‘They’re part of something bigger’: Greeley Central inducts third Athletic Hall of Fame class ...Saudi Arabia

With pom-poms in hand and an 80-year-old grin, Janet Vanderhoof stepped onto the court Tuesday night to relive her days as a Greeley High School cheerleader — this time, alongside the current Wildcats squad.

Her performance marked one of the many touching moments during the Greeley High School-Greeley Central High School Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony where generations of Wildcats shared stories, applause and a sense of place in Greeley Central’s legacy. Greeley Central was previously known as a Greeley High School before the name was changed in the 1960s.

Current Central students staffed the entrance and guided guests through the school before the ceremony at the school’s Baggot Gymnasium.

Displays with memorabilia and newspaper clippings were set up in the adjacent cafeteria in tribute to this year’s inductees. Digital versions of old black-and-white films played on large monitors showing video of basketball inductees Larry Anderson and Patty Slighter.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Greeley Central graduate Rick Wallace, inducted as a member of the 1966 state championship tennis team. “It was an honor to be selected, and it’s more grandiose than I was prepared for.”

At Greeley Central, the oldest high school in the city and previously known as Greeley High School, the hall of fame means more than statistics, awards and championships. There are people behind the plaques, and in the faded photos wearing antiquated uniforms from decades ago.

The honored students from the past, in many ways, are not drastically different from the students who claim Greeley Central as theirs today. All have a story, and parts of themselves beyond the field of play, beyond the theater, the music rooms, their clubs and their classes.

The school set out to show the stories of the five individuals and three teams who were being inducted: Greeley Timothy, the Greeley High 1953 state championship cross country team, Anderson, Vanderhoof, the Greeley Central 1966 state championship tennis team, Slighter, Shannon Mihaltan and the 2005 state championship golf team.

Timothy, a 1921 Greeley High graduate named for the city, led Greeley High to state championships in football and basketball during the 1920-21 school year.

The 1953 state championship cross country team earned the only boys cross country championship in school history, featuring coach Joe Springston and runners Manual Alcaraz, Dallas Oesterle, Keith Boehm, Frank Gonzales, Glenn Ruth and Jim Gonzales.

Anderson was a 1956 Greeley High graduate and stand out basketball and baseball player known as “The Little General” for his smarts rather than his height.

Anderson, 87, came from Birmingham, Alabama with his daughters, Kelly and Tracey, to attend the ceremony. About 25 Anderson family and friends were expected to gather with him to celebrate. Anderson’s son, Joel, and sister, Donna Upton, live in Greeley. Anderson went to the University of Colorado on a basketball scholarship, and he also played baseball. He dropped both sports after his sophomore year because of a shoulder injury. He joined the Buffs’ golf team and competed in the 1960 NCAA Tournament.

Anderson said he thinks of his days at Greeley High School “all the time.”

“I remember them well,” he added. “Someone asked me, ‘Are you excited by the hall of fame induction?’ ” Anderson said. “I said, ‘No, I’m pleased and blessed.’ ”

There might not have been a better visual on the history and tradition than Vanderhoof, who performed a routine with the current Wildcats squad. She was a member of Greeley High’s class of 1962 before she finished school in Texas. Vanderhoof was the first cheerleader to be inducted into the hall of fame.

After she was presented for induction, with her credentials read by Greeley Central teacher and Hall of Fame committee member Kevin Rohnke, Vanderhoof stepped back in time.

Vanderhoof performed from her days as a Wildcats cheerleader surrounded by the current cheerleaders practicing their own routine.

“It’s one of the highlights of the three years (of Hall of Fame classes),” said Rohnke, a 1989 Central graduate and new Hall of Famer as an assistant coach with the 2005 golf team. “She jumped in.”

If reared in a different era, Vanderhoof said she would’ve competed in sports rather than cheered for athletes.

She grew up in a family of athletes, and later raised one of her own. In the early 1960s, the opportunities for girls to participate in sports were far fewer than today — if girls sports existed at all. Vanderhoof said soccer and a newer sport for girls, flag football, would have appealed to her.

“I love to compete,” said Vanderhoof, now living in Lakewood. “I would’ve been involved as an athlete over cheerleader if sports were offered then.”

Vanderhoff started cheering as an elementary school-aged girl, rooting for her older brother’s Greeley High basketball teams in the late 1940s and early 50s, according to biographical information from the hall of fame committee. She started a cheer team with four other girls at Cameron Elementary, and she continued the activity at Heath Junior High School.

She participated in a roller skating speed club at the old Warnoco Roller Skating Rink on 2nd Street,  and she swam and was a diver with the Warnoco swim club in the late 50s.

Vanderhoof in 1967 graduated from Colorado State College, now the University of Northern Colorado. She was a cheerleader for the Bears and continued diving in college.

“I have fond memories of going to school in Greeley and participating in all the school activities,” she said.

The 1966 state championship tennis team consisted of Wallace, Rick Moore, doubles players Randy Elgin, Mark Stewart and Wally Clayton and Tom Sanchez. Coach Earl Wells had a heart attack in the summer 1966 and couldn’t coach. Assistant coach Don Gorman, also a wrestling coach filled in, and former Central state champion and University of Colorado graduate student and Big 8 Conference champion Rich Hillway regularly drove up from Boulder to help.

Slighter was a 1981 Greeley Central graduate who had not played basketball before her sophomore year and went on to be a four-year letterwinner and team captain at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Mihaltan was a track and field athlete in the Greeley Central class of 1998, a state champion the same year in the triple jump and a state runner up in the 300-meter hurdles and long jump. She went to Hastings College on a volleyball and track scholarship

“They’re from Greeley and they’re Wildcats, and they’re part of something bigger,” said Bret Shaw, a member of the seven-person Hall of Fame committee and retired Greeley Central American History teacher and coach. “What we’re trying to do is to preserve the heritage, history and traditions of the school.”

Shaw was largely responsible for researching information on the inductees, and the stories were written up in a comprehensive 40+-page booklet.

The ceremony was held in between the girls and boys varsity basketball games Tuesday night against Thompson Valley. The hall of fame class was the third honored by the school in a little less than two years. Central’s first hall of fame class was inducted in January 2023 and a second class followed in December 2023.

Shaw and Rohnke were members of the hall of fame committee with athletic director Sean Scribbick, retired physical education teacher and coach Barb Johnson, physical education teacher Troy Graefe, retired physics teacher Patty Martinez, physical education teacher and volleyball coach Marissa Glen and physical education teacher and baseball coach Zach Brockman.

Graefe said the ceremony was held days before the start of winter break because it was the only date on the calendar for a boys and girls basketball game before the holidays and the end of 2024. They wanted to host the 2024 class in 2024, and the committee wanted the event at Greeley Central rather than during a football game at District 6 Stadium.

“People came to this school,” Graefe said. “We like to do it here in The Castle.”

Greeley Central students and staff have called the building The Castle dating to the 1980s. Central’s Castle specifically refers to the vine-covered section facing 14th Avenue that was built in the late 1920s.

“We try to bridge the old and the new together so students see this is where they come from,” Scribbick said.

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