UP Athletics Hall of Fame
PORTLAND, Ore. --- The University of Portland Athletic Department is inducting Kasey Keller (Men's Soccer), Ryan Nelson (Men's Golf), Jim Sollars (Women's Basketball), Uli Steidl (Men's Cross Country/Track), Steve Wilson (Baseball) and the 2005 Women's Soccer Team into its Athletic Hall of Fame. The six inductees will be honored at a banquet on Saturday, October 1 in the Beauchamp Recreation Center on the University of Portland campus.
Tickets to the event are $30 per person, or $240 for an entire table, and must be purchased in advanced. To make reservations and purchase tickets, please call Mary Virnig in the UP Athletics Department at 503-943-7117, or via email at virnig@up.edu.
The banquet is scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m. and will be preceded by a reception, which is set for 6:00 p.m.
The University of Portland Athletic Hall of Fame was instituted in 1991 and currently consists of 99 inductees. The last induction ceremony came during the fall of 2014.
Here is a look at the 2016 UP Athletics Hall of Fame inductees:
Kasey Keller – Men's Soccer (1988-91)
• Retired from professional soccer in 2011, ending a career which spanned 23 years, four World Cups and four countries.
• Has worked in broadcasting since retiring from the pitch.
• Was named U.S. Soccer's Athlete of the Year an unprecedented three times (1997, 1999 and 2005).
• He has the second most caps and wins of any men's goalkeeper in U.S. soccer history with 102 and 53, respectively, and he still leads the U.S. National Team in shutouts (47) and World Cup qualifying appearances (31).
• Competed in four World Cups (1990, 1998, 2002 & 2006).
• played more than 300 matches in three of the world's top leagues: England's Premier League, Spain's La Liga and Germany's Bundesliga.
• He was a three-time All-American for the Pilots and was named the collegiate goalkeeper of the year in 1991.
• He is still the school's all-time leader in career shutouts (43.0) and goals-against average (0.64).
• He also claims the program's two best GAA's in a single season, posting a GAA of 0.33 in 1988 and 0.40 in 1989.
• He holds the top three spots for shutouts in a season with 14.5 blank sheets in 1988, 12.5 in 1989 and 10 in 1990.
• In 1988, he helped lead the Pilots to the school's first ever NCAA College Cup appearance.
• Portland, which lost to host Indiana in the 1988 semifinals, reached the post season all four seasons with Keller between the pipes.
• Was inducted into the WCC's Hall of Honor in 2012.
Ryan Nelson - Men's Golf (1996-2000)
• Three-time All-West Coast Conference
• Holds the program record for lowest 18-hole score (65), lowest 36-hole score (133), and lowest 54-hole score (203) which were all set at the Idaho Vandal Classic in1998.
• He won medalist honors at the Vandal Classic to help the Pilots take the team title.
• Ranks second all-time at UP in scoring average (74.6) and he posted a school-record 28 rounds below par during his career.
• Placed fourth at the 2000 NCAA Western Regional to earn a berth into the 2000 NCAA National Championship.
• Has 2 career collegiate wins, 10 top-10 finishes and 13 top-20 finishes.
• Qualified for the U.S open in 2011 and 2013.
• Has played in a handful of Web.Com Tour Tournaments, claiming one top-10 finish and four finishes in the top 25.
• Posted four wins on the Adams Professional Golf Tour and was the 2010 Money Leader and Player of the year.
• Played on the eGolf Professional Tour (2011-2016), claiming seven wins; was also the 2014 Money leader Tour Player of the year.
Jim Sollars – Women's Basketball Head Coach (1986-2014)
• Ended his career second all-time in WCC wins with 166.
• He won 388 games at UP, compiled 411 victories overall at the NCAA Division I level, and posted a 565-513 career record as a collegiate head coach.
• Was a five-time WCC Coach of the Year.
• Also served the University as a history professor during his first 11 years on The Bluff.
• Under Sollars' leadership at Portland, 39 players earned All-WCC honors, four players were named the WCC Player of the Year, and he coached two Pilots (Laura Sale and Deana Lansing) to honorable mention All-America status.
• He also guided 41 WCC All-Academic Team selections, 14 CoSIDA Academic All-Region Team picks and one WCC Scholar Athlete of the Year, while two athletes earned first team CoSIDA Academic All-America honors.
• He claimed the school's first WCC Basketball Championship (men or women) in 1991-92 and he earned his second WCC Coach of the Year honor that year, making him the first coach in the WCC to win the award twice.
• During the 1990's, Sollars had four consecutive NCAA Tournament berths (1993-97), including the first in school history in 1993-94.
• From 1993-99, Sollars and the Pilots compiled a 125-51 (.710) record.
• His 1993-94 team captured the WCC Tournament Championship to earn the school's first NCAA Tournament bid; Sollars guided the Pilots to NCAA at-large berths in 1995, 1996 and 1997.
• During that 1996-97 season, the team went 27-3 overall for the second-highest win total in program history, won a second-consecutive WCC Championship (the third overall during Sollars' tenure), became the first team in league history to go undefeated (14-0) in WCC play and was the school's first NCAA Division-I basketball team to earn a national ranking (highest rating No. 21 USA Today/No. 25 in the final poll); Sollars was named WBCA District-8 Coach of the Year and was WCC Coach of the Year for a fourth time.
• He nabbed his fifth and final league coach of the year honor in 2008-09 when he led the Pilots to the WNIT.
• A berth to the WBI followed in 2009-10, giving Sollars seven postseason trips during his storied career.
• Was inducted into the WCC's Hall of Honor in 2015.
Uli Steidl - Men's Cross Country/Track (1993-97)
• 1996 Cross Country All-American; his 16th place individual finish at the NCAA XC Championships was at the time the highest finish in program history and it helped the Pilots finish 10th as a team.
• He was also 44th at the NCAA Championships in 1993 and 36th in 1995.
• Four times he finished in the top 10 at NCAA Rgionals, something no other Pilot has done.
• 1997 WCC Scholar-Athlete of the Year
• 1997 University of Portland Athlete of the Year
• Won the 1994 WCC Individual title to help the Pilots claim the team title, their 16th straight.
• At the end of his collegiate career, he claimed the second fastest 3000m (8:14:84) and 5000m (14:06.64) in program history, and held the third fastest 10,000m (29:16.44).
• Six-time NCAA Qualifier in both Cross Country and Track.
• After college Steidl became one of the top road runners in the Pacific Northwest and the dominant marathoner in Washington with 10 Seattle Marathon wins (1999 - 2006, 2012-2013), five Vancouver Marathon wins (2000 - 2004) and a still-standing Portland Marathon course record (2:17:21, 1997).
• He has 14 sub-2:20h marathons to his credit, and he has also won multiple ultramarathons (50k and 50 miles), breaking several the course records along the way.
• Following a 12th-place finish at the 2007 Boston Marathon he was named to the German Team for the 2007 IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan, where he finished 37th out of 85 starters in the marathon.
• He won the masters division at the 2012 Boston Marathon in April 2012 with a time of 2:23.08, which was 15th overall and fifth among American men.
• At the 2014 Boston Marathon, he once again won the masters division in 2:19:48.
• Has been an assistant coach at Seattle U for 10 years.
Steve Wilson - Baseball (1983-85)
• Spent all or parts of six season pitching in Major League Baseball with the Texas Rangers (1988), Chicago Cubs (1989-91) and Los Angeles Dodgers (1991-93).
• Was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the fourth round of the 1985 draft (83rd overall pick).
• Made his Major League debut with the Rangers on Sept. 16, 1988.
• Totaled 13 wins, six saves and 252 strikeouts.
• Played for Team Canada at the 1984 Summer Olympics.
• All-Pac 10 North Division First Team 1985; also voted Team MVP and Most Inspirational.
• Career Rankings at UP: Tied for third in complete games with 15, is sixth in opponents batting average (.203), is eighth in ERA (3.13), and he ranks 10th in K's per 9.0 innings (7.75).
• His ERA of 1.79 in 1983 still ranks fifth on the program's all-time single season charts.
• In three years on The Bluff, he compiled 13 wins and two saves, and he fanned 173.
• He also claimed ERA's of 3.86 in 1984 and 3.22 in 1985, and he held the opposition to a batting average of .193 in 1983, .203 in 1984 and .208 in 1985.
• He has two shutouts to his credit, and he
The 2005 Women's Soccer Team – NCAA National Champions
• The 2005 team went 23-0-2 to win the program's second NCAA National Championships in four years.
• They became only the second NCAA Division I to ever to go undefeated through an entire season.
• UP also became the second school ever to win multiple NCAA Championships.
• The Pilots out-scored their opponents 79-9 on the season and registered 17 shutouts.
• Senior Christine Sinclair scored an NCAA record 39 goals en route to winning her second MAC Hermann Trophy; that NCAA record still stands today.
• A then-NCAA record 40,841 fans packed into Merlo Field that season as Portland became the first school ever to crack the 40,000-fan mark.
• The NCAA Quarterfinal match-up with Notre Dame sold out in less than 10 minutes
• Portland swept the West Coast Conference awards as Christine Sinclair was named conference player of the year, Stephanie Lopez was tabbed the defensive player of the year, Megan Rapinoe was voted the league's freshman of the year and Garrett Smith took home coach of the year accolades
• Five Pilots were named All-Americans (Lindsey Huie, Stephanie (Lopez) Cox, Megan Rapinoe, Christine Sinclair, Angie (Woznuk) Kerr) and eight players (Natalie (Budge) Fields, Kari Evans, Huie, Cox, Rapinoe, Lisa (Sari) Chambers, Sinclair, Kerr) garnered all-conference honors.
• Sinclair was also awarded the Honda-Broderick Cup (awarded to the top NCAA athlete across all levels and all sports) and was named the CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year and the NSCAA Scholar All-American of the Year.