Bloomington added a standout class to its Bloomington Sports Hall of Fame during Thursday’s banquet at the Bloomington Event Center.
The 2024 class included people from various backgrounds, experiences and opportunities who were united by a common bond: youth sports in Bloomington.
Five members, Denny Connolly, Dave Dickson, Kelly McCrary, Diane Moe and Colin Quinn, entered the Bloomington Amateur Sports Association Hall of Fame.
Bloomington Jefferson Activities Director Chad Nyberg introduced the Bloomington Schools recipients, Gina Dillon and Tom Kendall.
American Legion Post 550 helped celebrate the 25th anniversary of Bloomington’s lone Legion World Series representative, Bloomington Blue, from its 1999 season.
Bloomington Blue
Bloomington’s only team to play in the Legion World Series was recognized during the banquet, where many players were gathering to mark the 25th anniversary of a magical summer.
Paul Hohag was part of the team and described the run as remarkable.
“The two things I remember the most were going to St. Cloud without truly high expectations to advance through Minnesota, but because Minnesota has so many Legion baseball teams, we both went to our respective regions and won them,” he said. “The fact that Tri-City and Bloomington Blue ended up in the World Series was pretty cool. Of the eight teams at the World Series, two were from Minnesota. We were rooting for them as much as our competitors; we wanted to see them succeed. Once you leave Minnesota, you want to see them succeed, like the Minnesota pride.”
Hohag was a 17-year-old underclassman at the time, which added another layer of excitement to being on the road with the older guys and led to many fond memories. The group traveled for upward of three weeks from St. Cloud to Michigan and Connecticut. He remembers calling home after winning the regional to let his family know where they were headed next. Many families joined the team on the East Coast.
“We went to the state tournament as young men, didn’t pack enough, so we did laundry, but it was pretty cool,” Hohag said, in an era before cell phones. After the win, he called home from a payphone at a restaurant to share the good news.
“Some of them drove, some flew, but it was awesome,” he said. “Once you get to that level, you get to a level of pomp and circumstance, but you want to represent your state, and the post was neat.”
Bloomington Blue played three games, including a 5-3 loss against Washington and a loss against Maine. A win over Maine would have pinned Bloomington Blue against Tri-City Red, which went on to win the World Series title, a fourth from Minnesota.
The team went 45-13 over the summer, including a perfect 12-0 in South Hennepin League play. Blue went 4-0 to win the District 10 playoff to advance to state, where they ran into Tri-City Red (Arden Hills) in the final, played in St. Cloud. Tri-City Red and Bloomington Blue advanced to a regional tournament thanks to Minnesota’s influx of Legion baseball programs. Blue played in Michigan, while Tri-City Red played in North Dakota. Blue went 4-1 in the Great Lakes Region and played in Michigan to advance to the World Series in Middletown, Connecticut.
J.P. Gagne shares the most hits in one game at the World Series, with four coming against Kennewick, Washington.
Three teammates were named to the All-Tournament list, including Ben Hendrickson, Andy Kranz and Joel Keith.
The team included Jon Brunsvold, Mike Devore, Gagne, Keith, Kranz, Hendrickson, Cory Garven, Allan Hatleberg, Chad Koehnen, Jesse Pugh, Michael Ramthun, Chad Renok, John Wahoske, Jonathan Weber, Eric Winckler and Jack Zipoy.
Ron Mielke, Mark Falconer and John Keohnen were the coaches. Diane Pugh and Elaine Larson were the team managers.
Gina Dillon
Dillon joins her husband, Dave Dillon, a longtime Kennedy hockey coach in the hall of fame, for her dedication to helping keep varsity home games running smoothly, from organizing tickets to be sold, finding ticket takers, managing the cash for all of the events and solving issues on the fly. For 34 falls, Dillon was in charge of ticket sales at Bloomington Stadium. “Always with a smile on her face, she’s a godsend for any A.D.,” Jefferson activities director Chad Nyberg said.
Nyberg added that it was an estimate of how well Dillon did her job that after retiring a few years ago, both schools went exclusively to online ticket sales. Kennedy Activities Director Jon Anderson said, “I would give her the dates for games, and she did the rest.” Dillon also worked soccer and lacrosse at Kennedy and early Jefferson lacrosse matches. She also handled ticket sales when Bloomington hosted section baseball, dance, hockey and wrestling events.
The Dillons are perhaps one of the rare few couples to both be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Tom Kendall
Kendall was born in California but moved with his family to Bloomington before graduating from Jefferson High School in 1985. Over the decades, Kendall has become a civic leader in Bloomington for his various initiatives, like helping start Heritage Days or playing an intricate role in establishing the Jefferson Athletic Foundation, which helps spread proceeds raised to the various Jaguar booster clubs to help defer costs for participating in extracurricular opportunities.
With four children graduating from Jefferson, Kendall and Nyberg worked together to address how alumni could support the current programs.
Diane Moe
During a three-decade career in parks and recreation, Moe coordinated basketball, baseball and soccer in the Minneapolis park system, which included securing fields, gym space, officials and coaches for the various youth programs.
She quickly learned about the passionate group of volunteers who helped do the heavy lifting in youth sports through the Bloomington Athletic Association when she moved on to Bloomington. Moe served as the conduit between the city and BAA, a regular fixture at BAA meetings; former BAA board member Dan Wellerus recalled her ability to embrace the BAA mission of introducing kids to sports through a dedicated group of volunteer adults while always bringing a batch of homemade cookies to the meetings.
“She’s a true champion of service,” Wallerus said of Moe, who chairs the National Girls and Women in Sports Day celebration each February in St. Paul. She was humbled to be recognized and “blessed by the friendship and support from all of you.”
Denny Connelly
Connelly was joined by his grandson, Shea, at the podium as he showed his appreciation for youth sports in Bloomington over the last four decades. Connelly, a Burnsville native began his coaching career through BAA hockey and baseball programs in the early 1990s. His role evolved into the youth hockey ranks in Jefferson Youth Hockey from mites, squirts and peewee levels between 1992 and 2003. He joined the Jefferson High School program in various roles between 2003 and 2012.
A hockey referee between 1995 and 2002, Connelly first worked with District 6 and now works with Fortis Academy as an evaluator with former Jefferson grad and Fortis founder and owner Josh Levine.
Connelly said sports, particularly BAA baseball, softball and hockey, influenced both of his kids.
“Once I coached a few years, I got a taste for what an awesome organization BAA is and what a resource it is for our kids to be exposed to sports,” he said and was asked to coach in the Jefferson youth hockey program at the Squirt level.
“That’s when I found out how committed my wife is and how unbelievably supportive my wife is,” Connelly said as he embarked on a 25-year coaching run. He spent seven seasons at the Squirt level before moving on to Peewee, where he helped the Peewee A team go 54-0-1 in 2001 to win the state title. In the final, Connelly’s team faced a Kennedy team coached by future varsity head coach Dave Dillon. Jefferson won as they did the previous five times that season.
“I was incredibly proud to have an all-Bloomington final,” Connelly said in his final game coaching at the youth level.
After that season, he was invited to join the Jaguars high school staff from 2003 to 2012 as junior varsity head coach and varsity assistant coach.
Many of those high school players are now in their 30s, and Connelly measures the success of his coaching by how often he is stopped in the aisle of Cub Foods.
“They can go the other way, but they’ll come up and talk. That’s the reward for me. It makes it all worth it, and I appreciate my experiences.”
Kelly McCrary
McCrary was born in Chicago in 1963 and has lived in Bloomington for 34 years, serving the kids and youth sports in Bloomington in various capacities. Wallerus presented McCrary, who was heavily involved in youth sports, refereeing volleyball, football and umpiring softball for 16 years. He coached football through BAA from third to seventh grade while his son played. A lifelong Chicago Bears fan, McCrary and his wife of 35 years have three kids and four grandchildren. A three-sport high school athlete, McCrary stood out in football, basketball and track before going on to college as a sprinter in track and field.
Colin Quinn
Quinn was a staple in BAA through the 1980s and 1990s before putting that energy into a stellar baseball career among the 35-and-older and 50-and-older baseball programs. Quinn was a prolific BAA coach in t-ball, floor hockey, baseball and basketball for over a decade. Quinn was inducted into the Minnesota Senior Mens Amateur Baseball Association (MSMABA) Hall of Fame in 2016 and received the Oldest Player Award in 2011. He continues to play baseball and won three Roy Hobbs World Series National Champions in 2014, 2017 and 2021 at various age groups. He was named the MVP of the 2017 series. His teams also captured the Minnesota Senior Baseball League (MBSL) World Series National Championships in 2015, 2017, and 2019.
His adult career started with softball between 1973 and 1987 before amateur baseball (Evansville) in 1973 and two seasons of broomball in the mid-1970s. He picked up baseball once again with a 35-and-over program where he played for both Bloomington teams from 1988-2014, a span of 27 years. Instead of retiring from the sport, he has continued to play for the 50-and-over league (M50BL) since 2008 for several teams. Growing up in South Minneapolis, Quinn caught the baseball bug early, eventually playing for Minneapolis Roosevelt High School and the American Legion team with the same buddies in the early 1960s.
Dave Dickson
Dickson was raised on the east side of St. Paul and has lived in Bloomington for nearly three decades. Dickson, a city-wide baseball director for BAA, has held multiple titles in BAA over the years, from assistant referee in soccer to coach in baseball and director of baseball for BAA. He has a knack for answering the call, whatever it is from helping out with BAA or at his church, Transfiguration Lutheran Church, where he’s taught confirmation for nearly two decades in addition to serving as an usher, communion assistant, chair of the Guys and God Committee, church council and now training to be a Stephen’s Minister. Dickson swam for the high school team, played in a golf league in Bloomington and played softball for the Engineering company he worked for. Wallerus described a National Night Out block captain, Dickson, as the person who would resolve conflicts that arose occasionally with Bloomington Athletic Association.
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