Induction Graduation Sport

2021 1978 Baseball

Jeff is a 1978 graduate of Hoover High School where he lettered three years in Baseball and was named First Team All-Federal and First Team All-County his junior and senior years.  Upon graduating from Hoover, Jeff went on to play Baseball at Ashland University where he lettered all four years and was named team captain his senior year.  By the end of his college career, Jeff had become the first player in Ashland University’s history to letter all four years and to have a career batting average over .300.  Jeff began playing in the Canton Class A League at the age of 18, with a career that spanned nearly 25 years.  During those years, he was a 3-time batting champion and a 3-time league MVP.  Jeff concluded his A League career and the first player in the league’s 100-year history to reach 1,000 career hits.  In 1991, Jeff was named Hoover High School’s Varsity Head Softball coach.  During this time as coach, his team won the school’s first two Softball state titles in 1998 & 1999.  Jeff concluded coaching Softball in 2004 with a record of 341-64 and subsequently went on to coach Hoover’s Varsity Baseball team from 2005 to 2018, finishing with a record of 247-143.  Jeff’s overall coaching record at Hoover High School is 588-207 over a span of 28 years.  Upon retiring in 2018, Jeff was the all-time winningest coach in Hoover’s school history.  Jeff has had the honor of being inducted into the Stark County Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame, Ashland University’s Sports Hal of Fame, and the Cy Young Tuscarawas County’s Old-Timers Hall of Fame.  Finally, on a ‘Hollywood’ note, Jeff was selected to be a Yankee’s player for the making of “The Babe Ruth Story,” which was filmed at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium in 1991.