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Current Ohio State defensive line coach Mike Vrabel is among the 11 inductees in the 2012 Hall of Fame class.
July 19, 2012
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Eleven outstanding former student-athletes will be enshrined into the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame this fall. The class will be inducted Sept. 14 at a dinner and will be introduced to the public at halftime of the Ohio State home football game against California Sept. 15.
The 2012 class includes Louise Bond-Williams (fencing), Pete Cusick (football), Jessica Davenport (basketball),George Downes (wrestling), Joseph Gailus (football), Ray Griffin (football), Rex Holman (wrestling), Keturah Lofton (track and field), Dick Schafrath (football), Jim Stone (volleyball coach) and Mike Vrabel (football).
The hall of fame was created in 1977 and has inducted 261 men through fall of 2011. The addition of Cusick, Gailus, Griffin, Schafrath and Vrabel moves the all-time number of former football players in the hall to 108 and the prestigious list will now include 11 wrestlers with the inclusion of Downes and Holman.
Women were first inducted into the hall in 1993, with 96 women enshrined through 2011. Lofton is the ninth inductee for track and field, with Davenport the 10th women’s basketball honoree and Bond-Williams the fifth female fencer to be enshrined. Stone is the fourth former women’s coach to receive a spot in the hall of fame.
Reservations are now being accepted for the Athletics Hall of Fame Dinner Sept. 14, which will be a joint dinner for the men and women for the first time. The event will be held in the Archie M. Griffin Ballroom at the Ohio Union and begins at 5:30 p.m. with hors d’oeuvres and cocktails; dinner will follow at 6:30 p.m. Individual tickets are $75, with tables of eight available for $600. Payment will not be accepted at the door; reservations and payment must be submitted by Aug. 31.
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Mike Vrabel
Football, 1993-96
Current Ohio State defensive line coach Mike Vrabel was one of the great defensive linemen not only at Ohio State, but in the history of the Big Ten Conference. He earned two Big Ten Conference Defensive Lineman of the Year honors (1995 and 1996) and was the first to win the award two times. He also earned back-to-back All-America honors those same seasons.
Vrabel twice set the Ohio State single-season record for sacks and tackles for loss (TFL) and he still holds school records for career sacks (36) and single season and career TFLs (26 in 1995 and 66). He ranks third all-time in the Big Ten in sacks and sixth in TFLs.
Vrabel had a distinguished NFL career with three teams following his Ohio State playing days. It was a professional career that saw him a part of the New England Patriots’ dynamic run of three Super Bowls in four years (2001, 2003, 2004). In 2007, as a member of the Patriots, he was named to the Pro Bowl and a month later was named All-Pro. On top of these accomplishments, Vrabel’s professional career included 206 games played with Pittsburgh, New England and Kansas City, 140 starts and enough impressive statistics – 57 sacks, 11 interceptions, 17 forced fumbles and 11 touchdowns receiving (as a tight end), including two in Super Bowls – that one has to conclude he is one of the great performers in a team sport that Ohio State has ever produced.
