Emily Dickinson had a poetic perspective on fame, describing it as a “fickle food upon a shifting plate.”
But the Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table refuses to lose the memory of our sports legends to the spillage of time, keeping the banquets formal for its annual Hall of Fame induction.
Eight new members will be inducted Monday when the Athletic Round Table holds its 53rd annual Hall of Fame Banquet at The Cabrillo Pavilion, at 1118 E. Cabrillo Blvd.
The reception begins at 5:30 p.m. with the induction ceremony to follow at 6 p.m. Click here to purchase tickets online.
Ken Preston, whose 1988 NCAA finalist men’s volleyball team was inducted into UC Santa Barbara’s Athletics Hall of Fame on Saturday, referred to our great sense of community during his own Round Table Hall of Fame induction in 2011. During the week God created earth, Preston affirmed, “He had a great day when he passed through Santa Barbara.”
The idea for a Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table Hall of Fame was cooked up in 1967 at Caesar Uyesaka’s old Crescent Coffee Shop on State Street. Uyesaka, president of the Santa Barbara Dodgers minor league baseball team, had just lost the Class A club to Bakersfield and was looking for something new to support.
He sat down to brainstorm some ideas over coffee with Jerry Harwin, a neighboring business owner and his partner in support of both the Dodgers farm club and UCSB athletics. A few months later, on Jan. 25, 1968, they held their first organizational meeting of the Athletic Round Table.
Within five months, the town was chowing down at Santa Barbara City College to induct the Athletic Round Table’s first Hall of Fame class of coach Clarence Schutte, community leader Max Fleischman, and athletes Keith Gledhill (tennis), Gene Lillard (baseball) and Lou Tsoutsouvas (football).
It took a pandemic to force a two-year pause in Santa Barbara’s annual salute to athletics. Those to be honored on Monday actually comprise the Class of 2020: community leader Mary Jo Swalley (swimming), Mike Berg (San Marcos High School golf), Cyrus Brunner (Dos Pueblos High baseball, football and wrestling), Kami Craig (Santa Barbara High water polo), Alfonso Guzman (Santa Barbara soccer), David Medina (Carpinteria High football), Heather Olmstead (Carpinteria volleyball) and Carly Wopat (Dos Pueblos volleyball, track and basketball).
Here’s a brief breakdown of the Athletic Round Table’s incoming Hall of Famers, listed alphabetically:
Mike Berg
The late, great coach Cliff Purcell knew “things were about to change for the better” for his San Marcos High golf team when a young Mike Berg shot an eagle at Sandpiper Golf Club’s par-5 13th hole to start his prep career. It sparked the first of 70 consecutive Channel League wins for the Royals.
Berg won the league’s individual championship in 1995 while also finishing second at the CIF-Southern Section meet. He also eventually won a full golf scholarship to USC, as well as the 1998 City Championship and a pair of Santa Barbara Classic titles.
Cyrus Brunner
When asked which of his four varsity sports he liked best, Brunner shrugged and said, “the one I’m playing.” He was voted All-Channel League multiple times in three of them (football, baseball and wrestling, taking fifth at the CIF meet). He also played a season of soccer for the Chargers.
Brunner set DP’s single-season rushing record in football by gaining 1,310 yards during the fall of 1990 and was selected to play in the County High School All-Star Game. He was twice chosen by the Athletic Round Table as the area’s top baseball player. He earned All-CIF honors in 1991 as a centerfielder and also pitched for the Chargers.
He played football at SBCC and, after working for several years in the family’s painting business, returned to the baseball diamond at age 28 to play for Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippo. He was known affectionately by his teammates as “The Old Man” while earning a business degree with honors in 2004.
He died tragically just two years later as one of the victims of a double-homicide.
Kami Craig
She was hailed by Team USA coach Adam Krikorian as one of the greatest female water polo players of all time when she retired in 2017 at age 30 with three Olympic medals. Her 13-year tenure in the National Team Program was the longest in its history.
When she played at Santa Barbara High, Dons’ coach Mark Walsh was told by a colleague from another sport that, “I never pay money to watch water polo, but I would pay to watch her.”
Craig led Santa Barbara to CIF Division IV championships in both 2004 and 2005 and was named as the CIF Player of the Year after scoring a school-record 123 goals during her senior year.
She was also the first woman ever voted NCAA Water Polo Player of the Year in consecutive seasons (2009 and 2010) and led USC to the NCAA title in 2010. She won the silver medal with Team USA at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing before capturing gold in both 2012 and 2016.
Alfonso Guzman
He is called “The Founding Father” of Santa Barbara High’s “Nosotros” boys soccer program by former coach Rudy Ybarra, having talked the school into starting a team during his senior year of 1972.
He led the Dons to the CIF playoffs that season and continued on to become a three-time NAIA All-American at Westmont College. He also received honorable mention on the National Soccer Coaches’ All-America Team, which included players from all NCAA divisions.
Guzman also played professional soccer for the Santa Barbara Condors and the Sacramento Spirits.
David Medina
Coach Lou Panizzon considered his two-way lineman to be “driving force” behind his undefeated CIF championship football team of 1987.
The Warrior captain earned a rare distinction for a lineman by winning that year’s CIF-Southern Section Player of the Year Award (Inland Conference) as well as Offensive Player of the Year honors for the Tri-Valley League. He was also picked as an alternate to the prestigious 37th annual Shrine All-Star Football Game for California’s top players.
He continued on to become an All-Western State Conference defensive lineman for SBCC in 1988.
Heather Olmstead
Carpinteria High’s All-CIF and Tri-Valley League girls volleyball star of 1998 continued on to become a four-year starter at Utah State, leading the Aggies to a No. 21 ranking in 2001. Her 340 digs set a single-season record at the school and her 981 career digs rank second all-time.
Olmstead played professionally in both the United States and Europe before beginning her coaching career in 2003. She has served as the head coach at BYU since 2015, winning NCAA Coach of the Year honors in 2018 while leading the Cougars to the Final Four.
Her career winning percentage of .889 as a head coach is the highest in NCAA Division I history.
Mary Jo Swalley
For 46 years, she has been both the matriarch of Santa Barbara swimming, having directed YMCA and Semana Nautica Sports Festival meets, and an internationally renowned official.
Swalley has served such organizations as FINA, USA Swimming and the NCAA. Former UCSB swimming coach Gregg Wilson noted that, “Even after reaching the highest levels of officiating, coaching and leadership, Mary Jo has remained committed to local swimming events.”
Carly Wopat
Wopat was part of the Twin-Tower Sisters that led Dos Pueblos High to the CIF-Southern Section Division 1A Girls Volleyball Championship in 2009. She said she will “forever play for two” after her twin sister, Samantha, died at age 19 in 2012: “I carry her spirit with me all the time.”
Wopat, a 6-foot-2 middle attacker in volleyball, also starred in basketball and track and field at Dos Pueblos. She set the school record in the discus as a senior in 2010. She received All-America honors from both Prep Volleyball and Volleyball Magazine and was a finalist for the Gatorade State Player of the Year Award.
She continued on to win First-Team All-America honors for three straight years at Stanford. She ranks second in career hitting percentage (.391) and third in both career blocks (614) and block average (1.38 per set) for the Cardinal. Wopat was also a Honda Award Finalist during the two seasons she played beach volleyball for Stanford.
Wopat played for the U.S. Women’s National Team from 2014 to 2019 while also competing professionally in four foreign countries. She was an alternate on the 2016 Olympic Team.
She switched to beach volleyball in 2018 and is a protected player in the U.S. Women’s Beach Program, with the goal of qualifying for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
— Noozhawk sports columnist Mark Patton is a longtime local sports writer. Contact him at sports@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook. The opinions expressed are his own.
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