UCI Hall of Fame has four new members

Four new members will be inducted into UC Irvine’s Athletic Hall

of Fame Saturday during the Homecoming Alumni brunch at the

Irvine/Hilton Orange County Airport. The quartet will be introduced

during the UCI-Cal State Fullerton men’s basketball game Saturday

night at the Bren Events Center.

The 2003 inductees are Allah-mi Basheer (women’s basketball),

Rocky Craig (baseball), Chris Duplanty (men’s water polo/swimming)

and Mark Kaplan (men’s tennis).

Basheer was a member of the Anteater program from 1992-96 and she

is one of only three players in UCI women’s basketball history to

score over 1,300 points and grab 700 rebounds in her career,

finishing with 1,380 points and 713 rebounds. Basheer led the team in

scoring 37 times in her career and had 29 games of 20 or more points.

As a junior in the 1994-95 season, Basheer averaged 15.6 points

and 7.9 rebounds per game in leading UCI to the Big West Conference

Tournament championship and the school’s first NCAA Tournament

appearance. She was named the Most Valuable Player of the 1995 Big

West Tournament.

She ranks in the Top 10 in nine categories of UCI career

statistics. In 1996, she was a Kodak All-American honorable mention

selection and also was UCI’s Lauds & Laurels Athlete of the Year.

Craig became UCI’s first baseball All-American in the inaugural

year of the sport in 1970. He played two seasons for the Anteaters

and was a model of consistency, playing every inning of each game in

center field and hitting third in the UCI lineup.

Craig ranks second in UCI’s record book for stolen bases in a

single season with 26 in 1970 and he batted .369 as a senior in 1971.

In the career records at UCI, he is third in career batting average

with a .363 mark, and he is fourth in stolen bases with 39 and in

triples with 11.

Craig played for Coach Gary Adams during the seasons of 1970 and

1971, when the Anteaters won a combined 60 games and advanced to an

NCAA regional both years. Following his senior season, he signed a

professional contract with the Kansas City Royals and played for

seven seasons in that organization.

During his off-seasons, Craig volunteered his time coaching at UCI

with Gary Adams and Tom Spence, and helped the Anteaters to NCAA

titles in 1973 and 1974.

Duplanty was the starting goalie on the Anteater men’s water polo

team that won the NCAA championship in 1989. That season, he was

named first-team All-American, first-team All-Big West Conference and

was selected a member of the All-NCAA Tournament team. He also

received All-American distinction in the 1986 and 1987 seasons. He also was a four-year letter winner with the UCI swimming program,

earning All-Big West Conference honors in 1987 and 1988.

In 1989, Duplanty was a NCAA Fall “Top Six” award winner, plus was

UCI’s Big West Scholar-Athlete of the Year, UCI’s Lauds & Laurels

Athlete of the Year, and an Exchange Club of Irvine Athlete of the

Year.

Duplanty was a three-time member of the U.S. Olympic Water Polo

Team, earning a silver medal in 1988 and serving as team captain in

1996, when he received the distinction of, “Most Dominant Goalie” by

leading all Olympic goalies in saves and save percentage.

He was named the U.S. Water Polo Athlete of the Year in 1993 and

1996 and in 2000, he served as an assistant coach for the U.S.

Women’s Olympic Water Polo Team that captured the silver medal in

Sydney. In 2001, Duplanty was elected by the USOC’s Athlete Advisory

Council to serve as a member of the USOC’s Executive Committee.

Kaplan was one of the leaders of the Anteater men’s tennis program

in the late 1980s when UCI was a perennial national power. Kaplan,

who was an NCAA All-American in 1987, 1988 and 1989, had career records of 107-51 in singles and 98-28 in doubles. He helped lead UCI

to a No. 4 national ranking in 1989, when he compiled a singles

record of 35-8. Kaplan was ranked fifth in the final national singles

rankings that season and was named the Region 8 Player of the Year.

He also was the 1989 Big West Conference Player of the Year and

was UCI’s Lauds & Laurels Athlete of the Year. Kaplan, who won the

1989 Big West Conference singles title, also played on four

conference doubles’ championship teams.

Kaplan moved onto a professional career and played in all of the

major Grand Slam events: Wimbledon, and the U.S., French and

Australian Opens. He was a finalist in the 1990 U.S. Clay Court

Championships and was ranked as high as 113th in World ATP Rankings.

The 2003 UC Irvine Athletic Hall of Fame class joins 49 previous

inductees.