The Bishop Brossart Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2020, will be belatedly inducted this coming Saturday night at a dinner in their honor in the Thomas H. Seither Gymnasium
Ron Heiert graduated from Brossart High School in 1966, but he never really left. Following a stint in radio and PA, where he served as the PA Announcer for Xavier University, he returned to his alma mater in 1992 where he would spend the next 22 years as our Development Director. He oversaw the transition from our old St. Mary/Bishop Brossart building and the development of the Crouch Center phase. During those years, Ron was always our John Sadak of happiness, concern, emotion, and sympathy. Music was always a big part of Ron’s life, and those of us on hand that morning will never forget Ron’s rendition of “Mustang Sally” in a sendoff for our 2000 Mustangs departing for Rupp Arena for the KHSAA “Sweet Sixteen” State Tournament after winning the 10th Region Championship. Ron has had a longterm affiliation with University of Kentucky athletics, and pulled some strings to get us into Memorial Coliseum for a pre-game practice the night before we defeated Graves County. It was an awesome experience.
An Air Force veteran, Ron has spent much of his life as an advocate for veterans and is active in numerous veterans’ organizations. Today we celebrate Ron Heiert.
Brossart started JV football in 2006. Previous to the 2007 season, Athletic Director Mel Webster had a tough decision to make. The KHSAA realigns its districts every four years, and football was up for realignment in 2007. Brossart would have to make the jump into the deep end of the pool and start varsity competition after a single season of JV football, or wait until 2011 to join the varsity dance. Why couldn’t Brossart be competitive at football? After all, we had developed championship caliber athletics in all of our other sports. For better or worse Brossart became a varsity football program in 2007. Enthusiasm for Brossart Football was sky high. 45 prospective football players suited up that first season and got handed their hats, being outscored 442-42 with our closest game being a 28-8 loss to Eminence. We learned a tough lesson, that there was no substitute for experience in football, and that our 45 boys who played football, were not football players – yet.
2008 was no better, as again we went 0-10, again being outscored 480-53 That year’s highlight was an opening day 18-6 loss to Owen County. However, the experience gained in those previous seasons began to pay off in 2009, as we went 5-6, and then in 2010 had our first winning season at 6-5. In retrospect, Mel Webster had made the right call.
Looking at the names on that first year roster, there are many of those guys who would thrive with our present-day Mustangs. Chris Bowman and Spencer Brown went on to play college football.
For serving as the ground-breakers, the Brossart Football Pioneers, this group is being recognized as this year’s Team Of Distinction.
HERE IS THE COMPLETE LIST OF BISHOP BROSSART SPORTS HALL oF FAME MEMBERS
