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Sports

UCLA Announces Hall of Fame Class

Eight Bruins athletes will be inducted during a ceremony in November.

UCLA has announced that eight former Bruins will be inducted into the school's Athletics Hall of Fame on Friday, November 4, during a dinner and ceremony in the J.D. Morgan Intercollegiate Athletics Center. The Class of 2011 will also be introduced at halftime of the UCLA-Arizona State football game November 5 at the Rose Bowl.

This year's inductees are baseball coach Gary Adams, Janeene Vickers-McKinney and Ato Boldon (track & field), Larry Nagler (tennis), Mel North (fencing), Theotis Brown and Ernie Case (football) and Alex Rousseau (volleyball). The UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame was begun in 1984 with 25 charter members and this year's class makes the total membership 247.

Gary Adams played second base for the Bruins in 1959-60 and 1962. He was the team captain and Most Valuable Player as a senior in 1962, leading the team with a .265 batting average and 12 stolen bases. Adams became head coach of the Bruins in 1975 and remained at the helm for the next 30 years, retiring with a career mark of 984-823-7. His teams won four Pac-10 titles and his 1997 team made the College World Series.

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Ato Boldon competed for two seasons (1995-96) on the track, leading the Bruins to consecutive Pac-10 team titles and winning the 100 and 200 meter events both times. He was ran on UCLA's Pac-10 champion 400 meter relay in 1996. His 9.90 mark in winning the 100 meters at the 1996 NCAA Outdoor Championships was an NCAA record. Boldon ran for his native Trinidad & Tobago in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympics.

A running back for the Bruins from 1976-78, Theotis Brown won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1976 and earned first-team All-Pac-10 honors in 1976 and 1978. He graduated as the school's single-season leader in all-purpose yards (1,804 yards in 1978), ranked second in career rushing yards (2,914) and touchdowns (27) and as the career all-purpose yards leader (3,944). He played six seasons in the NFL for St. Louis, Seattle and Kansas City.

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Ernie Case played football for the Bruins in 1940-41 and then from 1945-46 after serving in World War II. The starting quarterback and team captain in his last two seasons, Case led the Bruins to a 10-0 regular season record his senior year and threw for 165 yards and scored a touchdown in the a Rose Bowl loss to Illinois. He played on defense, kicked and punted as well. He went on to play one season with the Baltimore Colts in the NFL.

Larry Nagler was a three-time All-American and helped lead UCLA to back-to-back NCAA titles in 1960-61. He won the NCAA singles and doubles titles in 1960, going undefeated in singles play, and remains the only man to win three Pac-10 singles titles (1960-62). As a pro he was ranked as high as 11th in singles in the United States. He earned his law degree at UCLA and has a successful firm in Los Angeles.

Melvyn North coached the UCLA Fencing Club and varsity squad from 1960-1974 and again from 1980-82 and his teams compled a 218-18 record in dual and tri-meets, highlighted by a streak of 174 straight wins. North also founded the Intercollegiate Fencing Conference and the UCLA Invitational Fencing Tournament. He piloted the Bruins to 19 total championships. He coached the U.S. World team eight times and his students have competed in six Olympics and 15 World Cups.

A 6-foot-5 two-meter player, Alex Rousseau was a four-time water polo All-American at UCLA from 1985-89, earning second-team honors as a freshman and first-team honors as a sophomore, junior and senior. He was the team's leading scorer all four years and was the Most Valuable Player and captain in 1989 when he led the Bruins to the NCAA championship game, scoring eight goals against USC in the semifinals.

Janeene Vickers-McKinney won the the 400 hurdles Pac-10 title as a freshman in 1988 and before her career in Westwood was done she would win six more conference titles in hurdles and relays. She won three straight NCAA titles in the 400 hurdles (1989-91) and her time of 53.47 seconds in 1991 stood as the collegiate record until 2005. Vickers-McKinney won the bronze medal in the 400 hurdles at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

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