New class inducted into ASU Hall of Fame
For many of the members inducted into the Sun Devil Hall of Fame, Arizona State was a place for second chances.
And for volleyball standout Regina Mannix, formerly Stahl, it was a place of healing.
“My experience at ASU did more than make me a great athlete. It made a complete person from a broken person,” Mannix said.
Mannix, who played at ASU from 1984-87, still is a main part of the volleyball program with the standing record for career assists (5,180) and aces (178). Mannix was on teams that defeated Nebraska on the road and a top-ranked Stanford program, but she instead focused on the impact head coach Debbie Brown and ASU had in her life.
“Debbie kept me from being a real sad statistic,” Mannix said. “I grew up in a chaotic home that was full of addiction, mental illness, and violence... The moment Debbie started recruiting me, I knew she was different. She stood out. She was sincere, she was joyful, and she was honest.”
The event celebrated the past triumphs of Sun Devil Athletics and the people who got the athletes to where they needed to be. Including Mannix, ASU honored six athletes, one team and one coach at the annual Hall of Fame Luncheon on Friday at the Omni Tempe Hotel.
This year’s Hall of Fame Class included Jordan Clarke (men’s track & field), Jason Kipnis (baseball), Shaun McDonald (football), Addison McGrath (water polo) and members of the 2007 women’s track & field team.
Former head men’s and women’s track and field coach, Greg Kraft, was named the Hall of Distinction honoree. Kraft rebuilt the track and field program when he took over in 1996, putting ASU against other elite programs. He led ASU to four NCAA team titles across the 2007 and 2008 indoor and outdoor seasons in his 23-year career.
Kipnis played two seasons at ASU from 2008-09, but is forever grateful that ASU answered an email he initially sent as a joke. After he was kicked off the team at Kentucky, Kipnis scrambled to send emails to different programs across the country for another chance.
“As I like to tell people, the beautiful butterfly you see before you needed some years to grow up a little bit and earn some maturity,” Kipnis said. “Never thought Arizona State was the place to do that.”
Kipnis ended up exceeding expectations and hit .378 in his two seasons, earning Pac-10 Newcomer of the Year honors in 2008 and Pac-10 Player of the Year honors in 2009. He hit 30 homers in his two seasons and stole 51 bases before Cleveland took him in the second round in 2009.
“That email turned into a phone call, that phone call turned into a scholarship, that scholarship turned into fast forward years later, the Hall of Fame,” Kipnis said. “I can’t thank ASU enough for the second chance that I was given here to turn my life around and to take it seriously with the opportunity I had.”
The class will be officially inducted during halftime when ASU football hosts Colorado at Mountain America Stadium.