Worthy of OCC’s Hall of Fame

Former football standout Billy White, track and field star Sheldon Blockberger, and women’s volleyball ace Kiwi Winkler were among the 2014 class inducted into the Orange Coast College Athletic Hall of Fame recently.

Fred Hokanson, a former athletic director and track and field coach, former women’s tennis coach Dottie Duddridge, and former women’s tennis champion Becky Barmore were additional honorees, as was the 1963 national championship football squad.

White was the Pirates 5-foot-4, 135-pound quarterback in 1962 and 1963, when he guided OCC to a 19-1 record, capped by winning the Junior Rose Bowl in front of 44,000 spectators in Pasadena.

White’s tenacity, speed and leadership ability helped OCC outscore opponents, 330-43 in 1963, when it finished 10-0. White spearheaded a 9-1 campaign as a freshman.

He completed eight of 14 passes for 115 yards in a 21-0 Junior Rose Bowl win over Northeastern Oklahoma, for which he was named the game’s MVP.

He earned All-American and all-conference honors as a sophomore and was all-conference as a freshman as well, when he guided the team to a victory over Glendale in the Orange Show Bowl in San Bernardino.

Also a two-year starter on the baseball team, White was named OCC’s Athlete of the Year for the 1963-64 academic year.

Blockberger, who won two CIF Southern Section championships in the long jump and triple jump at Newport Harbor High, added champion decathlete and record-setting jumper to his resume at OCC in 1984 and 1985.

As a freshman, he won the Southern California long jump crown with a mark of 25 feet, two inches, which remains the school record. His triple-jump best of 49-7 1/2 also stood as a school record until 2003.

As a sophomore, Blockberger repeated as SoCal champion in the long jump and was second in the triple jump and high jump. He was third in the javelin.

He was third in the state in the decathlon as a freshman and dominated the state decathlon as a sophomore, scoring 7,361 points, which remains second-best in the 44-year history of the event.

He went on to LSU, where he was Southeastern Conference decathlon champion in 1986 and 1987, scoring a then-conference-record 7,737 points as a senior. He also won the SEC pentathlon title in 1987 with a world-record 4,453 points.

He finished second in the decathlon at the U.S. national championships in 1989 and was third at the same meet in 1990.

He coached track and field at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for nine years and is now an assistant coach at the University of Arizona.

Winkler was a two-time All-American in the 2005 and 2006 volleyball seasons, despite having no experience in the sport before arriving at OCC from Germany, where she had excelled in handball and gymnastics.

As a freshman, Winkler led OCC to a 26-0 record and a state title run that included winning all but three of their 81 sets. Winkler was named Orange Empire Conference MVP and finished that season with 408 kills, 337 digs and 36 aces.

She had 487 kills, a school single-season record, 446 digs and 42 aces as a sophomore, repeating as conference MVP and All-American and helping the Pirates repeat as state champions with a 25-2 record.

She was twice named MVP of the state tournament and is OCC’s career leader in kills and ranks second in career digs.

She was OCC’s Female athlete of the Year as a sophomore.

Barmore led OCC to state championships in 1984 and 1985. She was 28-0 in singles and doubles as a freshman, when she was named Orange Empire Conference MVP.

She was the state champion in singles and doubles (with partner Noel Gayton) and also won singles and doubles titles at the prestigious Ojai tournament in 1984, when she shared OCC’s Female Athlete of the Year laurel.

As a sophomore, she and Cindy Lancaster were state doubles champions, and Barmore was state runner-up in singles. She also reached the singles and doubles finals at Ojai.

She completed her college tennis career at UC Santa Barbara.

Hokanson played football and competed in track and field as a student-athlete at OCC. He began an eight-year term as a track and field assistant coach in 1969, before serving as men’s and women’s head coach from 1978 through 2000.

He became the school’s dean of physical education and athletics in 2000, the job from which he retired in 2004.

Duddridge spent 24 years at OCC, where she coached the women’s tennis team from 1960 to 1975 and founded the school’s dance program in 1962.

Her tenure included a transition from the Women’s Athletic Assn. to official sanctioning by the administrative bodies for community college athletics.

She was a catalyst to reform as a result in Title IX legislation that brought about equality for women in school athletics.

When she retired in 1984, the Dottie Duddridge Scholarship was created in her honor at OCC.

The 1963 football team becomes the first team inducted in the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

Head Coach Dick Tucker’s staff included Dale Wanacott, Fred Owens and George Mattias.

The induction banquet was held Nov. 1 at OCC.

— From staff reports