[Southsider2k12]

http://www.post-trib.com/sports/942372,Legends.article

South Shore Legends tap five for membership, including Bradley

May 10, 2008
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By Tommy Williams Post-Tribune correspondent

HAMMOND--- It still happens to John Friend almost everywhere he goes.

The second guessing. The complaints. The "with all due respect, how could you pick (fill in the blank) over (fill in the blank)?"

Such is life as a member of the South Shore Sports Legends Committee.

"Absolutely," Friend said. "I'm not exaggerating, it has happened at least 15 times since we last voted in the last legends class. Most of the time they are chance meetings and sometimes you know them and sometimes you don't."

Friend and company added five more members of the Region Legends honor roll Friday with a sixth one yet to be determined. Guess who has the potential to receive the second-guessing treatment on that one? You.

Former East Chicago Roosevelt basketball star Jim Bradley, looked upon by some as the greatest hoops star in region history was one of five new inductees into the Legends hall of fame with a sixth one being determined by a fan vote on the Lake County Convention and Visitors Bureau Web site.

"We'll put five legends on our Web site and will also do some print advertising so the public can come and vote," Lake County Convention and Visitors Bureau executive vice president Katie R. Holderby said. "The top vote getter will be our sixth sports legend."

Whoever you vote in will join Bradley, Horace Mann track, basketball, and football star Donald Elser, Wallace basketball great Milo (Milan) Komenich, former Valparaiso football coach Tom Stokes, auto racing's Ray Nichels, and the Hammond High football team which went a perfect 10-0 in 1937 as the new inductees.

By the way, that sigh of relief you just heard was from Friend who says a majority of those who complained about their favorite athlete being left out were those from the Bradley precinct.

"Jim was a guy who got involved with some bad companionship at the end of his career, but what a great player he was," Friend said. "He could play any one of the five positions. I know it's hard to imagine a 6-9 guard but he could have been one. "

Here are the five finalists to be inducted into the Legends 2008 class: Michigan City Elston basketball coach Doug Adams, Former Hobart athletic director Frank Kurth, former tennis star (and Whiting grad) Mary Lou Piatek Daniels, Morton grad Darrell Chaney and Whiting's Al Pilarcik in baseball.

[Dave]

Ok, I'm a scifi geek much more than a sports fan. I saw the thread title and wondered what connection the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had to Michigan City.

[Roger Kaputnik]

I always thought that the Coach started writing during his retirement! I figured he got the idea of the opening of the book when I-94 came through La Porte County.