Brad Wilkerson Named To National College Baseball Hall Of Fame Ballot
Friday, February 24, 2012 | Baseball
The National College Baseball Hall of Fame announced on Friday that voting is now underway for the 2012 Class of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in Lubbock, Texas. The ballot to select this year's inductees features 69 worthy candidates.
Former Gator Brad Wilkerson, the only three-time All-American in Florida baseball history, is one of 32 players on the “1964-2001” portion of the ballot. The members of the 2012 College Baseball Hall of Fame Class will be announced in late February once all the ballots have been tallied and the results verified.
A finalist for the 1998 Golden Spikes Award, Wilkerson was named as the 1998 Collegiate Player of the Year by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and won the Smith Award given to the National Collegiate Baseball Player of the Year as selected by CoSIDA. He was a 1998 first-team All-American selection by Baseball Weekly, Baseball America, Sporting News and Collegiate Baseball after being the Preseason Player of the Year by Collegiate Baseball. Wilkerson re-set UF career batting average, HR, RBI, runs, walks and slugging percentage standards during his career and broke seven individual season batting records and tied/re-set seven individual performance marks.
The Owensboro, Ky., native had 55 career home runs, the eighth player in SEC history to hit 50 or more home runs. He reached base safely in 141-consecutive games at one point of career, reached base in 190 of 195 career games and was the first player in NCAA history to hit 20 home runs, win 10 games and steal 20 bases. Wilkerson was the Most Outstanding Player of the 1996 NCAA East Regional held in Gainesville, a member of the 1996 College World Series All-Tournament team and earned All-SEC and ABCA All-South Region honors from 1996-98.
“This year's ballot is arranged differently,” said Mike Gustafson, executive director of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame. “We have five ballot categories to ensure representation from each category in the final induction class.”
The five voting categories consist of the Vintage Era (pre-1964) players and coaches, small school (non-NCAA Division I) players, small school (non-NCAA Division I) coaches, players from the 1964-2001 era and NCAA Division I coaches. The ballot is highlighted by 16 coaches with at least 1,000 wins and 19 National Players of the Year.
For the fourth year, the ballot features players and coaches from the NAIA, NCAA Divisions II and III and two-year colleges. Eventual Major League stars Tino Martinez and Alex Fernandez, as well as NCAA Division III “Coach of the Century” Don Schaly and Ed Cheff -- who won more than 1700 games and 16 NAIA national titles -- are featured in these categories.
“After three years of the 'small school' category, only coaches had been selected. We felt it was a disadvantage to the players to be in the same category as coaches who had hundreds or even a thousand or more wins,” Gustafson said. “I'm excited to see which player is selected from this new category of the ballot.”
Schools from across the country are represented on the ballot, from the University of Florida to Cal State Fullerton. Several schools have multiple candidates, led by USC with five. The star-studded “1964-2001” portion of the ballot features 32 players, most of whom were multiple-time All-Americans and/or National Players of the Year.
Those selected will join previous inductees, including coaches Jim Brock of Arizona State, Jerry Kindall of Arizona, Bob Bennett of Fresno State, Ron Polk of Mississippi State and the late Rod Dedeaux of USC; and players Barry Larkin of Michigan, John Olerud of Washington State, Derek Tatsuno of Hawaii and Danny Goodwin of Southern University.
The voting panel is composed of approximately 210 members. It is comprised of national and regional college baseball media, active and retired coaches, media and coaches from the “small school” category, a group of about a dozen former players, a group of “college baseball historians” and about 10 members of the Society for American Baseball Research collegiate baseball committee. Past College Baseball Hall of Fame inductees also vote.
To be eligible for the College Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, players must have completed one year of competition at a two-year or four-year institution and/or earned verifiable national acclaim. A coach must be retired for a full year or may be included on the ballot at the age of 75, if active.
This year's selections will again be joined by a player or coach to be chosen by the Black College Legends and Pioneers committee. They will be inducted as part of the College Baseball Hall of Fame's “Night of Champions” event, which will take place on June 30 in Lubbock, Texas.
2012 College Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot
Vintage/Pre-1964
Tim Borland
Jack Coffey
Eddie Collins
Clint Evans
Ray Fisher
Al Hartman
Gene Hooks
C.R. "Dudy" Noble
Frank Sancet
Mickey Sullivan
Murray Wall
1964-2001
Rusty Adkins
Bill Almon
Earl Bass
Kris Benson
Bill Bordley
Dave Chalk
Casey Close
Mike Fiore
Javier Flores
Mike Fuentes
Nomar Garciaparra
Gary Gentry
Jim Gideon
Orlando Gonzalez
Jeffrey Hammonds
Bobby Jones
Mike Kelly
Gene Larkin
Jeff Ledbetter
Bill Lee
Mike Loynd
Mark McGwire
Kevin McReynolds
Phil Nevin
Gregg Olson
Tom Paciorek
Marteese Robinson
Ira Smith
Mike Smith
Brent Strom
Frank Viola
Brad Wilkerson (Florida, 1996-98)
Small School Coach
Ed Cheff
Dave "Boo" Ferriss
Ric Lessman
Demie Mainieri
Art Mazmanian
Don Schaly
Lloyd Simmons
Tommy Thomas
Frank "Porky" Vieira
Small School Player
Joe Arnold (*was head coach at Florida from 1984-94)
Doug Ault
Tim Burzette
John Deutsch
Alex Fernandez
Tim Jorgensen
Tino Martinez
Ken Voges
Coaches
Pete Butler
Norm DeBriyn
Wayne Graham
Chuck Hartman
Larry Hays
Les Murakami
Al Ogletree
Jack Stallings
John Winkin
