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Summit County Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2024 has NFL stars, plus NCAA and world champs

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Summit County Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2024 has NFL stars, plus NCAA and world champs

Even in a Summit County Sports Hall of Fame class with two former NFL defensive players of the year, Shawn Porter packs a powerful punch as an inductee.

A two-time world welterweight boxing champion and Stow High School graduate, Porter is among eight former star athletes who will be enshrined in the Summit County Sports HOF this fall.

The Class of 2024 includes James Harrison, Jason Taylor and Antoine Winfield Sr., perennial Pro Bowl defenders who terrorized NFL quarterbacks and caught the attention of Porter when he was a young football player. This year’s group of inductees also features NCAA champions in track and field and wrestling.

“To see the company that I’m going in with, that to me is what really makes it special,” Porter recently told the Beacon Journal by phone.

Porter, 36, stands out for a specific reason. He will become the first boxer to enter the Summit County Sports HOF since 1982, when George Kochan was enshrined. Porter also will be inducted into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame in August.

“It’s still a little surreal,” Porter said. “I understand how big of an occasion it is, how big of an accomplishment it is to go into a Hall of Fame, and I think maybe that’s probably why I’m a little numb to it. Being a Hall of Famer was never a goal of mine. So, I guess, in some ways, I’ve overachieved, but I’ve always been a high overachiever.

“I was always doing things that I hoped would leave an everlasting impression on people. And it’s like now being a Hall of Famer, that really solidifies who I am as an individual and what I was really setting out to do.”

Here is a complete list of the Hall of Famers who will be honored Oct. 1 during the Summit County Sports HOF’s induction ceremony and banquet in Akron:

  • Shawn Barber, the late University of Akron pole vaulter who won a world championship, a gold medal in the Pan American Games, three NCAA titles and represented Canada in the 2016 Rio Olympics
  • James Harrison, an Akron native who played football at Coventry High School and Kent State before becoming a five-time Pro Bowl and two-time first-team All-Pro linebacker, NFL Defensive Player of the Year and two-time Super Bowl champ with the Pittsburgh Steelers

  • Joe Heskett, a Walsh Jesuit High School graduate who won an NCAA wrestling title and was a four-time All-American at Iowa State before becoming a five-time U.S. National Team member and a Pan American Games silver medalist
  • Stevi Large Gruber, a four-time All-America thrower with Akron Zips track and field who won nine Mid-American Conference championships and captured an NCAA title in the hammer throw

  • LaShauntea Moore, a Firestone High School graduate who also attended Archbishop Hoban High School prior to winning an NCAA title in the 200 meters for University of Arkansas track and competing for the U.S. in the 2004 Athens Olympics
  • Shawn Porter, a Cleveland native who attended Cuyahoga Falls High School before Stow and went 31-4-1 with 17 knockouts as a professional boxer, winning two world welterweight titles (IBF in 2013 and WBC in 2018)

  • Jason Taylor, a former Akron Zips football star who earned six Pro Bowl nods, three first-team All-Pro selections and NFL Defensive Player of the Year as a Miami Dolphins defensive end, leading to enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017, his first year of eligibility
  • Antoine Winfield Sr., an Akron native who starred at Garfield High School and Ohio State, where he won the Jim Thorpe Award as the top defensive back in college football, and later made three Pro Bowls as a Minnesota Vikings cornerback

“We are proud and excited to welcome another outstanding group of athletes for induction into the SCSHOF,” Jeff Kurtz, the Summit County Sports HOF’s president, said in a news release. “The Class of 2024 represents the best of the best from the Summit County area and features Olympians, multiple-time All-Americans, NCAA champions, Pan Am Games medalists, a Super Bowl champion and an NFL Hall of Famer.”

In addition to the inductees, three service award winners will be honored.

  • Rob Culbertson will receive the Ed Kalail Volunteer Award. A member of the Summit County Sports HOF’s board of directors who recently retired from Barberton High School with more than 40 years of service as an educator, athletic trainer, athletic director and faculty manager, Culbertson has been president of the Barberton Sports HOF since 2016 and held the same position with the Akron Touchdown Club Foundation of Summit County.
  • Gene Kelly will receive the Phil Dietrich Senior Athlete Award. Kelly has been involved with track and field for 70 years as a competitor, coach and official. A Cuyahoga Falls resident, Kelly achieved All-America status last summer in the hammer throw and weight throw with national rankings of 30th and 22nd, respectively. He also ranked 13th in the nation in the weight pentathlon.
  • Marla Ridenour will receive the Andy Palich Memorial Service Award. She is a former longtime Beacon Journal sports columnist who remains a freelance writer for the newspaper. The winner of the 2023 Pro Football Writers of America Dave Anderson Column Writing Award, Ridenour is in journalism halls of fame in Ohio and Kentucky. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Ridenour became the first woman to cover the Browns in 1981.

Summit County Sports Hall of Fame awards Bruce Buchholzer scholarships to four local student-athletes

This summer, the Summit County Sports HOF awarded a $1,000 Bruce Buchholzer scholarship to each of the following local student-athletes who graduated from high school in 2024:

  • Kennedy Boal (Manchester)
  • Demetrion Duvall (Buchtel)
  • Samuel Su (Woodridge)
  • Isabelle Ubelhart (St. Vincent-St. Mary)

When is the 2024 Summit County Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony and banquet in Akron? How to buy tickets

Along with the new Hall of Famers and service award winners, the scholarship recipients will be recognized during the Summit County Sports HOF’s 66th induction ceremony and banquet. The event will be held Oct. 1 at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, 129 S. Union St., Akron. A social/cocktail hour is scheduled to run from 5:30-6:30 p.m. The program and dinner is set to start at 6:30 p.m.

Tickets for the induction ceremony and banquet may be purchased online at akronroundtable.org beginning Aug. 1.

Donations to the Bruce Buchholzer scholarship fund can be made by visiting www.summitcountyshof.org/donations and clicking the link at the bottom of the page to the Akron Community Foundation’s website.

Nate Ulrich is on the Summit County Sports Hall of Fame’s board of directors. He can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich.

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