2025 Spring Honors & Awards Banquet
Monday, April 7, 2025
Reception: 6 p.m.
Banquet: 7 p.m.
Little America Hotel
500 South Main Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Banquet Tickets: $80 per person
Table of Ten: $800 per table
ONLINE REGISTRATION OPENS on Thursday, February 6, 2025.
ONLINE REGISTRATION CLOSES at 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 6, 2025.
- Purchase tickets early; seats assigned on first come, first serve basis
- Tickets will be mailed Wednesday, March 12.
- Tickets ordered after Tuesday, March 11 will be held at “Will Call”
Please call Steve Gardner at 801-376-7301 with any questions regarding the purchase of tickets.
2025 Hall of Honor
Distinguished Service
Dan C. Leonard
The University of Utah’s historic golf course long ago was converted into academic buildings, but the campus still boasts an area of grass that would rival any of the most pristine fairways in the world.
The football practice field that’s tucked between the Eccles Football Complex and Mount Olivet Cemetery is Dan Leonard’s pride and joy. Utah Coach Kyle Whittingham also loves it, explaining why he endorsed Leonard for a Distinguished Service Award from the Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation.
An alumnus of Viewmont High School and the University of Utah, Dan has attended to that plot of turfgrass on almost a daily basis for 12 years. He’s also credited with the creation of Salt Lake Community College’s softball field and, being loyal to a former SLCC administrator, consulted on the building of Casper (Wyoming) College’s soccer field.
Casper Athletic Director Paul Marble publicly thanked Dan for taking the land “from a dog walking and antelope grazing area into a soccer pitch,” adding, “Dan knew exactly what to do.”
That project reflected the expertise that Dan loves to share and the pride he takes in his profession. He’s the only Ute athletic staff member whose title, as published on the department’s website, cites how he passed a professional examination. Dan is listed as a “certified sports field manager,” with the note that he’s responsible for football. He earned CSFM status in 2017.
Utah’s practice field is subject to a lot of wear and tear from August through December, and it holds up remarkably well. That’s important, when the Utes are preparing for bowl games and Whittingham wants to practice outdoors on a natural surface.
Dan once shared a photo of green turf and described himself as “proud of a grass practice field (that’s) still safe, playable, healthy and beautiful in December in Utah.”
That condition was made possible by the devotion of Dan and his staff to proper irrigation, deep rooting, drought resistance and a lot of tender, loving care.
Dan is not only a turfgrass specialist, but he’s also a loss prevention specialist. He installed a fake coyote to keep the deer who live in the nearby cemetery from encroaching on his grass. That may have scared some coaches arriving for work before sunrise, but it’s just another example of Dan’s determination to give Whittingham and his players the best possible practice conditions.
Jeff Reeves
The voice is a gift, and Jeff Reeves willingly shares it.
The sounds have resonated throughout the state. The Brigham City native has traveled around Utah for 32 years, serving as the public address announcer for Utah High School Activities Association state championships in several sports and events, including drill team and Unified Sports.
A former Box Elder High School baseball and basketball player, Jeff especially loves those sports. And as he once told the Deseret News, he views working with high school athletes as “just part of paying back. … we need to support them.”
In addition to his UHSAA tournament schedule, Jeff announced Morgan High events for 13 years and has worked Viewmont games for 24 years. He also announced football and basketball games for nine years at Weber State as a Wildcat alumnus.
Jeff provides the soundtrack in some of the biggest moments of young Utahns’ lives, and he is determined to play his role perfectly. A great example is how he researches the preferred pronunciation of athletes’ names, and executes his announcements with care.
As Jeff said, “A parent may only hear the name of their daughter or son over the loudspeaker one time. I want to assure it’s said correctly.”
That level of devotion to doing the job well is a big reason for Jeff’s Distinguished Service Award from the Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation. His commitment to accuracy could be traced to his experience of working for the hometown Box Elder News Journal, where his diverse job descriptions included high school sportswriter, theater critic and the crime beat.
Learning of his background in radio for about 20 years would not be surprising to anyone who has heard his voice. The part that may be more tricky to picture is how he worked as a disc jockey with his own country music program. Jeff then moved into the furniture business for 25-plus years, while continuing to work in sports announcing.
As for his own performances on big stages, the reviews have always been outstanding. Consistency explains his longevity. Jeff has spent more than 2,000 nights as the P.A. announcer for Salt Lake City’s Triple-A baseball teams of the past 31 seasons. He enjoys the “laid-back atmosphere” of baseball and the rhythm of the game, announcing the batters as they walk toward home plate.
Wesley Ruff
It may seem obvious that a person can receive a Distinguished Service Award from the Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation only once.
The Utah Section PGA’s annual Wesley Ruff Award is different, and that’s also a good starting point for the story of Wesley Ruff’s Distinguished Service Award.
After the Section administrators chose Wesley as the Golf Citizen of the Year for a third time, they went ahead and renamed the award in his honor. The award is presented to someone who “sacrifices their own time and efforts for others.” The definition also cites traits of “kindness, courtesy, unselfish service and integrity.”
Those words capture Wesley’s nature, while also endorsing his Distinguished Service recognition.
He’s known as an advocate of Utah sports at all levels, frequently acting as a keynote speaker or MC for events and celebrations of athletes and their achievements.
His professional career is a story in itself. In October, Wesley will observe a 40th anniversary as an ABC4 sportscaster and anchor, a remarkable run. He’s a five-time Utah Sportscaster of the Year, as selected by members of the National Sports Media Association.
Wesley proudly traces his love of sports to his youth in Springville, where he would grow up to compete in golf, basketball and track and field for the Red Devils’ high school teams.
Wesley’s knowledge of a wide variety of sports is his hallmark as a sportscaster. No member of the Utah sports media is more conversant in the likes of hockey and gymnastics, beyond the more traditional, high-viewership sports. He’s also immersed in high school sports and is a champion of college athletic programs throughout the state, including the less visible schools.
Of course, it would be a disservice to Wesley for any biography of him to gloss over his devotion to golf. After all, when once asked to list his hobbies and interests outside of work, he mentioned ”golf” four times in one sentence.
He’s the only honorary member of the Utah Section PGA, the statewide organization of golf professionals. In 2021, the Utah Golf Association gave him its highest honor, the Gold Club Award, for his contributions to the game. The award goes to “an individual who through significant achievement or unselfish service has contributed to the history and tradition of the game of golf in Utah, and whose personal integrity, sportsmanship, common courtesy, loyalty and friendship earn him the love and respect of fellow golfers.”
Distinguished High School Coaches
Curtis Barney
Curtis Barney and the town of Panguitch will be forever intertwined, with a big assist from Southern Utah University.
As the story goes, Curtis was willing to attend Salt Lake Community College as a concession to his wife, Cindy, who was from Bountiful. He then persuaded her to move closer to his hometown for the rest of his business education. That explains how a product of SUU’s acclaimed “Coaching Factory” eventually would win a record 12 state championships in Panguitch girls basketball and become a Distinguished High School Coach, as recognized by the Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation.
In an SUU alumni publication, he would describe the couple’s decision as “one of those monumental moves that forever changed my life.”
Curtis added, “SUU really taught me how important the teaching and coaching professions are, and how important it is to build students’ confidence.”
In that story, Curtis also mentioned that a professor once told him “if I was going to be a teacher, I had to quit talking like I was from Panguitch.”
Fortunately, for generations of PHS students and especially girls basketball players, Curtis never lost his love for the school or the town. His Bobcat teams once won 64 straight games as part of those 12 state championships. In 28 years, Curtis posted 485 victories, ranking No. 2 all-time in Utah girls basketball to Ogden High legend Phil Russell. Five of Curtis’ teams finished second in the state tournament.
Curtis has received multiple state and regional coach of the year awards and prestigious recognition from the National Federation of High Schools.
The Barney family roots run deep in Panguitch. Curtis’ daughters, Amanda and Chelsie, played basketball for him (sons Tyler and Brady also were PHS athletes). His brother Clint coached Panguitch to a boys basketball state title in 2018, the same year when Curtis tied the record then held by Mountain View’s Dave Houle with an 11th title (he would add No. 12 the following season). Cindy Barney, who passed away in September 2024, was an educator in various roles in the town for 32 years.
Curtis is a member of the Garfield County School Board and has been involved in community programs as a business teacher, adult education director and transportation director. Sharing his love of basketball with his grandchildren now is a major focus for him in Panguitch, where he will always “bleed blue.”
Wendy Bills
The history of people who formerly held that position is not necessarily important in the story of a Distinguished High School Coach. Yet any summary of Wendy Bills’ career in Provo High girls volleyball has to start with the fact that the school went through five coaches in five years before Wendy took the job in 1984. She kept it for 31 years.
Wendy had no prior experience in coaching volleyball before PHS athletic director Dick Hill hired her, but you would never know that by the results that included state championships in 1992, 1999 and 2000.
Wendy’s daughter, Natalie, played for two of those title teams and was inducted into the Montana State-Billings Athletics Hall of Fame as a setter. Former Bulldog stars Kim Wilson (BYU) and Angela Lobendahn Peterson (New Mexico State) also performed well at the college level.
Natalie followed her mother into the education profession; Wendy and her husband, Gregory, also have two sons who were PHS athletes.
Natalie loved growing up around her mother’s volleyball teams. “My earliest memory was being in the gym while the high school players were warming up,” she said. “I remember stealing the ball so I could play with it up against a wall.”
Wendy addressed that problem by giving Natalie her own purple ball that she would keep forever on her way to PHS stardom. “What a joy it was to coach my daughter on two back-to-back state championship teams,” Wendy said.
Mentored by Provo’s Betty Clark and Utah women’s sports legends Elaine Michaelis and Norma Carr, Wendy was known for developing players with offseason volleyball programs and in-season coaching. As she told The Daily Herald, “It was fun to see the students as freshmen, where they didn’t know much, to (becoming) seniors and see them be so successful.”
Through the Utah Viper Volleyball Club and other camps and clinics organized by Wendy, many girls and boys have furthered their love of the sport.
An Oklahoma native, Wendy graduated from Skyline High and BYU. Nearly a decade after retiring from coaching, Wendy has topped the 40-year mark as a Provo High teacher, continuing to work in physical education and drivers education. In 2020, she served as president of the American National Driver Education program.
Wendy also is credited with influencing swimmers, including participants with special needs, as an instructor and director of the Provo Recreation Center that originally was built on the PHS campus.
Todd Jeffs
In his first season as the Emery High School boys basketball coach, Todd Jeffs was involved in one of the most iconic games in Utah history.
Yet even if that legendary Emery-Richfield state championship game featuring Shawn Bradley and Ryan Cuff would never be matched, there were a lot more highlights to come in his 32-year tenure. Todd finished with a 515-245 record that included two state titles, two second-place finishes and nine other semifinal appearances.
What’s more, he could claim 39 seasons of contributions to Spartan basketball as a player, assistant coach and head coach, accounting for 910 games. “To say that I have enjoyed my time coaching and playing at Emery would be a huge understatement,” Todd said.
As he receives this Distinguished High School Coach award, every coach can relate to his recent reflections about the profession. “There have been great times when I have felt like I have all of the answers,” he said. “There have been times when I have felt totally lost, pretty much like life. Overall, the good times have been far greater and more abundant than the bad times. Basketball has given me that chance to learn about people and life through those experiences.”
He will forever be associated with that 1989 Class 3A championship game in Cedar City, where Todd had attended Southern Utah University. The Spartans won 84-83 in overtime on Steven Gordon’s 45-foot, 3-point shot at the buzzer. In a Salt Lake Tribune interview to observe the 25-year anniversary of the game, Todd acknowledged not formally drawing up the winning play. But whatever he said worked.
The dramatic finish came in Bradley’s junior year; the Spartans would win another title the following year before the 7-foot-6 center headed from Castle Dale to BYU and then enjoyed a long career in the NBA.
Todd was a teacher, coach and athletic director at Emery for 37 years before retiring in 2022. He taught computer science for 20 years and physical education, weights and health for 17 years.
Emery High is a hub of the county that ties together Castle Dale and surrounding towns. In the post-education phase of his life, Todd has remained immersed in the community as co-owner/co-director of Castle Ridge Behavioral Health. Todd and his wife, Donn, herself a longtime educator, bought and renovated a 1910 elementary school and created a non-profit rehabilitation center. They also recently opened a public fitness center.
Mike Maxwell
Mike Maxwell’s 500 coaching victories were more than enough to earn him Distinguished High School Coach recognition from the Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation.
Even so, it would be impossible to discuss Mike’s life in basketball without men-tioning two other huge numbers: 1,000 and 2,000.
Mike and his father, Larry, combined for more than 1,000 coaching wins in equally legendary tenures. Mike contributed to his father’s totals as a 1979 state championship-winning player at Highland High School, where he topped 2,000 career points as a sharpshooting guard.
Mike compiled a 500-305 record at Bountiful High from 1989-2023. No. 500 came in a 53-50 win over Bonneville. As he told the Deseret News that night, “I’ve learned to savor every moment and celebrate every victory; you never know when it may be your last one.”
His mother, Elaine, attended that milestone game. Larry Maxwell had passed away in 2022. “I like to think he may have been there tonight,” Mike said.
A common thread of the Maxwell family coaching style was the use of the “Highland press” attacking defense. In the late stages of his Bountiful career, Mike told The Salt Lake Tribune, “I’ve modified things a little over the years, because you have to. But it has a lot of the same elements.”
Mike followed the highly successful Mike Hall as Bountiful’s coach. He had been an assistant coach at an Oregon high school, following his BYU basketball career.
Bountiful won state championships in 1997, 2014 and 2015. Sam Merrill, who would have an outstanding career at Utah State and now plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA, was the star of Bountiful’s 2014 team. That team was ranked No. 36 in the country by MaxPreps and was celebrated during the site’s Tour of Champions.
The BHS cast changed the next year, leading Mike to reflect on the nature of high school sports. Speaking of his three state titles, he told KSL.com, “They’re all sweet, every one of them, because they’re different. Every kid is different. Even though we got a couple of guys back, this was a whole new team of guys and a whole different experience to take them to the championship.”
Jeff Pollard and future BYU player Zac Seljaas led the 2015 team that was known for finding ways to win. “They don’t care how,” Mike said. “It’s just about getting it done for Bountiful.”
Joe Periera
Joe Pereira loved coaching swimmers, mainly because the sport is a classic case of effort being rewarded.
The finished product of winning individual races and team state championship is created stroke after stroke, hour after hour in the pool. In a society that seemingly demands instant results, Joe appreciated the process.
As he once told The Salt Lake Tribune, “Swimming is sort of ‘old school.’ A lot of students today want things quicker, but you can’t succeed in swimming unless you’re willing to work hard every day.”
Joe’s swimmers did that year after year at Cyprus High School and Skyline. His boys teams won 10 state titles, between the two schools. All of his 10 girls championships came at Skyline.
“One of the things that made Joe really good was he was so knowledgeable about swimming and technical aspects of the sport,” former Skyline principal Doug Bingham told the Millcreek Journal. “He loved kids, but pushed them. It wasn’t always easy.”
The swimmers understood, judging by two pages of endorsements of Joe’s coaching methods that were shared in his nomination for a Distinguished High School Coach award from the Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation. Here’s one example from Amy McClellan Herrera: “Having Joe tell me he was proud of me, that he believed in me, was great motivation. Still on hard days, 21 years later, I hear his voice in my head reminding me I am capable of hard things, and through that reminder, I push through.”
Here’s another, from Eric Talbot: “I am more grateful for the lifelong lessons Joe taught me. … Joe often told us that learning to work hard consistently, especially when we thought we were too tired, would serve us throughout our lives. After all these years, I am convinced that Joe was right.”
A native of California and a graduate of the University of Utah, Joe assisted legendary Ute coach Don Reddish and then became head coach of Utah’s women’s team. He also worked under Jack Nelson, a former Olympic coach at the University of Miami.
Upon returning from Florida to Utah, where his family was happier, Joe became the Cottonwood Heights Aquatic head coach and a Brighton High assistant. Beginning in 1992, he spent 12 years at Cyprus and 17 years at Skyline, teaching math and coaching swimming, earning three national coaching awards.
Barry Pitt
The tradition of softball success runs deep at Tooele High School, where four state championship-winning coaches once threw ceremonial pitches to christen an on-campus field.
Barry Pitt made a huge contribution to that history, claiming five state titles in six years at the start of this century. He compiled a 34-game winning streak over two seasons for a state record that held up until 2022.
As illustrated in one championship-game story, having the discipline to not over-coach his players is part of Barry’s path to Distinguished High School Coach recognition from the Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation.
As detailed in the Deseret News, Tooele pitcher Lauren Folta lost a no-hit bid as Hurricane threatened to score in the seventh inning. Folta called her infielders to the mound to help her regroup, while Barry chose to stay in the dugout and let the players talk to each other. Barry said that was his way of showing confidence in his pitcher. The strategy worked; Folta completed the title-winning shutout.
In his eight years as Tooele’s coach, Barry posted a 169-32 (.841) record, with two second-place finishes in addition to those five state championships. That’s a remarkable run, especially considering that it all started when he was asked to become the Buffaloes’ interim coach in 2001.
Tooele went 17-5 and reached the state finals that season. After dipping to 13-9 the following season and not placing in the state tournament, the Buffaloes launched a dynasty. In Barry’s last six seasons, Tooele went 139-18. Barry also was an assistant coach for Grantsville’s three straight state titles from 2017-19.
Barry was honored on the Tooele High School Wall of Fame in 2011. Among other awards, he was named the Western Sectional Coach of the Year by the National Federation of High Schools in 2007.
“I was surprised and shocked,” Barry told the Deseret News. “I think it’s a great tribute to the players. Any coach who wins an award like that has great players. They’re the ones who go out and show what you teach.”
Barry certainly deserved his share of the credit, having been a driving force of girls softball developmental programs in the Tooele-Grantsville area. The opportunity to work with his three daughters was part of his motivation, but he kept coaching after they graduated from Tooele.
He also was known for teaching life lessons to his players, tapping into his primary job of working with teens at Valley Behavioral Health.
Erik Thompson
A higher degree of difficulty brings out the best of Erik Thompson.
That theory has been proven by the way he responded to the project of rebuilding Ogden High School’s downtrodden football program, especially while he began dealing with the challenges of an ALS diagnosis.
The last phase of Erik’s coaching and teaching career clearly has been the toughest, and the most rewarding. As he recently told the Deseret News, “Ironically, I felt a lot of happiness and joy going somewhere where it was a lot harder to win. … Seeing the pride and the respect (the players) received and felt about themselves was really fulfilling for me.”
After a long, successful tenure at Northridge High, Erik moved to Ogden in 2017, inheriting a 33-game losing streak. The Tigers improved steadily in his eight seasons, topped by a 7-4 record in 2024. No wonder Erik was inducted into the OHS Hall of Fame in January 2025 and has earned Distinguished High School Coach recognition from the Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation.
In his final season, Erik said, “I was able to appreciate all the little things about this job that I got to do every day.”
Erik grew up in a coaching family as a son of Roy High legend Fred Thompson and played football and baseball for the Royals. He attended Snow College, Colorado Mesa University and Weber State University.
After assisting Blaine Monkres and Fred Fernandes in Northridge’s football program, Erik was promoted to head coach in 2004 and posted a school-record 79 wins in 13 seasons. His father assisted him for all 21 years with both the Knights and the Tigers. Fred Thompson was able to witness the way the OHS players responded to his son. “It’s incredible to see the love these kids have for Erik,” he said.
In that Deseret News story, Erik made a remarkable observation about his ALS challenges: “I hate this disease so much. But I don’t think I could have made the same positive impact on others if I didn’t have this disease.”
That influence is not as easily measured as the fact that Northridge and Ogden won 74% of their games during Erik’s involvement in 29 total years of coaching. Fair to say, his example of perseverance has created quite a legacy. Awards such as being named Ogden School District’s teacher of the year in 2020-21 are further signs of his success.