Knoch honors 1st HOF class
JEFFERSON TWP — Scot Thompson is already excited to escort Knoch senior Cole Shinsky for a honor he can't receive for several years.
Thompson, 59, was inducted into the inaugural Knoch Sports Hall of Fame class before the Knights' football team beat Greensburg Salem 23-0 last Friday at Knoch Stadium. Shinsky, who was the starting pitcher on Knoch's state championship baseball team last spring, walked Thompson onto the field during the ceremony.
“I'm best friends with his dad,” Thompson said before the game. “I'm very excited about him being my escort. When he gets in, I want to be his escort.”
Thompson, who hit .262 and drove in 110 runs during an eight-year Major League Baseball career, was inducted along with Jim Simons, Jennifer Crouch Kopac, Joyce Fennell and Jefferson Dickson.
Being back in the South Butler School District was important to Thompson. After he split his final season in 1985 between the San Francisco Giants and Montreal Expos, he moved back home.
Thompson, who graduated from Knoch in 1974, knew the teachers at Knoch would keep his sons in line.
“As soon as it was over, I was out of there,” Thompson said. “In fact, I think we bought a house prior to me being out of baseball. It was a real easy transition.”
Fennell, a 1974 graduate, was forced to make a major transition in high school. She played six-man basketball until she was a freshman. When Fennell switched to the standard five-man game, she recorded 1,247 points to become the first girls basketball player to top 1,000 points.
Fennell got her start by convincing her dad to hang a piece of plywood with a rim on the side of the house so she could practice.
“I don't know,” said Fennell about why she played basketball. “I had a hoop at home and I'd go out every chance I could and shoot in the driveway. I used to watch it on TV all the time.”
Jennifer Crouch Kopac never wondered where her drive to pursue athletics came from. There was a lot of competition between her three older brothers and sister in the house.
“I didn't play an organized sports until I was in sixth grade,” said Kopac, a 1989 graduate. “A lot of that framework was set when I was playing football with the boys in the backyard. I played defensive tackle.”
Kopac was a three-time state champion and three-time WPIAL champion in the javelin and went to Penn State on a track scholarship. Not bad, considering there was some skepticism about early accomplishments.
“After a sixth-grade track meet, I came home and told my brother, Mike, that I had thrown the shot put over 30 feet,” Kopac said. “He said 'Prove it.' So I did.”
Simons, a 1964 Knoch graduate, proved his mental toughness on various golf courses. He made the cut at the U.S. Open as an 18-year old, was a state champion in high school and a two-time All-American at Wake Forest University.
As a pro, Simons, who died in 2005, won three PGA Tour events and led the 1971 U.S. Open entering the final round. Simons ended up in fifth.
“He had a very even temperament,” his sister, Sally Simons Benson, said. “He just kept plugging away. My mom would make him lunch and we wouldn't see him until dark. He would play 54 holes regularly.”
Dickson, who graduated in 1993, doesn't play as much as he used to because he's focused on being a husband and father. When Dickson had more time, he was a two-time WPIAL and PIAA champion who ended up playing at the University of North Carolina.
What he enjoyed about high school golf was the competition.
“Lee McEntee was the best player in the state by rankings and we ended up becoming good friends,” Dickson said. “We played together at North Carolina.”
He won the Pennsylvania Boys Golf Association Championship in 1993 and was a golf course designer from 2000-09. Dickson now works as a financial advisor in New York City.
“It's a nice honor,” Dickson said about being inducted. “I haven't been back (to the school), I was trying to figure it out with my parents, in 10 or 15 years at least.”
