Craig Esherick

Craig Esherick played basketball at Springbrook High in Maryland, where he was selected All-Metropolitan, and later was a four-year basketball scholarship athlete at Georgetown as part of John Thompson’s third recruiting class.  He played at GU from 1974-1978, which included two NCAA tournaments and two NITs.  While attending Georgetown Law, he became the Hoyas’ graduate assistant basketball coach, and upon graduation, became their full-time assistant coach for 17 seasons.  During this time, the Hoyas won six Big East Conference titles, made the NCAA Tournament 16 times (six Sweet Sixteens, six Elite Eights), and played in the NCAA National Championship Finals three times (1982-84-85), winning the national title in 1984.  He was assistant coach on the US Olympic Basketball team that won bronze in the 1988 Summer Olympics.  In January 1999, Craig assumed the head coaching position at Georgetown and served through the 2004 season, with an overall record of 103-74.  During his tenure, the Hoyas were selected by the NIT three times and advanced to the NCAA tournament Sweet Sixteen in 2001.  Craig was known as a premier recruiter and mentor, with many of his players playing in the NBA.  

More recently, Craig has served over 15 years as a professor in the School of Sport, Recreation and Tourism Management at George Mason University, edited or authored six books and numerous articles about the sport industry, is the Academic Program and Internship Coordinator for the Mason Sport Management Department, and Associate Director of its Center for Sport Management. 

An Arlingtonian since 1990, Craig has been a volunteer leader for many local service organizations, and was a member of the Arlington Sports Commission for seven years, serving as Chair 2012-2016.  He has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Arlington Sports Foundation and the Arlington YMCA.

Bill Finney knew, from the eighth grade, that he wanted to coach. And from summer camps during his college years (1968-1972) he has been doing just that.

After attending Syracuse University on a full athletic scholarship for basketball, his first coaching job following college was as an assistant coach for the men's basketball program at SUNY-Plattsburgh. He followed that stint with a position as the boys JV coach for one year at Moriah High School (N.Y.) and then four years as a head coach for boys at Peru High School (N.Y.).

Following a move to Arlington in 1978, he began coaching Arlington youth teams. In 1983, he became Marymount University's women's basketball head coach. He was also the head women's soccer coach for three years, beginning the program for the Saints and also served as the golf coach for four years. In 1988, he also added the duties of athletic director to his resume.

A consummate teacher, he has run teaching basketball camps at Marymount since 1984, as he and his Marymount teams have given countless clinics and seminars.

In 26 years at Marymount, his current record is 525-191, with a winning percentage of .733. Bill is ranked 12'" among NCAA Division III coaches for number of wins. He has averaged over 20 wins per year. His teams have won 10 Capital Athletic Conference titles in the 18 years of CAC championships. His teams have gone to 15 NCAA post-season tournaments. They have been to one Final Four, two Elite Eights and eight Sweet 16s. The Saints have dominated in conference play with a regular-season record of 212-48 for a winning percentage of .815.

Bill has coached the National Player of the Year in Cori Carson in 1997 and 10 Kodak 1st Team and honorable mention All Americans. His teams have won two national scoring titles, averaging 92.4 points per game in 1993 and 89.4 points per game in 1994. He is a four-time Capital Athletic Conference Coach of the Year and a one-time Regional Coach of the Year.

 Maynard K. Haithcock (1923-2016) grew up in Macon, Warren County, NC. He graduated from The George Washington University, majoring in Physical Education. At GW, he played on the Colonial’s basketball team that won 58 of 80 games. During the 1948-49 season, Maynard, co-captain and called Buster, was GW's scoring leader with 9.8 points per game. The team reached the Southern Conference Championship game against North Carolina State. He earned Second Team All-SoCon honors and later that year was a free agent draftee of the Washington Capitols of the Basketball Association of America, the precursor of the NBA. For a time, he played for the Rockville, MD, Stars. Maynard is currently ranked 57th on GW’s list of top 100 all-time GW basketball players.

In 1954, rather than pursuing a career in professional basketball, Maynard began
teaching physical education at Wakefield High School. After coaching the JV team, Coach Haithcock became the varsity basketball coach and in his first year, 1961, won Wakefield’s only state basketball championship. His teams went to the state tournament three other times. Maynard was also a leader in civil-rights. Before official integration, his team and Hoffman Boston’s under Coach Neal Haygood (then Arlington’s black high school) scrimmaged each other in basketball even though it was against county and state law at the time. Maynard took his teams to Hoffman Boston to scrimmage and invited Neal’s teams to Wakefield. These joint activities helped lay the groundwork for the full and largely trouble-free integration of Wakefield a few years later. In 1968, he became a guidance counselor, ending his coaching career. Maynard retired from Wakefield in 1984 and was selected for Wakefield’s Hall of Fame in 2007.
 

Bruce Hanson grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland and graduated from Springbrook High School. He was born in State College, Pennsylvania, but instead of going to Penn State, Bruce was recruited by head coach Marv Levy and assistant coach Bobby Ross to play football at William & Mary where he was a three-year starter for head coach Lou Holtz. Bruce graduated from William & Mary in 1972 with a degree in Physical Education. That year, he began his coaching career in Arlington as a defensive football coach and an assistant wrestling coach at Wakefield High School.

Bruce was named head varsity football coach at Wakefield in 1974 and held that position through 1979. From 1980-1983, Bruce was the defensive coordinator of the varsity football team at Chantilly. In 1984, Bruce served as the defensive coordinator of the varsity football team at W.T. Woodson. While coaching football at these Fairfax County schools, Bruce was also the head girls varsity basketball coach at Yorktown, a position he held until 1987. But Bruce found his true calling when he took over as the varsity football coach at Yorktown in 1985 where he continues to the present day.

As head coach at Yorktown for the past 26 years, Bruce has led the Patriots to a 167-112 record. His overall record as a head varsity football coach stands at 197-140-2. Bruce has been the District Coach of the Year eight times, Northern Region Coach of the Year twice and his teams won region championships in 1988 and 1999. The Patriots have won the Arlington County public schools championship 23 out of the past 26 seasons.

Beyond the statistics, Bruce Hanson has been a role model for his players as a teacher, coach, friend and father figure. Bruce understands the role of sports in the overall development of young men. Bruce credits his coaching staff for the success of the football program, but obviously, it is he who has built a staff that is competent, reliable and reflects his values and standards. As a result of his success with the wing-T formation at Yorktown, Bruce gained a statewide reputation. This, in turn, has resulted in Bruce often being consulted by other coaches in the region and state.

Frank Havens and his wife Katie are currently residents of Harborton on Virginia's Eastern Shore. However, Frank was reared in Arlington, where he attended elementary school through high school and is a 1943 graduate of Washington-Lee.

Frank was an outstanding athlete at W-L, played football there and later went on to play football at the University of Maryland. It was while at Maryland that Frank decided to concentrate his efforts to the sport of canoeing. Canoeing was in his blood. He was born to the sport since his father Bill and uncle Bud were former national champions and world renowned rowers and canoeists. His father Bill, probably the best U.S. oarsman at the time, was a member of the Yale crew, chosen to represent the U.S. at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Instead of going to Paris he decided to remain home to await the imminent birth of his son Frank. Replaced on the crew by an alternate, the U.S. team rowed to an Olympic Gold Medal. Frank was born Aug. 1, 1924, shortly after the closing ceremonies.

Canoeing for almost 70 years, Frank began paddling at the age of eight on the Potomac River. He went on to achieve great fame, becoming a national champion seven times (1950-52, 1954, 1956-57, 1961) and an international, world, and Olympic champion in the sport. His older brother (and ASHOF inductee) Bill Jr. was national canoeing champion in 1947.

Frank has participated in four Olympics (1948, 1952, 1956, 1960) and won a Silver Medal in 1948 (London) and a Gold Medal in 1952 (Helsinki). His first place finish in 1952 set a world record for the 10,000-meter Canadian single-blade race in 57 minutes and 41 seconds. He is the only American Olympic Gold Medal recipient to-date in a singles canoeing event. Following his Gold Medal win, Frank sent a telegram to his dad, stating that he was bringing home the Gold Medal his dad would have won had he chosen to go to the Paris Olympics 28 years earlier.

Frank worked at the sport daily and raced in competition annually. In July 2002, Frank captured six gold medals racing in his age group at the U.S. Masters National Championships held at Lake Lanier in Gainesville, Georgia.

Frank was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1995, and is one of CNNSl.com's top-50 Virginia athletes of the 20th century.
 

Edward F. Hummer was a member of two Virginia state championship basketball teams, coached by Mo Levin, at Washington-Lee (1961-62 and 1962-63). He was co-captain of the undefeated 1962-63 team. Ed was named 1st Team All-Met, All-State, Virginia's Most Outstanding player and high school All-American.

He was captain of the 1966-67 Princeton basketball team and All-Ivy league. He was a member of two Ivy League championship teams (1964-65 and 1966-67), considered to be the two best teams in Princeton's history. The 1964-65 team went to the Final Four in the NCAA tournament, finishing third behind UCLA and Michigan. The 1966-67 team was ranked as a Top Ten team the entire season and finished the season with Princeton's best record ever, 24-3.

A first round selection by the Boston Celtics, Ed played briefly before opting to attend law school, full-time, at Georgetown.
 

Clay Kirby is the most renowned Major League Baseball pitcher to hail from Arlington, with an eight-year MLB career as a starting pitcher that included 75 career wins, a 15-win season, a World Series championship and an eight-inning no-hitter.

Clay Kirby was born in 1948 and was raised in Arlington, attending Arlington public schools. As a three-year starter at Washington-Lee, Kirby led his W-L team to three straight Northern District championships. He pitched many no-hitters and one-hitters, and was the winning pitcher when W-L beat Bishop O'Connell, 6-1, to break its 42-game winning streak, a national record at the time.

Upon his 1966 graduation from Washington-Lee, he was chosen by the St. Louis Cardinals in the third round of the 1966 amateur draft. In 1969, at the age of 20, he made his MLB debut with the San Diego Padres, facing Willie Mays as his first batter. (Mays walked)

In his rookie year he won seven games, pitching 215 innings in 35 games, with an ERA of 3.80. In 1970, he had an eight·inning no·hitter against the New York Mets, but the Padres, trailing 1-0, lifted him for a pinch-hitter, denying him the chance to complete the no-hitter.

Kirby pitched five seasons for the Padres with his best year in 1971, when he won 15 games, pitched 267 innings, had 231 strikeouts and an ERA of 2.83 for a Padres team that lost 100 games. After the 1973 season, Kirby was traded to the Cincinnati Reds, where he pitched for two years, winning 22 games and posted a 10·6 record on the Big Red Machine's 1975 World Series Champion team. He finished his MLB career with the Montreal Expos in 1976. He won 75 career games, pitched over 1,500 innings, and amassed over 1,000 strikeouts. His career ERA was 3.85.

He and his young family returned to Arlington in 1983. He died of a heart attack in 1991, at the age of 43.

 For those fortunate enough to see him play, Bernard R. “Bernie” Kirchner is remembered as the
best athlete to graduate from Yorktown High School. He is also considered by many as one of
the greatest all-around athletes in Arlington history. Bernie grew up in Arlington playing little
league in the early 1960’s, following in his older brother’s and father’s footsteps as a multi-sport
talent. He became recognized as a star athlete at Williamsburg Junior High School before
moving on to Yorktown.

In his high school junior year of football, Bernie made the All-Met, All-Northern Region and
Virginia, and All-Potomac District football teams, as well as third team All-State. In his senior
season, he missed five games due to injury but still made the All-Met Second Team, All-Northern Virginia, All-Suburban Virginia, All-Potomac District, and third team All-State.

In basketball, his honors in both his junior and senior seasons included All-Northern Region and
Virginia Teams, All-Potomac District and Tournament First Teams, and All-State Third Team.
He graduated as the first Yorktown player to score 1,000 career points, before the three-point
line existed.

In baseball, there were no All-Met or All-State teams but Bernie made the All-Potomac District
First Team his junior year, batting .400, and senior year, batting .340 with a 9-1 pitching record.
He was drafted by the Montreal Expos following his senior season.

Instead, he signed a football scholarship to West Virginia University and played wide receiver
for Coach Bobby Bowden. He also pulled off the rare feat of playing a year of baseball and
basketball in college. In his career at WVU, Bernie caught 58 passes for 727 yards and three
TD’s
 

Jimmy Lange was inspired after meeting Sugar Ray Leonard at 6 years old, and he knew he would become  a professional fighter. He grew up in Arlington, graduating from Bishop O’Connell High  School. He was trained and advised by the legendary Angelo Dundee, Don Turner, Jackie  Callen, and was managed by his father, John Lange.  

A stellar boxing career with a record of 38 wins (25 by knockouts), 6 losses and 2  draws , he has fought at the Patriot Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, DAR  Constitution Hall, the DC Armory, the DC Convention Center, Caesar’s Palace, Baltimore  and Virginia Beach and other venues before a massive following of loyal friends fans  and family from his hometown Arlington and the DC metropolitan area.  

In 2011 and 2012, he held both the World Boxing Union junior middleweight title and the  North American Boxing Union welterweight title. A featured boxer on NBC’s reality based hit show “The  Contender“, produced by Sylvester Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard, Jimmy won the consolation fight in  Las Vegas.  

After he left the ring, he has been involved with charity events, mentoring at-risk youth, Dream Works,  and the Washington Football Team.