Seven Selected For Butler Athletics Hall of Fame

INDIANAPOLIS, IND. -- Six former student-athletes and one athletic administrator have been selected for induction into the Butler University Athletic Hall of Fame.  The Hall of Fame Class of 2012 will be formally inducted at a dinner/ceremony on the Butler campus during the weekend of Sept. 28-29.

Chosen for induction this year as Butler’s 22nd Hall of Fame Class are former student-athletes Clyde McEntire (golf, 1946-50), Norm Ellenberger (football, basketball, baseball, 1951-55), Lynn Schreiber Wallace (basketball, tennis 1975-79), Chuck Orban (football, 1987-91), Beth Christiansen Hutson (1987-91) and Fraser Thompson (track, cross country, 2000).  Also selected as a Special Service Award recipient was Butler Associate Athletic Director for Communication Jim McGrath.

McEntire was a dominant performer on the golf team at Butler during his four seasons with the Bulldogs.  He helped lead Butler to a four-year 30-11-2 record, including a pair of Little State titles and four runner-up finishes in the Mid-American Conference.  He captured medalist honors in the MAC three times, the only player in the first 25 years of the league to accomplish that feat.  McEntire shot a Butler record 66 in the second round of the 1950 MAC Championship and finished the tournament with a league- and school-record 133.  Both marks still stand today.

Ellenberger was a three-sport athlete at Butler from 1951 to 1954.  He was a team captain and all-conference player on Butler’s football team, a two-year varsity letterwinner under Hall of Fame coach Paul D. “Tony” Hinkle on the Bulldogs’ basketball squad and a two-time all-conference performer on Butler’s baseball teams.  He pitched one of five no-hitters in Butler baseball history, and he was named the Indiana Collegiate Conference Baseball Most Outstanding Player in 1954.  The multi-sport athlete received Butler’s Andy Williams Award as a senior.  Ellenberger went on to a lengthy basketball coaching career that included positions as head coach at Monmouth and New Mexico and as assistant coach at UTEP and Indiana.  He coached in the NBA with the Chicago Bulls and currently is an assistant coach in the WNBA with the New York Liberty.      

Wallace (Schreiber) ruled the courts at Butler for four seasons.  She played No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles on Butler’s tennis teams for four years, and she helped the Bulldogs to a four-year record of 31-11, including a sixth place finish in the state in 1978.  She also was a four-year starter in basketball, helping Butler to an unbeaten regular season, a state championship and a trip to the AIAW Regionals in 1978-79.  She averaged 15.2 points as a junior and 9.5 points as a senior.  Butler women’s basketball coach Linda Mason said of Wallace after her senior season, “Lynn’s the Johnny Bench of our basketball team.  Everyone expects her to do a good job, so when she does it, no one notices.”

Orban became the most prolific linebacker in Butler football history during his four seasons of stalking opposing ball-carriers.  He was a three-time, first team All-Conference performer, a two-time Butler Defensive Most Valuable Player, the 1989 Heartland Collegiate Conference Defensive Player of the Year and a 1989 third team All-American.  The former Indianapolis Chatard High School All-State player led Butler in tackles in each of his final three seasons, and he finished his career with 11 Butler defensive records.  He still owns most of Butler’s records for tackles, including 181 total tackles in 1990 and 487 career tackles.  

Hutson (Christiansen) helped lead Butler to four consecutive conference volleyball championships and the best single season record (29-7 in 1988) in school history.  The talented middle hitter was a three-time all-conference performer, Butler’s Most Outstanding Offensive Player (1987) and Co-Most Valuable Player (1990), and a Co-Player of the Year in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (1990). She set a host of school and conference records during her four seasons, finishing her final campaign in second place on Butler’s all-time lists for hitting percentage, service aces, block assists and total blocks.  An Academic All-American and a recipient of a 1991 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, Hutson became just the second female athlete from Butler to receive the MCC’s Cecil N. Coleman Medal of Honor for outstanding achievement in athletics, academics and extracurricular activities.    

Thompson, one of the top distance runners ever to compete at Butler, earned All-America recognition in both track and cross country.  He was named a 2000 NCAA Cross Country All-American after placing 14th at the NCAA Men’s Cross Country Championship, and he earned track All-America honors with a seventh place finish in the 5,000 meter run at the 2000 NCAA Track and Field Championship.  His finish at the NCAA Track Championship produced Butler’s first national meet points in more than half a century!   He was a Midwestern Collegiate Conference champion and all-conference performer in both track and cross country, and he received the MCC’s Coleman Medal of Honor in 2001.  The Melbourne, Australia, native capped his Butler career by receiving a Rhodes Scholarship in 2001.    

McGrath has served as Butler’s Sports Information Director for more than three decades.  Since joining the Bulldogs in 1981, he has handled media relations for more than 2,000 Butler athletic events.  He has served as host SID for four men’s and one women’s NCAA Final Four and for regional rounds of nine additional NCAA Tournaments.  The former Augustana (Ill.) College SID was a press officer for the U. S. Olympic Committee at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis and for three national Olympic Festivals, and he’s worked in press operations at amateur national championships in boxing, swimming and track and field.  He currently serves on the NCAA Final Four Media Coordination staff and on the NCAA Championships Advisory Committee.  

The Butler Hall of Fame was created in 1991 to provide a forum in which those who have brought honor and respect to Butler University and its athletic program could be acknowledged and permanently enshrined in Hinkle Fieldhouse.  Inductees have made exceptional contributions to the prestige of the University in the field of athletics, and continued to demonstrate in their lives the values imparted by athletics.  The Hall of Fame enshrinement wall is located at the front entrance to Hinkle Fieldhouse.