Two UW-Whitewater players-turned-coaches and a Warhawks baseball player who enjoyed a long Major League Baseball career are among 12 Class of 2024 UW-Whitewater Athletic Hall of Fame inductees.
Pat Miller, Jace Rindahl and Bob Wickman will be joined by Amy Gahl-Sweeney, Suzanne Gersich Huss, Tiffany Morton, Beth Proeber, Jeff Schebler, Cassie Uttech Schroeder, Ricky Spicer, Bob Stone and Ray Jacobsen in the university’s 59th hall of fame class.
The inductees will be recognized during halftime of UW-Whitewater’s Homecoming football game against UW-River Falls on Nov. 2. They will also be part of the Homecoming parade starting at 10 a.m., and the hall of fame banquet will be held after the game at 4:30 p.m. in the University Center’s Hamilton Room.
Further information on the banquet will be released in August.
Miller, a graduate of Craig High School in Janesville, was also inducted into the Janesville Sports Hall of Fame in May. His induction as a coach into UW-Whitewater’s hall of fame will be his second after he went in as a player in 2006.
He coached the Warhawks men’s basketball team from 2001-23 and went 434-167, leading the program to NCAA Division III national championships in 2012 and 2014 and winning National Coach of the Year awards after both those triumphs. He also took the Warhawks back to the D-III Final Four in 2023, his final season at the helm.
His other coaching accolades include six Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles, five WIAC Tournament titles, 10 NCAA Tournament berths, four WIAC Coach of the Year awards, three Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association Division III Coach of the Year awards and two national coach of the year awards from both D3Hoops.com and the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
Miller also played on UW-Whitewater’s 1988-89 Division III national championship.
Rindahl, who is about to start his second season as UW-Whitewater’s head football coach, will be inducted into the hall of fame for his accomplishments as a Warhawk linebacker from 2005-08.
He played in 60 games for the Warhawks, won four WIAC championships and played in the Stagg Bowl, the Division III national championship game, four times. The 2007 team he played on won the first of the school’s six national titles. He made 16 tackles (10 solo) in the title game against Mount Union (Ohio).
As a senior, Rindahl was an All-WIAC selection, an All-Region and All-America pick by multiple organizations, and D3Football.com’s national Defensive Player of the Year.
Rindahl still is in the top 10 in program history in interception yardage (218), tackles (248) and solo tackles (133). He was named to the WIAC’s All-Time Team in 2011.
Wickman enjoyed the longest professional sports career — so far — of any UW-Whitewater athlete after he was picked in the second round of the 1990 MLB draft by the Chicago White Sox. He played 15 seasons in the majors with the New York Yankees, Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians, Atlanta Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks. He made the MLB All-Star Game twice, including in 2000 as a Brewer. His jersey number, 20, is the only one retired by the UW-Whitewater baseball program.
Gahl-Sweeney, a Beloit native who went to Parkview Jr./Sr. High School in Orfordville, was UW-Whitewater’s first two-time softball All-American and the WIAC’s player of the year in 2007. She had 230 hits in her career, which broke the WIAC record, and ranks in the top 10 in UW-Whitewater history in batting average (.411), home runs (21), triples (10), doubles (45) and RBI (138).
Huss was a teammate of Gahl-Sweeney’s from 2006-09, and both played in the Division III national championship game in 2008. Huss hit 13 home runs in 2008 and is the program record leader in that category with 37. She also boasted a .417 career batting average, hit 37 doubles, drove in 170 runs and totaled 227 hits, all top-five totals in program history.
Morton, also a Beloit native, was an All-American center on the women’s basketball team from 2007-09 after transferring from Division I UW-Milwaukee. She was a two-time All-WIAC pick and made the league’s All-Defensive team in 2009.
Proeber was an indoor weight and outdoor hammer thrower for the Warhawks track and field team from 2002-05. She was a top-eight finisher seven times in her career at the WIAC Championships and was a three-time All-American.
Schebler was the Warhawks placekicker on two football national championship teams in 2007 and 2009. He was a four-time All-American and holds the Division III records for career points scored by a kicker, career field goals (75) and career field goal percentage (75 for 95, 78.9%). Like Rindahl, he also made the WIAC All-Time Team named in 2011. As a senior, he won the Fred Mitchell Award as the top kicker across all of college football below the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Schroeder was an outside hitter for UW-Whitewater’s Division III national championship volleyball team in 2005. The Warhawks won two WIAC volleyball titles during her tenure from 2003-05.
Spicer played on the 1989 men’s basketball national championship team with Miller and was the WIAC’s Player of the Year for the 1989-90 season. He holds the UW-Whitewater records for assists (531) and steals (258) in a career.
Stone was a three-time All-WIAC selection in men’s basketball from 1971-74. The Warhawks went 60-15 during Stone’s time with the team and won back-to-back WIAC titles in 1972-73 and 1973-74.
Jacobsen will be inducted for his distinguished service to the university and its athletic programs. He played football and was a wrestler in the early 1970s and later served as a board member for UW-Whitewater Foundation, Inc. He helped the university build its wrestling room in 1997 and participated in the effort to have it named the Willie Myers Family Wrestling Room in 2005. He was also the university’s commencement speaker in December 2021.
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