The Los Angeles City Section holds its 2017 Sports Hall of Fame Induction ceremony on Sunday afternoon (reception at 3, dinner at 5) and Palisades High will be well represented. Tennis coach Bud Kling and four former Dolphin athletes are among the event’s 44 honorees.
Kling has piloted Palisades to 41 City crowns (24 boys, 17 girls) since taking over the program in 1979 and became only the third prep tennis coach in state history to surpass the 1,000-win mark in 2014. He is the winningest coach in any sport in section history.
Three of the four volleyball inductees are Dolphins: Chris Marlowe (Class of 1969), Tauna Vandeweghe (‘77) and Ricci Luyties (‘80). Marlowe led Pali High’s basketball team to the City title in 1969 and was one of six All-Americans on the volleyball team. He captained the U.S. gold-medal volleyball squad at the 1984 Summer Olympics in L.A.
Vandeweghe was both a swimmer and volleyball player at Palisades and later at UCLA. She was a backstroker on the 1976 U.S. Olympic swim team and was an alternate on the silver medal-winning U.S. Olympic volleyball squad in 1984.
A native Palisadian, Ricci Luyties was City Player of the Year and led Palisades to back-to-back City finals before moving on to UCLA, where he helped the Bruins to four consecutive national titles. He was also a member of the USA’s gold-medal winning volleyball team at the 1988 Olympics and won seven pro beach volleyball titles.
One of five basketball inductees, Steve Kerr played baseball and basketball at Pali High, then continued his basketball career at the University of Arizona. He played 15 seasons in the NBA, winning five titles, and retired in 2003 as the league’s all-time leader in career three-point percentage. He is now head coach of the Golden State Warriors.
Sunday’s ceremony is at the Doubletree Hilton Hotel in Culver City.
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