PB Sports Hall of Fame Class of '08

Tracy Edington and Mary Kalich will soon have their plaques hanging in the Poplar Bluff Sports Hall of Fame.

The pair make up the Class of 2008 after the voting process ended this week and will be enshrined this fall.

“Mary was such a competitor, she’s probably as tough an athlete as I’ve ever seen — you had to beat Mary,” said Sam Giambelluca, president of the Sports Hall of Fame.

“Tracy was a good football player, but he was a heck of a track man.”

They will be inducted at the 28th annual banquet Thursday, Oct. 9 and introduced before the Mules football game the following night at Morrow Stadium.

Edington played football, was a four-year letterman in track for the Mules and was a national champion in AAU track in the high jump and decathlon.

He was an all-conference defensive back for the Mules in 1974 when the team finished 9-1 and was the quarterback in ’75 when Poplar Bluff went 8-2. Edington threw for 723 yards by completing 56 percent of his passes, throwing for three touchdowns to four interceptions in 69 attempts. He finished with 1,167 total yards of offense.

In track, Edington competed in five events for the Mules — the high jump, long jump, triple jump and both hurdle races.

“He had to get points for the team,” Giambelluca recalls. “He probably could have hit about 6-foot-10 in the high jump if he was just high jumping and running (hurdles).

“He was a good decathlete, just tailored for him.”

Kalich still holds seven records for the Lady Mules basketball team and her 1,635 career points are second only to Tyler Hansbrough in the history of Poplar Bluff basketball.

A two-time all-state selection in 1990 and ’91, she led the Lady Mules to a third place finish at state as a junior then went on to play at Yale University where she still holds the career scoring record of 1,663 points.

Kalich will be the sixth female inducted into the hall.

This is the first class since 2003 and sixth time in which two people were inducted. Last year, John David Pattillo, LaRita (Hawes) Arnold and Steve Rowland were inducted.

To be eligible for election, a person must be 35, a native of Poplar Bluff who has participated in or contributed to sports here or elsewhere, or a person who came to Poplar Bluff and distinguished themselves here. They must first clear a preliminary ballot of over 100 voters then are voted on by a nine-member board of directors and must receive a minimum of 3/4 of the votes to be elected.

The Poplar Bluff Sports Hall of Fame, which was started in 1981 and includes 75 individuals and seven teams, is located in the Poplar Bluff Museum.

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Editor’s Note: Edington and Kalich will be featured at the end of a twice-weekly series called “Catching Up With” on former area athletes that will start in June. To nominate a person for that series, email us at sports@darnews.com.