The Essex County College Wolverines Athletics Hall of Fame will become a reality with an inaugural ceremony on May 9. The Hall of Fame will be housed in the Cleo Hill, Sr. Physical Education Building on the Newark campus.
Dr. Keith Kirkland, Dean of Students at Essex County College and President of the of the Essex Hall of Fame committee, joined SportsJam with Doug Doyle to talk about the May 9 event and the impressive inaugural HOF class.
"On behalf of our college, our Board of Trustees and our President Dr. Augustine A. Boakye, we're extremely excited about this inaugural Hall of Fame class. One of the things that President Boakye talks about is to have a way of celebrating the success of our athletes. We have a tremendous history of athletic accomplishments that pretty much goes unnoticed, although we know some of our athletes have participated on regional, national and world stages. The Hall of Fame will also demonstrate how Essex County College has influenced their athletic and academic performance and their lives."
The Wolverine Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2025 is as follows:
● Hon. Sharpe James – First Director of Athletics (1968–1986)
● Russell Rogers – First National Champion; Track and Field Coach (1971–1978)
● Cleo Hill Sr. – Men’s Basketball Coach and Athletics Director (1984–1995)
● Novlene Williams-Mills – Olympic Silver and Bronze Medalist, Track and Field (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016)
● Kerron Stewart – Olympic Silver and Bronze Medalist, Track and Field (2008, 2012)
● Melaine Walker – Olympic Gold Medalist, Track and Field (2008)
● 1973–74 Men’s Basketball Team – Set the National Junior College scoring record
Dr. Kirkland, a cross country runner and baseball players at Southside High School/Malcolm X Shabazz High School in Newark, acknowledges how instrumental the coaches at Essex County College have been in molding the amazing careers of so many athletes.
"When we talk about our inductees, it started by in 1968 with the first Director of Athletics, the Honorable Mayor Sharpe James, who was here at Essex County College, and he brought in so pretty stellar coaches. We had Marshall Brown. Then we had Russ Rogers, who accomplished so much in his area of track and field. We also had Cleo Hill, Sr. Everyone knows about his performance on the basketball court and what he did going from Winston-Salem to the St. Louis Hawks. We winded up here as one of our first real basketball coaches who brought our teams into state and national prominence."
The first three women to be inducted into the Essex County College Wolverines Athletics Hall of Fame (Kerron Stewart, Melaine Walker and Novlene Williams-Mills) are all Olympians who excelled in track and field. All
three are from Jamaica and through the late Coach Smart connections made their way to Essex County College.
"We had a connections in Jamaica thanks to the late coach Michael Smart. Our coach would go directly to Jamaica to visit and recruit these outstanding track and field athletes. They all accomplished so much but they also have that passion to make the world a better place. They're using that Olympic status to drive home their message."
You can find much more about the May 9 Essex County College Wolverines Athletics HOF induction ceremony here.
