Hall of Fame Class of 2023

Induction Ceremony - April 29, 2023

RLC Sports HOF welcomes Stacy Sturm, JR Conkle and Lady Warrior cage champs

By Bob Kelley, Retired Director of RLC Marketing and Public Information

Two standout athletes who took different routes while stretching their Juco careers over three seasons and a championship basketball team which took a road never traveled by any other Lady Warrior representative will be recognized for their accomplishments when the Rend Lake College Sports Hall of Fame rolls out the red carpet Saturday, April 29.

The 22nd Induction Ceremony at 5:30 p.m. in the new RLC Event Center on the Ina campus will feature:

The 1996-97 Lady Warriors of Coach Ronnie Ressel earned a share of the Great Rivers Athletic Conference title for the first (and, to date still the only) time in school history and did so in the most dramatic fashion possible. A double-overtime, 78-75 triumph at home in the next-to-last game of the regular season over perennial frontrunner John A. Logan – also a first victory for the program – left the rivals with 11-3 league records and a share of the title.

Ressel & Friends would finish 22-9 overall and set new team standards with both the defense, holding opponents to just 59.7 points per outing, and offensively, with a total of 639 assists (20.6 average).

Stacy Sturm, who was two seasons removed from helping the McLeansboro Foxes capture the Illinois High School Association Class A State Championship with an undefeated record when he brought his proven winning ways on the hardwood to the Ina campus. A season-ending injury five games into Year Two extended his RLC career from 1985-86 through 1987-88.

The 6-foot-4, 185-pound forward was All-Region XXIV First Team, All-Great Rivers Athletic Conference, All-Region Tournament and NJCAA All-America Honorable Mention after averaging 16.0 points per game and team-highs of 9.7 rebounds and 4.8 assists.

His career total of 906 points in 69 games played ranked No. 7 at the time, and his single-season total of 497 as a sophomore was 10th best among all Warriors. He signed with Hardin-Simmons University (TX) but finished his collegiate career at Lambuth College (TN), alongside former Warrior sidekick Eric Johnson.

Golfer JR Conkle, an all-around athlete from Rosiclare (Hardin County High School), who capped his Warrior career on the links with Second-Team All-America status for a well-balanced squad that won nine of 12 tournaments before settling for a third-place showing in the Spring 1996 NJCAA Division II Finals in Southern Pines, NC.

Conkle was medalist by two strokes as a freshman in the Fall ’93 Lincoln Invitational, which attracted 16 teams, but was encouraged by an acquaintance back home to attend mortuary school the following year. That career decision, literally, proved short-lived, and he returned to RLC for the 1995-96 campaign. He may have missed being part of the ’95 RLC gang that finished runner-up at Nationals, but he eventually moved on to a career at Murray (KY) State, where he would meet his wife-to-be and finished second in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament in his collegiate swan song.

Reservations to join the honored guests are required by April 20 at a cost of $25 per person for the catered event. To do so, contact the Athletic Department at (618) 437-5677, Ext. 1250. or by email to oxford@rlc.edu or wills@rlc.edu.

The RLC Sports Hall of Fame welcomed its first class of inductees in April 2000. Membership now includes 49 student-athletes, including a dozen representing Men’s Basketball and four from Men’s Golf, three coaches, two alumni coaches, three sports professionals, 13 teams and four track relay quartets.