Three basketball players, one swimmer and one athlete-coach-administrator will be inducted into the UW-Eau Claire Blugold Hall of Fame November 2.
The 13th class of women inductees into the Hall of Fame includes basketball player Diane Ring and swimmer Sara Laun-Cannon.
The men's inductees are basketball teammates Joe Merten and Mike Morgan.
The athlete-coach-administrator is Steve Kurth.
The Blugold Hall of Fame was established in 1973 to pay tribute, to give deserved recognition and to enhance school tradition by honoring former athletic letterwinners or coaches who showed distinctive, unique or exceptional ability while on the campus at Eau Claire and have distinguished themselves in their profession or personally since leaving the institution.
For women athletes, there must be a lapse of 10 years before they can be considered and for the men 15 years. Since 1973, a total of 79 men and 41 women have been honored prior to this year's class which brings the current number of inductees to 125.
STEVE KURTH
Steve Kurth's association with Blugold athletics totals 36 years. It began for the Eau Claire native when he transferred back from St. John's University to play football and basketball for the Blugolds. He was an All-Conference center and linebacker in football and earned the team co-MVP award for the 1960 season.
After teaching and coaching two years at Cadott High School and spending two years in in Morocco with the Peace Corps, Kurth obtained his master's degree from Washington State and his doctorate from the University of Oregon. He returned to his alma mater in 1968 as a teaching member of the physical education department. He was Link Walker's football assistant for 15 years and Ken Anderson's basketball assistant for seven years. He served 17 years (1975 through 1992) as the men's athletics director including nine as chair of the combined department of physical education and athletics. During his term as AD, the Blugolds won five Wisconsin State University Conference (WSUC) All Sports championships.
A widely respected administrator, Kurth spent 10 years on the NAIA District 14 executive committee with eight years as chair. Nationally, he chaired the NAIA District Chairs and the NAIA Divisions of Competition committees. He served as President of the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) and, for six years, was on the NCAA Division III Ice Hockey Committee. After serving several terms as chair of the WSUC Faculty Reps, he was appointed to chair the transition team responsible for the merger of the WSUC (men's conference) and the Wisconsin Women's Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WWIAC) into the current Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletics Conference.
After being named Associate Dean in the School of Education in 1992, Kurth continued his association with athletics as the men's Faculty Athletics Representative to both the WIAC and the NCHA.
A career of service also included assisting community members and professionals with the development of a successful cardiac rehabilitation program in the city of Eau Claire and serving terms on the University Faculty Senate, the university's Foundation Board of Directors and the Chippewa Valley United Way. During the summer of 1974, he was a U.S. State Department Grantee to provide workshops in physical education and athletics in Madagascar, Chad, the Ivory Coast and Senegal. During his nine years in the School of Education, he also chaired the UW System Deans and Directors of Education Committee for two years.
When Kurth retired from the university a year ago, he was cited as a leader in education and athletics as well as an outstanding teacher and coach. He has previously been inducted into the NAIA District 14 Hall of Fame and the Regis High School Hall of Fame and was a 2001 recipient of the UW-Eau Claire Alumni Association's Distinguished Alumnus award.
Kurth and his wife Judy are the parents of four boys: Nicholas, 23, and Nathaniel, 21, and Christopher and Benjamin who are deceased.
MIKE MORGAN & JOE MERTEN
Mike Morgan, a 6-8 power forward from Ladysmith, and Joe Merten, a 6-7 small forward from Kenosha Tremper, were teammates on Ken Anderson's powerful Blugold squads from 1977 through 1981. Those four teams compiled a 103-23 overall record and a 52-12 conference mark. They won three conference championships and participated in three NAIA National Tournaments in Kansas City, Missouri, twice reaching the semifinals of the 32-team field.
Morgan started 94 games during his career and still ranks as one of the top rebounders and field goal percentage players in school history. He grabbed 1,087 rebounds for his career while scoring 956 points in 125 games and finished with a .571 field goal percentage. On January 3, 1981, Morgan pulled down 17 rebounds against a nationally-ranked University of Iowa team. Although the Blugolds dropped an 86-62 decision to Lute Olson's Hawkeyes, they ripped off a school-record 20 straight victories after that game before suffering a loss in the semifinals of the NAIA tournament. Morgan was named an NAIA Third Team All-American that season and also won the conference rebound title.
Morgan's hard-nosed play earned him three team Big D Awards. He also was the Frosh MVP winner his first season and the Hustler Award winner as a junior. He was the Holiday Classic MVP his senior year.
Following his Blugold career, Morgan played some semi-pro basketball in Australia. He was the Sydney Basketball Conference MVP and top rebounder in 1983.
Morgan has been a physical education instructor and junior high football coach at Auburndale since 1989. Among his protégés is Green Bay Packers' lineman Mark Tauscher. He also serves as the Athletic Club Advisor and spent four seasons coaching the freshmen basketball team. He and his wife Maxine have one son, Max, 14.
Merten started 98 of the 113 games he played for Anderson, scoring 1,193 points with 598 rebounds and 439 assists. He still ranks among the top 20 in career scoring and among the top five in career assists.
Three times, Merten was selected to the All-Conference team and twice to the NAIA All-District team. He was the MVP of the 1981 NAIA District 14 Senior All-Star Game.
Merten played with Kevin McHale, Andrew Toney, Larry Smith and Jeff Ruland among others on the 1979 United States team that won the gold medal at the World University Games in Mexico City. He was drafted in the 10th round by the Utah Jazz in 1981 and played with Utah's California Summer League team before being released. He was invited to the Milwaukee Bucks camp in 1981 and played in all eight exhibition games before being the last player cut. He tried out with the Indiana Pacers and the Bucks during the summer of 1982 but was again released. He played for the Continental Basketball Associations's Alberta Dusters in 1981-82 and earned a spot in the CBA's All-Star game. He began the 1982 season with the Las Vegas Silvers but was traded to the Oshkosh Flyers. The Flyers won a Western Division championship while Merten was playing and he also became the youngest head coach in the CBA when he took over for the 1985-86 season.
Merten was offered the head coaching position again for the 1986-87 season but turned it down and returned to Eau Claire where he joined Menards as a Building Materials Manager. Since 1997, he has been a Commercial Contractor Sales Rep with Menards.
He and his wife Becky had one son Nathan who is deceased.
DIANE RING
Diane Ring capped an outstanding career by becoming UW-Eau Claire's first female basketball Kodak All-American in 1992. A 5-9 guard, Ring scored 1,430 points in 107 games and still ranks fourth on the school's all-time scoring list. She helped lead the Blugolds to conference championships in 1990 and 1992 and their first three appearances in the NCAA Division III tournament. Her 696 career rebounds still rank sixth in school history and her 275 assists still rank ninth. She also claimed 201 steals and still holds the school career free throw percentage record at .806.
During her senior year, Ring earned team MVP honors as the Blugolds posted a 23-5 record. She was a three-time All-Conference pick.
After her senior season, the Cottage Grove, Wisconsin native was selected as the university's NCAA Woman of the Year nominee and also received the Super Six Award.
Following her 1993 graduation with a degree in corporate exercise management and a minor in business administration, Ring headed to Littleton, Colorado where she lived for eight years. She spent five years as a fitness instructor at the Lakewood Athletic Club, serving as a Director for the Wellness Center in charge of the Senior and Handicapped programs. While in Littleton, she coached basketball at Mullen High and basketball and volleyball at St. Therese Middle School. She also got into competitive mountain biking for three years, taking first place in the Pike's Peak Hill Climb and a second at the Air Force Academy Challenge. For the past six years, she has been working for the United States Postal Service. She currently lives in Bakersfield, California.
SARA LAUN-CANNON
Sara Laun-Cannon swam the butterfly, individual medley and distance freestyle for Blugold teams that won four conference championships and one NAIA National Championship. She was a three-year NAIA All-American, a two-time NAIA Scholar-Athlete and a four-year member of the College Swim Coaches Association All-Academic Team. While not the star of the Blugold team that won the NAIA title in 1988, Laun-Cannon twice was named the team's Hardest Worker (1989, 1990) and twice the team's Most Improved (1988, 1989). She captained the team in 1990-91 when she was also named the Wisconsin Women's Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Scholar-Athlete for swimming.
Laun-Cannon was named a Third Team GTE Academic All-American in 1990 and a First Team Academic All-American in 1991, the same year she received the university's Outstanding Senior Award. A two-time Super Six Award winner, Laun-Cannon graduated summa cum laude with a degree in zoology and chemistry. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School with the help of an NCAA post-graduate scholarship.
After receiving her medical degree in 1995, she did her pediatric residency at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon.
She received a number of awards during her residency including a patient award for outstanding service. She is currently a full partner in a private clinic of 20 pediatricians and manages the general health care needs for 2,000 patients from birth to age 21. She is the chair of the Technology committee at the Children's Clinic and a member of the Newborn Nursery Committee.
Since arriving on the west coast, the Kiel, Wisconsin native has climbed the summit of Oregon's 11,237-foot Mt. Hood twice. She has continued to swim, participating in the Masters Nationals in both 1995 and 1999. She has also completed the 200-mile Hood to Coast Relay twice. In April, she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Greta. |
