RENTON – Former Shorewood soccer star Lori Henry and longtime South Whidbey tennis coach Tom Kramer were two of the six individuals honored Wednesday at the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association Hall of Fame luncheon at the the Renton Pavilion Event Center.
Henry, who was a high school All-American during her junior year in 1983, also played basketball, softball and track and field for the Thunderbirds. She went on to play soccer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was the youngest member of the inaugural United State Soccer Federation Women’s National Team, where she won a World Cup in China in 1991.
After starting a women’s soccer program at Ohio State, she returned to the Pacific Northwest to get her Master’s in Education at Seattle Pacific Universtiy and is now a teacher in the Shoreline School District. She is the track and field coach at Kellogg Middle School, as well as an assistant coach for the Shorecrest girls soccer team.
Over 30 years ago, Kramer was a history teacher at what was then Langley High School when the principal asked him to coach the tennis team.
“I told him, ‘I didn’t know anything about tennis,’” Kramer told the audience at the luncheon. “He said, ‘It didn’t matter.’”
All Kramer did afterward was lead South Whidbey to 23 district championships, 18 top-six finishes at state and six state team titles – with 11 individual state champions. He coached over 70 tennis seasons – with boys and girls combined – and was named one of The Herald’s top ten coaches of the decade (2000-2009). Kramer was inducted into the South Whidbey High School Coaches Hall of Fame in 2013.
While leading the Falcons, Kramer coached his own daughter to a singles state championship when she was a freshman at South Whidbey. Karyle Kramer went on to win three individual state titles and took over for her father as coach of the Falcons when he stepped down before the 2012 season.
The WIAA Hall of Fame banquet seeks to honor those that “have helped shape the rich tradition of high school activities in our state and have set a standard of excellence, both on and off the playing surface, that embodies the values and ideals of high school activities.” Along with inducting six individuals into the Hall of Fame, the WIAA also awarded two scholarships to student athletes, with Jenna Moser (Colton H.S.) and Drew Wallen (Auburn Riverside H.S.) winning the awards.
The six Hall of Fame inductees were:
- Lori Henry, athlete, Shorewood
- Kate Starbird, athlete, Lakes
- Dave Weatherred, fine arts, Spokane Public Schools
- Jim Clem, coach, Dayton and Burlington-Edison
- Tom Kramer, coach, South Whidbey
- Steve Colby, referee
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