Seven Notable Sports Figures Comprise Class of 2024

Kim Black (swimming)

Olympic gold medalist Kim Black was also a Rhodes Scholar finalist. She began swimming with the Sharks Swim Club at the age of eight at the Liverpool YMCA, and then competed for the Syracuse Chargers before attending the University of Georgia, where she was a three-time All-American, was named the 2001 NCAA Woman of the Year, earned the 2001 Walter Byers Award winner as the nation’s top female scholar-athlete and led the Bulldogs to three National Championships. She won Olympic gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and claimed seven medals (including five golds) at three World University Games. Black earned her undergraduate degree in biology in 2002 and also has three master's degrees. Black, who has been a member of a heart-transplant team, of a hurricane response group, and has volunteered in Kenya, Honduras and Tonga, owns and manages Kimberly Black Counseling and Consulting PLLC in Burnsville, N.C.

Jack Hanley (basketball/baseball) (posthumous)

A two-year captain at Assumption, Jack Hanley set a Parochial League season scoring record as a freshman, a league single-game mark as a sophomore (40 points), broke his own season record as a junior (413 points) and did it again as a senior (420 points).  A perennial league all-star, Hanley led Assumption’s 1955-56 edition to a 22-1 record. Hanley was also among the PL’s best baseball players. He hit for power and average and tossed two no-hitters his senior year, including a 15-strikeout gem in the league opener. He went 18-1 in three seasons for the West End Cubs. In 1959, he was drafted by both the Baltimore Orioles and and the U.S. Army. Stationed at Fort Hood. Later, Hanley worked for 27 years at Lockheed Martin and also coached youth basketball and baseball, and became an umpire. He passed away in 2014 at the age of 77.

Luke Hobika (golf)

A Syracuse District Golf Association (SDGA) Triple Crown winner, Luke Hobika has won more of our local golfing crown jewels — Herald-Journal/Post-Standard Amateur (six, including a Senior title), Gerry Ashe Memorial (two) and District Am (one) — than any other area amateur other than Mike Naton, Jim Roy and Alan Foster. In 1998, Hobika was the SDGA Player of the Year, having won his first New York State Mid-Amateur at Yahnundasis Golf Club. Hobika represented New York State in the 2016 United States Golf Association Three-Man Team Championship in Alabama. He’s won area majors in four decades.  In a six-year span, Hobika won four Herald/P-S Amateurs (1998, 2000, 2002, 2003). Hobika, who is a pharmacist, was inducted into the SDGA Hall of Fame in 2022. Last year, he won his first Post-Standard (AIM) Senior and was runner-up in the NYS Senior. This year, Hobika won a second consecutive P-S Senior title.

Dave Mirra (action sports)

Action sports icon Dave Mirra, who was discovered at age 13 by riders for the Haro professional team and turned pro as a teenager, is second all-time in X Games history with 24 medals. As a Bike motocross (BMX) racer, he was the first to land a double flip and first to win three gold medals in a single X Games (1998). A two-time Olympic medalist in BMX (silver, 1996 in Atlanta; bronze, 2000 in Sydney), Mirra was a nine-time world champion in BMX Freestyle. In 2011, Mirra retired from BMX and, ever active, took up rallycross and Ironman. Mirra took his own life at age 41, four months before entering the BMX Hall of Fame. Later diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), he left behind wife, Lauren, daughters, Madison and Mackenzie.

Pat Murphy (baseball)

A graduate of Christian Brothers Academy who now manages Major League Baseball's Milwaukee Brewers, Pat Murphy has coached baseball at all levels and also coached a bit of football at a couple of Division III schools. His coaching career has spanned four decades and four continents. Murphy managed the Dutch National Baseball Team to a win over Cuba in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and became the youngest manager in all of professional baseball when he skippered the Tri-City Triplets of the Northwest League in 1986 at the age of 27. On the collegiate level, Murphy's clubs at Notre Dame and Arizona State went 947-400-2 in 22 combined seasons.  He was the youngest coach, at the age of 37, to amass 500 wins in college baseball and 119 of the players he mentored were drafted by big-league teams, 38 of whom made it to the majors. 

Kristen Taylor (lacrosse)

A three-time All-American, Kristen Taylor was a three-time first-team All-CNY selection, the CNY Player of the Year in 2006 and a two-time Class-A NYS Tournament Most Valuable Player and a team captain. She was a two-year captain of both the F-M cross country and indoor track teams. She led the cross-country program to a Class-A sectional championship and was named first-team All-State, All-CNY and all-conference. A four-year member of the indoor track team, Taylor competed in events from 800-meter to 3,000-meter, advancing to the state championships. She was also a three-time Academic All-American. As a freshman at the University of North Carolina in 2006, Taylor scored a team-high 43 goals en route to earning All-Atlantic Coast Conference First Team honors. In 2016, Taylor was inducted into the F-M Hall of Fame.

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Susie Wynne (figure skating)

From the Camillus Skating Club in Shove Park in the 1970s to the 1988 Winter Olympics, Susie Wynne's figure skating career has taken her across the world. Wynne, along with her dance partner, Joseph Druar, earned an 11th-place finish at the Calgary Olympics in 1988. They also finished 5th-4th-3rd-2nd-1st-1st during a six-year run in the United States Figure Skating Championships between 1985-90, and 12th-9th-5th-4th over a four-year run in the World Figure Skating Championships between 1987-90. Wynne and her second dance partner, Russ Witherby, won the silver medal at the U.S Nationals in both 1993 and 1994, and finished 15th in the Worlds in 1993. The West Genesee High School graduate then ​became a celebrated television analyst traveling the globe for ABC, ESPN and FOX, working for years alongside the legendary likes of Dick Button and Peggy Fleming. Today, Wynne, who lives in Crystal Lake, Ill., can still be found on the ice as a teacher, a coach and a choreographer.