A 75-year anniversary celebration dinner and the first class of inductees into the McClatchy High School Athletic Hall of Fame will be held Sept. 20 at the Riverside Elks Lodge in Sacramento.

The first group of inductees – 48 athletes and two coaches – will come from those who competed in the school's first 25 years, from 1937 to 1962.

The coaches are Jack Mauger, track, and George Bican, football.

Among the individual inductees to be honored will be 1964 U.S. Olympic skier Starr Walton-Hurley; former NFL football player Gene Cronin; professional golfer Barbara Romack; Stanford and Sacramento Solons baseball player Roger Osenbaugh; and Cal track and football athlete John Pappa, who won the Sac-Joaquin Section sprint championships in 1948.

Also to be honored will be the undefeated 1944 and 1947 McClatchy football teams; the 1951-1952 baseball teams that won 40 consecutive games; the league champion 1958 baseball team; and the Lions' section championship 1959 and 1960 cross country teams.

About 360 people have made reservations to attend the sold-out event, says co-organizer Jim Coombs, including 92-year-old Morrison Bruner, a member of McClatchy's first graduating class.

"McClatchy once produced some of the greatest athletes in Northern California," said Coombs, who grew up two blocks from the Freeport Boulevard campus where he graduated in 1957. He later taught and coached at the school. "It was the Granite Bay, Rocklin and Del Oro of its day. As a kid, I grew up idolizing many of these athletes."

Coombs, a longtime basketball official, noted that during Bican's 25 years as McClatchy football coach, more than 100 of his players went on to compete in Division I college programs.

Mauger, who started at McClatchy in 1937 and held the world record for left-handed pole vaulters for 26 years, went undefeated in dual track competitions from 1943 to 1949.

Former McClatchy student Bob Sertich (1967), who initiated the Hall of Fame idea and founded the athletic support group Restore the Roar several years ago, is the co-organizer with Coombs.

Joining them as selection committee members are former McClatchy athletic director Mike Nishio ('63), former faculty members Rod Hollander and Jan Olmsted and alumni Mike Ricci ('69) and Rod Kunisaki ('75).

Hall of Fame inductees also will be honored at the Sept. 21 McClatchy football game against Valley at Hughes Stadium. The Lions are back at the renovated complex at Sacramento City College after playing for several years on campus.

For more information, go to www.restoretheroar.org

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