ELON, N.C. – Elon University has announced the 33rd class of its Sports Hall of Fame, and will induct six honorees – basketball and soccer player Katie Breaux, baseball and football player Robert Burnett, soccer and softball player Kristine Howard, baseball coach Rick Jones, tennis player Peter Lindstrom and football player Stephen Vargas – during its annual ceremony at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Whitley Auditorium on the Elon campus.
Breaux will be inducted by former Elon sports information director Bill Grubbs; Burnett will be inducted by former Elon defensive line coach Larry Stephens; Howard will be inducted by her sister, Linda Adams; Jones will be inducted by Elon associate director of athletics Kyle Wills; Lindstrom will be inducted by former Elon tennis coach Tom Parham and Vargas will be inducted by former Elon head football coach Jerry Tolley.
The former Katie McGrath, Breaux captured Stein H. Basnight Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year honors in both 1991 and 1992. She lettered four times in basketball and four times in soccer. On the soccer field, the four-time All-American earned all-conference accolades four times, all-district distinction four times, All-South Region recognition three times, Second Team All-America status twice and First Team All-America honors twice.
Breaux, Elon’s first four-time All-American – and one of just two such honorees ever – in any sport at any level, was named the 1990 South Atlantic Conference Freshman of the Year, the 1992 South Regional Most Outstanding Defensive Player and a 1992 All-NAIA Tournament member. She was an NAIA Second Team All-American as a freshman in 1990, a NAIA First Team All-American as a sophomore in 1991 and as a junior in 1992 and an NCAA-II Second Team All-American as a senior in 1993.
Breaux still ranks among Elon’s top five all-time women’s soccer players in single-season starts (tied for fourth with 24 in 1992) and career games played (tied for fifth with 77). The midfielder/defender tallied 16 goals, 12 assists and 44 points during her career while Elon posted a 58-19-2 overall record (.747), including a 27-2 mark (.931) in the district and a 24-2 slate (.923) in the conference while claiming four league titles and two district crowns.
On the basketball court, the point guard averaged 5.0 points and 3.4 assists per game as a senior. Breaux lettered for the cross-country team in 1994 before earning a B.S. degree in accounting from Elon in 1995. An active Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity member since 1992, she received a business education teaching certificate in 2000. Breaux was inducted into the Pinkerton High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.
The Auburn, N.H. native and Lafayette, La. resident serves as a business teacher and the head girls’ soccer coach at Lafayette High School. Last season, she guided Lafayette to a 21-5 record and an appearance in the state tournament’s semi-finals on her way to District Coach of the Year honors.
Breaux has also worked as a head girls’ soccer coach at Comeaux High School (1999-2001) and New Iberia Senior High School (2001-03) and as the head girls’ basketball coach at the Academy of the Sacred Heart (1996-98). She has also been a coach and trainer for the Cajun Soccer Club since 1999. Breaux and her husband, Carl, have a son, Garrett (13).
Burnett – a four-year letterman in football and a three-year letterman in baseball – earned NCAA-II Second Team All-America accolades as a defensive back in 1993. He achieved all-conference status three consecutive football seasons – second team as a sophomore in 1992 and first team in 1993 as a junior and as a senior in 1994.
Burnett was also named the South Atlantic Conference Defensive Player of the Year as well as a first team all-region selection after hauling in a league-leading eight interceptions in 1993. He finished his career with 190 tackles, 27 pass deflections and 15 interceptions. Those 15 picks tie him for the fifth-best career total among Elon’s all-time interception leaders. Burnett helped his football teams to a 27-15 record (.643) during his career at Elon – 6-5 in 1991, 8-2 in 1992, 8-3 in 1993 and 5-5 in 1994.
On the baseball diamond, he put up a team-leading .395 batting average in 1993 for the South Atlantic Conference’s fourth-best batting average. In 1994, he was chosen to the league’s all-tournament team. For his three baseball seasons at Elon, he amassed 110 hits, 13 home runs and 83 RBIs to go with a .312 career batting average.
The 1996 Elon graduate earned a B.A. degree in psychology. In 1998, Burnett flew to Norway to compete in the Norwegian Football League for six months and went on to claim both a championship and MVP honors. In 2000, he played in the Central North Carolina Men’s Senior Baseball League, in which he also received MVP recognition. In 2002, the versatile Burnett was crowned the heavyweight champion of Raleigh’s Toughman Competition.
The Jacksonville, N.C. native and Franklin, N.C. resident is a relief supervisor for Pet Dairy/Flavorich in Garner, N.C., a position that he has held since October 1999. Prior to his current post, Burnett served as a counselor technician for the North Carolina Department of Youth Services in Butner, N.C. for two years. He and his wife, April, have a daughter, Alissa (five) and a son, Robert (two).
The former Kristine Porter, Howard earned a pair of letters in soccer (1986, 1987) and three more (1986, 1987, 1988) in softball. Despite only playing two seasons, the goalkeeper still ranks second in the program’s history with 250 career saves. Her 140 saves in 1987 still rate as Elon’s highest total in a single while her 110 saves in 1986 represent the fourth-best tally. She is tied for first among the program’s all-time single-season leaders with her 10 shutouts in 1987 and ranked fifth with her eight shutouts in 1986. Her school-record 43 saves versus the University of North Carolina on Oct. 4, 1987 still stands.
Howard helped her soccer teams to a 20-12 mark (.625) – 10-3 in 1986 and 10-9 in 1987. An outfielder for the Elon softball squad, she earned both all-conference and all-district status in 1987. She batted .421 for her career with 107 hits, seven home runs and 49 RBIs. Her best season was the 1987 campaign in which she hit .557 with 29 RBIs and posted a 1.000 fielding percentage. During the 1986-87 academic year, Howard racked up both soccer and softball MVP accolades on her way to earning Stein H. Basnight Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year distinction.
Howard attended Elon three years (1985-88) before transferring to Guilford in the fall of 1988, where she received her B.S. degree in business administration in 1989. She later returned to the softball diamond to collect USSSA All-World honors five years (1996-2000). Howard has also been a ReMax World Long Drive finalist the past three years (2002-04).
The Windham, N.J. native and Pittsboro, N.C. resident has been the owner of Classics Interiors, Inc. in Cary, N.C. – and a Parade of Homes and Street of Dreams award-winning designer in Wake County – since 2001. Other positions that Howard has held include the assistant general manager of the Burlington Indians (1990-91), the advertising director for Baseball America (1991-99) and as the senior account executive of Nextel Communications (1999-2001). She is married to Dwayne Howard.
Jones coached Elon to a 174-61 record (.740) during his five-year tenure (1985-89), including a 61-23 mark (.623) in league competition. His squads put up records of 40-10 in 1985, 35-14 in 1986, 37-13 in 1987, 26-15 in 1988 and 36-9 in 1989 while claiming four conference championships, four district crowns, two area titles and three NAIA national tournament appearances.
Elon ended up fourth in the NAIA national poll in 1985, sixth in 1989 and ninth in 1987 for three top-10 finishes in five years. Jones achieved Coach of the Year status three times in the district (1985, 1987, 1989), twice in the conference (1985, 1989) and one for all of NAIA (1989) while at Elon.
Before coming to Elon, Jones directed Ferrum to a 102-32-1 slate (.759) and a pair of NCAA-III regional berths during a three-year stint (1982-84). Since leaving Elon, he has guided Tulane to a 467-225-1 ledger (.675) during the past 11 seasons, including a 196-88-1 mark (.689) in conference action. During those 11 campaigns, Jones’ teams have appeared in nine regional tournaments, making it all the way to the NCAA Division I College World Series in 2001 when the Green Wave turned in a best-ever 56-13 record (.812).
He has also been a head coach at E.E. Smith High School in Fayetteville, N.C. (1979-81) and an assistant coach at Georgia Tech (pitching coach in 1990 and assistant head coach/recruiting coordinator in 1991-93). During his 19-year career as a head college baseball coach, Jones has posted a 743-318-2 slate (.700) and guided his squads to six conference regular season championships and four league tournament titles. Altogether, he has been declared a Coach of the Year 17 times.
While at Tulane, Jones has coached five consecutive Conference USA Players of the Year from 1998-2003, a pair of National Freshmen of the Year and 12 All-Americans. In addition, 41 of his players have earned All-Conference USA honors, and 39 of his former student-athletes have signed professional contracts. He currently ranks among the NCAA’s top 30 all-time winningest baseball coaches and top 10 winningest active baseball coaches.
A former college pitcher, Jones earned a B.S. degree in physical education from UNC Wilmington in 1975 and an M.A. degree in physical education from North Carolina A&T in 1977. The Bennett, N.C. native is married to the former Gina Zwan, a special education teacher and assistant principal in the Jefferson Parish School system.
A four-year letterman on the tennis courts for Elon, Lindstrom earned all-conference accolades four times, all-district distinction three times, conference scholar-athlete honors twice, the South Atlantic Conference President’s Award for Academic and Athletic Excellence twice, All-America status three times (NAIA First Team in 1991, NCAA-II Second Team in 1993 and NCAA-II First Team in 1994) and GTE First Team Academic All-America recognition twice.
He was named the conference freshman of the year in 1991 and team, conference and district MVP honors as a junior in 1993. Lindstrom finished ranked seventh in the country in both singles and doubles with partner Danny Colangelo at the NCAA-II level as a senior in 1994. He was crowned the A.L. Hook Scholar-Athlete three consecutive years (1992, 1993 and 1994) and was declared the Stein H. Basnight Outstanding Male Athlete of the Year as a junior in 1993 after turning in a career-best 24-2 singles record.
Lindstrom graduated from Elon in 1994 with B.S. degrees in computer science, mathematics and physics along with a 3.98 grade-point average. He earned a Ph.D. in computer science at George Tech in 2000. The Stockholm, Sweden native and Livermore, Calif. resident has served as a computer scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 2000. Prior to that, he served Georgia Tech as a research assistant (1994-2000).
His other honors include the 1994 Elon Mathematics Academic Achievement Award, the 1994 Elon Computer Science Academic Achievement Award, a 1994 NCAA Postgraduate Fellowship, the 1994 NCAA-II Men’s Tennis East Region Arthur Ashe Sportsmanship Award, the 1999 Link Foundation Fellowship, the 2002 LLNL Defense and Nuclear Technologies Achievement Award for Outstanding Visualization Support and the 2002 Elon Young Alumnus of the Year Award for Professional Distinction.
Lindstrom is also a member of the Alpha Chi Honor Society and the Kappa Mu Epsilon Honor Society. He and his wife, Kerrie, have a daughter, Johanna (two-and-a-half months).
Vargas lettered for the football team in 1980, 1981 and 1982, helping Elon to a 31-5-1 slate (.851) and a pair of NAIA national championships during that time. In 1980, he hauled in 23 receptions for 352 yards – 15.3 per catch – and five touchdowns for the 13-1 squad. In 1981, Vargas made 18 catches for 334 yards – 18.5 per reception – for the 11-1-1 team. In 1982, he amassed 35 receptions for 456 yards – 16.2 per catch – and four touchdowns as the 7-3 team’s top receiver.
Also in 1982, Vargas registered all-conference and all-district accolades as well as Elon’s Golden Helmet Coach’s Award. For his career, Vargas ended up with 76 receptions for 1,255 yards – 16.5 per catch – and nine touchdowns. He ranks fourth among Elon’s all-time career leaders in yards per reception, fifth in receiving yards and eighth in receptions.
The Laurinburg, N.C. native and Raleigh, N.C. resident received a B.A. degree from Elon in business administration with a minor in Spanish in 1983. He is currently self employed in medical sales and has held the positions of production manager at Burlington Industries, Inc. in Durham, N.C. (1982-84), sales representative at Carter Machinery in Roanoke, Va. (1984-87), partner with Varcon, Inc. in Raleigh, N.C. (1987-1992), account executive at MCI Telecommunications, Inc. in Raleigh, N.C. (1992-95), senior sales executive at Pitney Bowes in Raleigh, N.C. (1995-2002) and sales executive at Sentric Medical in Raleigh, N.C. (2002-04). Vargas and his wife, Patti, have two children, Caitlin (16) and Carson (five).
The annual Elon Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be just one of many highlights of the second annual E Club Day, which will also feature special ceremonies to honor the 40-year anniversary of Elon’s 1964 Carolinas Conference championship football team and the women athletes of the 1970’s.
Both reunion groups will have festivities following the induction ceremony and prior to the 6 p.m. Phoenix football game versus No. 8 Wofford at Rhodes Stadium. The cost is $15 per person and questions may be directed to the Elon Athletics Foundation at (336) 278-6709.
The E Club was created to honor former Elon varsity student-athletes. E Club Day gives those former athletes a chance to reunite with their teammates and coaches as well as meet new players.
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