Bob Elias Kern Sports Hall of Fame dinner coming up on Thursday
By going undefeated and winning an NCAA Division II title, the 1993 Cal State Bakersfield men’s basketball team ensured that the names of players like Roheen Oats, Tyrone Davis and Kenny Warren would be inscribed in the annals of local history.
That Roadrunners squad, as a whole, will now earn one of the highest honors possible in Bakersfield sports when it becomes the first team ever inducted into the Bob Elias Kern County Sports Hall of Fame at this Thursday’s event.
Nearly 30 years removed from its championship victory over Troy, the team is the centerpiece of a formidable class that includes two-sport star and eventual pro quarterback Cody Kessler, fellow NFL player George Jones and a pair of posthumous inductees in championship hurdler Lee Adams and Kern County Soccer Park progenitor John Trino.
Kessler became the first player to earn BVarsity All-Area player of the year honors in both football and basketball, but he soon focused his talents on the gridiron. That choice led him down a successful path, as he started at quarterback at USC, went in the third round of the 2016 NFL Draft to Cleveland and played four years in the NFL.
Jones helped lead Bakersfield College to a pair of Potato Bowl titles, as a rare out-of-state star running back for the Renegades. He broke one rushing record after another and continued his breakneck pace at San Diego State, where he beat out Marshall Faulk on the Aztecs’ all-time lists.
Adams spent his later years in Bakersfield coaching track at Foothill and leading CSUB’s Educational
Opportunity Program before he died in 2000. In his youth, however, Adams had shone on the track himself as co-captain of the Renegades. Later, at Kansas, he helped the Jayhawks to two conference championships and put in an eye-popping 6.6second showing in the 60-yard low hurdles in 1967.
Trino leased the land, enacted the vision and executed the 1988 opening for Kern County Soccer Park, which became a hub for the local sports community. A soccer official and an athlete in his own right, Trino died on Oct. 9.
The organization unveiled these honorees at a luncheon at Mechanics Bank Arena back in December and will now celebrate them as part of its traditional induction festivities at the Bakersfield Marriott downtown. The reception begins at 5:30 p.m. Thursday night, with a ceremony slated for 7 p.m. This will be the event’s second year back after it was canceled for the only time ever in 2021.
Tickets are available online at https://kcsportshalloffame.org/ and may also be purchased in person at the arena or Raymond’s Trophy & Awards.