Sports Hall of Fame honors Brissie

Stories of fond memories and high hopes filled Saturday evening at The Wesley Center, with the North Augusta Sports Hall of Fame's seventh annual induction ceremony touching on several local generations of action in football, basketball, baseball and more.

Sharing the spotlight, as outlined over the past couple of weeks in The Star, were Beth McKie Meyer, Jim Bush, Sammy Twiggs and the entire North Augusta High School football team of 1961 (represented Saturday at the lectern by Cally Gault, the head coach). Also honored, with "Athlete of Distinction" awards, were Scott Brown, Ron Allen, Nicole Fuller, Colt Gross, Montez McGuire, Bob Miller, Vinny Miller, Dan Pippin, Derrick Quinn, Sydney Seigler and Evan Williams, in connection with recent performance in settings ranging from Lions Field to terrorist havens in Iraq.

Among the evening's oldest honorees was the namesake of the Lou Brissie Award, known to many for having set his budding baseball career aside for service in World War II in Italy, where he sustained major leg injuries that set the stage for three years of rehabilitation and came back to pitch in the major leagues.

A promotion for Brissie's biography, "The Corporal was a Pitcher," noted that "the left-handed Lou Brissie - wearing a huge brace on his left, partially immobile leg and now a strike-out ace - made the 1949 American League All-Star team on merit, along with such stars as Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Bob Feller."

John Felak, the sports commission's chairman, commented Monday on the tribute named in Brissie's honor - an award to recognize people who demonstrate strong character and are a credit to the community, he noted.

"We felt we needed an award to let the Hall of Fame recognize people that would not qualify because their athletic careers never occurred in North Augusta and yet have made significant contributions to our community in the field of athletics."

Felak noted that Brissie has lived in North Augusta for more than 40 years. He added, "This is not an annual award. It will be given when the commission feels there is a proper recipient."