Seminole County Day of Champions cause to celebrate
Seven new Seminole County Sports Hall of Fame inductees will share the spotlight Thursday with high school athletes, coaches and athletic directors from the county’s 13 high schools during a virtual awards ceremony on Facebook Live.
World Series champion Mark Belhorn of Oviedo, former long-time Lyman baseball coach Bob McCullough and former Oviedo principal Bobby Lundquist are among the hall of fame’s Class of 2020.
The Seminole County Day of Champions will stream online in three parts beginning at 11 a.m. on the Seminole County Recreation Council Facebook page. The show continues at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
The first segment focuses on the high school fall sports season and private school coaches of the year. Those honors are followed by the recognition of Brittany Tagliareni as the hall of fame’s inaugural inclusion award recipient and Suzy Reno as female contributor.
The inclusion award goes to an athlete who overcomes an intellectual or physical disability to excel in sports. Tagliareni, diagnosed with autism at an early age, is a Florida Special Olympics Hall of Fame member and winner of two silver medals in tennis at the 2019 Special Olympics
World Games. Tagliareni won the women’s singles gold medal at the Special Olympics Florida State Championship eight years in a row and took gold in the men’s division in 2015.
Reno started Sanford’s first soccer club in 1973 and later the Seminole High girls program. She also served as the district commissioner for the Greater Central Florida Youth Soccer League (GCFYSL), which awards a scholarship in her name to a graduating high school senior each year.
Winter sports standouts, public school scholars and coaches of the year are included in the show’s second segment along with the presentation of three hall of fame legacy awards.
Legacy award winners are Jackie Caolo, Jim Jernigan and Lundquist, who was a three-sport athlete at Seminole High.
Caolo began teaching swimming lessons and water safety in her Sanford backyard pool to infants, children and adults in 1957, including African Americans who did not have access to public pools at the time. She continued that training for more than 60 years.
Jernigan, who began working with the City of Sanford Parks and Recreation Department in 1961, is a member of the Central Florida Sports Commission Hall of Fame. He pioneered programs such as Summer Playground and Sanford Golden Age Olympic Games for senior citizens.
Lundquist was a letterwinner in football, basketball and baseball at Seminole in the late 1960s and a long-time contributor with the parks and recreation department. After playing college baseball at the University of Florida, Lundquist returned to his alma mater as a teacher and baseball coach in 1974 before becoming principal at Oviedo, where the gymnasium bears his name. He continues to compete in senior state and national golf competitions.
The final installment of the show includes awards for spring sports, athletic director of the year, private school scholar athletes and hall of fame recognition for Belhorn as male athlete and McCullough as male contributor.
Belhorn appeared in the College World Series with Auburn in 1994 and later won a Major League Baseball World Series title in 2004 as the starting second baseman with the Boston Red Sox. Belhorn, drafted in the second round by the Oakland Athletics in 1995, played 10 years in the majors with seven teams through 2007.
McCullough amassed 625 wins in 36 years as baseball coach at Lyman High School. He was named coach of the year four times and helped the program win the Class 6A state title in 1995 and finish state runners-up in 1996. McCullough also ran summer baseball programs and continues to serve as Lyman’s Supervisor of Game Fields, preparing the football, baseball, softball, and soccer fields for use.