The Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation announced plans to honor six former high school coaches, a former college coach and a current college athletic director during the annual Spring Honors and Awards Banquet April 11 at the Little America Hotel.
The Distinguished High School Coaches include Kerry Anderson, Donald Hall, Danny Hill, Jim Nelson, Glen Partridge and Jay Welk. Jim Blaisdell will be honored as a Coach of Merit, and Jerry Bovee will receive a Distinguished Service Award.
Anderson coached Wayne High's wrestling and track teams for 39 years and won a Utah-record 16 state wrestling championships. He also coached the Badgers' girls track and field teams to seven state titles, including six in a row. Hall's Ogden High School track teams won 11 state championships and posted 20 other top-four finishes.
Hill spent 42 years working at Gunnison Valley High School and coached basketball for 32 seasons. He won four state championships, all in the 1970s. Nelson's 572 wins as Spanish Fork High School's baseball coach ranks No. 2 among baseball coaches in Utah and No. 1 in wins at one school. His six state titles came in four decades and three classifications.
Partridge earned 10 state titles and seven second-place finishes while coaching boys track and field at Delta, North Sevier and Panguitch. Welk won a 2002 basketball state championship, finished second three times and reached the semifinals four other times in his 24 years at Davis High School, where he compiled a 351-199 record.
Blaisdell's Weber State women's teams won nine indoor track championships, five outdoor track titles and four cross-country championships — with those titles coming consecutively in 2002-05. Bovee, now Weber State's athletic director, spent 12 years as assistant director of the Utah High School Activities Association after working in Utah State's athletic department.
Tickets ($50) for the dinner and awards presentation are available online at utahsportshalloffame.org. For more information, call Chuck Schell at (801) 262-9095 or Neil Petty at (801) 944-2379.