New class brings diversity
The San Jose Sports Hall of Fame inducted its 24th class Wednesday night, and, as usual, it was a big affair with hundreds of people — including Sharks players Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski — attending the dinner ceremony at SAP Center.
But what really stood out for me was how “small town” it felt — and I mean that in a positive way. It’s often the case, but this year’s selections by the Hall of Fame board really showcased San Jose’s diversity. A simple sketch of the honorees shows it well: Harry Edwards, the conscience of sports and a one-time member of the Black Panther Party; Pat Hurst, a star on the LPGA circuit who is of mixed Japanese and German ancestry; Mark Langston, a suburban kid who played soccer and baseball in Santa Clara before hitting it big with the Seattle Mariners; and Evgeni Nabokov, a hockey goalie from Russia who embraced San Jose as home.
That small town feeling was only enhanced by the awards given to high school athletes Haley Jones of Archbishop Mitty and Tariq Bracy of Milpitas High, college athletes Katie Ledecky and Foster Langsdorf, both of Stanford, and Danielle Blue, the Special Olympics Athlete of the Year who received the evening’s first standing ovation.
If there’s a theme that runs through the Hall of Fame honorees, it’s that they’ve all stayed connected to this community to some degree. At San Jose State, Hurst is an assistant women’s golf coach and Edwards has been a key player in the university’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Tommie Smith-John Carlos protest at the Mexico City Olympics. Langston, while serving as a broadcaster for the Los Angeles Angels, also was back at SJSU recently for an alumni baseball event.
In addition to Thornton and Pavelski, Nabokov was joined at his table by former teammates Owen Nolan and Mike Ricci. Now a goalies development coach for the San Jose Barracuda, Nabokov spoke a great deal Wednesday night about how much he enjoyed calling San Jose home. He said he didn’t hesitate when Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson
invited Nabokov to return to the team so he could retire as a Shark in 2015.
Not every athlete or coach who has passed through Santa Clara County has had a strong connection to this area, but look at the bronze plaques that ring the SAP Center concourse one day and you’ll see dozens of them — and now there are four more.
FROM ELECTIONS TO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL » I
caught up last week with political analyst Larry Gerston, who recently retired from San Jose State, but we didn’t talk much about the midterm elections. Instead, we spoke about his new career as a children’s book author. Gerston, who has written several textbooks and many books on state government, dipped his toe into the kid-lit genre with “The Road to Hana” in 2015, and now he’s had his second book published, “Wendell the Working Worm.”
Gerston said self-esteem is the book’s theme, and he drew on his own experience with insecurity while growing up. “I think kids today still have a problem with self-esteem and differences,” he said.
The Wooden Horse toy store in Los Gatos will host Gerston for a reading at 1 p.m. Sunday, where he’ll be joined by critters provided by the Youth Science Institute. No doubt the younger audience will be more attentive than his college students were. WORKSHOP FEATURES ELA GANDHI » The granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, will lead a workshop on nonviolence with Ellen Grace O’Brian, founder of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, on Sunday at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose. At the 12:30 p.m. “Be the One” event, Ela Gandhi will share stories and lessons from her grandfather and talk about how they can be applied today.
Tickets to the five-hour workshop, sponsored by Carry the Vision and Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave
Cortese, are $35.Get more information at carrythevision.org/events/betheone.