Norse posted a 28-2 record that included victories over Kentucky and Cincinnati. They won the 1976 Kentucky Women’s Athletic Conference championship and lost in the first round of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) regional playoffs.
Moore started the college’s volleyball program in 1975 and had an 82-32 record in three seasons. Half of her volleyball victories came in 1977 when her team was the AIAW South Region champion.
The Hall of Fame will also introduce the Dr. James Claypool Pioneer Award at Wednesday’s meeting. The first recipient will be Dr. Claypool, who was chair of the first athletics committee at NKU and administrative head of athletics from 1970-78.
Claypool was responsible for hiring coaches and other athletic personnel as well as budgeting and adhering to NCAA regulations. He also chose the school colors, established the Norse nickname and initiated a program that gave men and women equal scholarships.
Several former NKU players and coaches are already members of the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame. One of them is Nancy Winstel, who played on the first women’s basketball team and later became head coach of the program. She led two of her teams to NCAA Division II national championships in 2000 and 2008.
Ken Shields, the winningest coach in the history of the NKU men’s basketball program, is also a Hall of Fame member. During his 16 years as head coach, the Norse compiled a 306-170 record and made it to NCAA Division II championship games in 1996 and 1997.
The Hall of Fame will also recognize Jason French, curator for the Behringer Crawford Museum, for the museum’s long-standing partnership with the organization.
